Politicians/Public Servants

• John F. Kennedy: U. S. President
• Richard Nixon: U.S. President
• Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson: Former First Lady
• Gordon Brown: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Anthony M. Kennedy: U. S. Supreme Court Justice
• Antonin Scalia: Supreme Court Justice
• George Mitchell: Former U.S. Senator; special envoy to the Middle East
• Bill Bradley: Former U.S. Senator; professional basketball player
• Max Cleland: U. S. Senator
• Orrin Hatch: U. S. Senator
• Newt Gingrich: Former Speaker of the House
• Tim Johnson: U. S. Congressman
• John E. Baldacci: Governor of Maine
• Eric Holder: 82nd Attorney General of the United States
• A. Elizabeth Jones: Former U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan
• Betsy McCaughey: 72nd Lieutenant Governor of New York
• Marilyn McAfee: Former U. S. Ambassador to Guatemala
• William J. Lynn: Deputy Secretary of Defense
• William R. Steiger: Director of the U. S. Department of Health Human Service’s Office of Global Affairs
• J. Stapleton Roy: Ambassador; Director of the Kissinger Institute for Chinese-US Scholars

Actor/Director/Comedian/Songwriter

• Katharine Hepburn: Academy award-winning actress
• Sacha Baron Cohen: Comedian; writer; star of “The Ali G Show” and “Borat”
• Larry David: Actor; writer; comedian; producer; film director; co-creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
• Edward Norton: Actor
• Conan O’Brien: Host of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien”
• Steve Carell: Comedian; star of “The Office”
• Christopher Meloni: Emmy-nominated actor; star of “Law & Order: SVU” and “Oz”
• Dean Cain: Actor; star of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”
• Jimmy Buffett: Songwriter; singer; restaurant-chain owner; businessman
• Julia Child: Chef; author; television personality; host of “The French Chef”; author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking
• Brian Dennehy: Actor; writer; director; film producer
• Will Forte: Actor; comedian; writer; star of “Saturday Night Live”
• Janeane Garofalo: Comedian; actress; political activist
• Josh Kear: Songwriter; 2007 winner of the CMA’s Single of the Year Award
• Julie White: Tony Award-winning actress

News Media/Entertainment

• Bill O’Reilly: Political commentator; host of “The O’Reilly Factor”
• Seymour Hersh: Pulizer prize-winning journalist
• Wolf Blitzer: Journalist
• David Brancaccio: Host of PBS’s “Now”
• Ray Suarez: Senior correspondent for PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”
• Andrés Martinez: Editor, Los Angeles Times
• Samantha Power: Journalist; political advisor; winner of 2003 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
• John Schwartz: Science reporter, New York Times
• Peter Sarsgaard: Actor
• Joseph H. Adler: Television legal commentator; law professor
• Tony Horwitz: Journalist; author of Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map
• Chris “Boomer” Berman: Anchor of “SportsCenter,” “Monday Night Countdown,” and “Baseball Tonight”
• Max Boot: Journalist; editor; Senior Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations
• Tucker Carlson: Former host of CNN’s “Crossfire”; senior fellow at the Cato Institute
• Kimberly Kelleher: Vice President and Publisher, SELF Magazine
• Sean Astin: Actor; director; producer
• Robert Johnson: Founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET)
• Ira Stoll: Former vice president and manager of The New York Sun; author of Samuel Adams: A Life
• Milton Viorst: Journalist; Middle-East specialist
• Errol Morris: Documentary filmmaker
• Michael Sragow: Film critic
• Eric Stange: Documentary filmmaker and producer

Authors

• Annie Proulx: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award
• Ayn Rand: Novelist; philosopher; playwright
• Fran Baker: Romance novelist
• Rick Bayan: Webmaster; author of Words That Sell and The Cynic’s Dictionary
• Tom Becker: Children’s author; winner of the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize
• Jessica Bird: Author of romance novels; author of paranormal romance novels (as J. R. Ward)
• Ian Caldwell: Novelist
• Barbara Cooney: Children’s book author and illustrator; multiple winner of the Caldecott Medal
• Anthony Doerr: Fiction writer
• Laura Anne Gilman: Fantasy writer; author of the Cosa Nostradamus series
• Malcolm Gladwell: Journalist and author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers
• Annette Gordon-Reed: 2008 winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction
• Irving Kristol: Conservative author, editor; 2002 winner of the Medal of Freedom
• Jim Leisy: Photographer; book editor; publisher
• Gail Z. Martin: Fantasy writer; author of The Chronicles of The Necromancer
• Valentine Moghadam: Scholar; activist; author of Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks
• Sharon Kay Penman: Historical novelist
• Magali García Ramis: Fiction writer; journalist; essayist

Business

• Lee Iococca: Former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation
• Chelsea Clinton: Former First Daughter; hedge-fund manager
• Chris Hughes: Founder of Facebook
• Donna Dubinsky: CEO of Palm, Inc.; developed the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
• Carly Fiorina: Former president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard
• Richard B. Fisher: Former chairman of Morgan Stanley
• Michael Flaherty: Co-founder and president of Walden Media
• Robert Fogel: Winner of the 1993 Nobel Memorial in Economic Sciences
• Charles L. Hill: CEO of Veritas et Lux; commentator; president of the Boston Society of Security Analysts
• David Willis: Film producer; president of the Ixnay Pix production company
• Martha Stewart: Media mogul
• Howard Stringer: Chairman and CEO of the Sony Corporation
• Harvey Mackay: Best-selling business author; founder and CEO of Mackay Envelope Corporation
• Wendy P. McCaw: Owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press
• Clemson Smith Muñiz: Founder, president of Smith Muñiz Productions, Spanish-language sports media company
• Samuel J. Palmisano: Chief Executive Officer of IBM
• Jim Rogers: Founder of the Quantum Fund; creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index
• Charles Sennott: Journalist; co-founder and vice president of Global News
• Ben Silverman: Co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio

The arts, sciences, laboratory, funny pages, and more

• J. Carter Brown: Former director, National Gallery of Art
• Louis R. Caplan: Neurology professor; physician
• Juan Cole: Middle East scholar; professor; public intellectual
• Kevin Fagan: Cartoonist; created of the syndicated strip “Drabble”
• Elena Kagan: First female dean of Harvard University Law School
• Flo Steinberg: Pioneer publisher of underground comic books
• Frank Stella: Painter; printmaker
• Franklin S. Odo: Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Asia Pacific American Program
• David L. Pulver: Freelance writer; video-game designer
• Pat Robertson: Televangelist
• Josh Sawyer: Designer of role-playing video games

List compiled by: 
Catherine M. Burns
Department of History
University of Wisconsin—Madison