Stanford Alumni
In 2011, there were an estimated 191,519 living Stanford degree holders, including 75,183 undergraduate alumni, 97,367 graduate alumni and 18,969 dual-degree holders. Stanford alumni can be found in 143 countries, 20 territories and all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Some notable Stanford alumni include:
Academic leaders
Derek Bok, former Harvard University president; William Brody, Salk Institute president and former Johns Hopkins president, Nancy Cantor, Syracuse chancellor and president; France Córdova, Purdue president; Michael V. Drake, UC-Irvine chancellor, Pamela Eibeck, University of the Pacific president; Vartan Gregorian, former Brown president; the Rev. William Leahy, Boston College president; Richard Levin, Yale president; Robert Shelton, University of Arizona president
Arts and entertainment
Actors Jennifer Connelly, Ted Danson, Fred Savage and Sigourney Weaver; artists Richard Diebenkorn* and Robert Motherwell*; broadcasters Gretchen Carlson, Ted Koppel and Rachel Maddow; composer David Lang; directors David Chase, Alexander Payne and Jay Roach; pianist Jon Nakamatsu; producers David Brown*, Roger Corman, Gale Anne Hurd, Edward Pressman, Jeffrey Skoll and Richard Zanuck
Athletics
Baseball player Mike Mussina; football players John Elway, Toby Gerhart, John Lynch and Jim Plunket; golfers Tom Watson and Tiger Woods; Olympians Jennifer Azzi, Janet Evans, Julie Foudy, Eric Heiden, Bob Mathias*, Pablo Morales, Jessica Mendoza, Summer Sanders, Kerri Strug, Jenny Thompson and Kerri Walsh; and tennis players Bob and Mike Bryan and John McEnroe.
Business
Entrepreneurs Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Doris Fisher (Gap), Reed Hastings (Netflix), William Hewlett* and David Packard* (Hewlett-Packard), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Phil Knight (Nike), Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtolsheim (Sun Microsystems), Charles R. Schwab, (Charles Schwab Corp.), Peter Thiel (PayPal), Jerry Yang and David Filo (Yahoo!); executives Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Azim Premji (Wipro), Jeffrey Bewkes (Time Warner)
Government
U.S. president Herbert Hoover*; Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor and William Rehnquist*; U.S. senators Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden; Jorge Serrano Elías, former president of Guatemala; Ricardo Maduro, former president of Honduras; Alejandro Toledo, former president of Peru; former prime ministers of Japan Taro Aso and Yukio Hatoyama; and Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel
Science and engineering
Inventors Vinton Cerf (the Internet protocol), John Chowning (synthesizer), Ray Dolby (noise-reduction system), Ed Ginzton* (microwave technology), Ted Hoff (microprocessor), H. Taylor Howard* (satellite dish), Ted Maiman* (laser), Brad Parkinson (GPS), Brent Townshend (56K modem) and Russell Varian* and Sigurd Varian* (klystron); Nobel Prize winners Dudley Herschbach, Roger Kornberg and K. Barry Sharpless (chemistry) and Eric Cornell, Richard E. Taylor and Carl Wieman (physics)
Creative writing
Novelists Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, Ernest Gaines, Allegra Goodman, Alice Hoffman, Ken Kesey*, Nicole Krauss, N. Scott Momaday, John Steinbeck*, Vikram Seth, Scott Turow, Jesmyn West and Tobias Wolff; playwrights Maxwell Anderson*, David Henry Hwang and Mark Medoff; poets laureate Robert Hass, Philip Levine and Robert Pinsky
And more
Episcopal bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori; Nobel Prize-winning economists John Harsanyi* and Oliver E. Williamson; information designer and statistician Edward Tufte, philanthropic leaders Jeff Raikes (The Gates Foundation) and Jessica Jackley and Matt Flannery (Kiva); Internet pioneer Stewart Brand, Firefox software developer Blake Ross, surgeon Atul Gawande, vintners Paul Draper and Robert Mondavi*, and 17 astronauts, including first American woman in space Sally Ride.
* deceased
Stanford Alumni Association
Established in 1892 by members of Stanford’s first graduating class, the Stanford Alumni Association works to reach, serve and engage Stanford alumni throughout the world. It offers programs and services including reunions, Stanford Magazine, faculty-led travel, and alumni networking. For more information, visit alumni.stanford.edu.
