This is a list of notable individuals associated with Case Western Reserve University, including students, alumni, and faculty.

Arts, journalism and entertainment

thumb|right| Directors [[Anthony Russo (movie director)|Anthony Russo and Joe Russo have directed world-famous blockbusters Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.]]

thumb|right| Actor [[Rich Sommer appeared in Mad Men and The Devil Wears Prada.]]

  • Barbara Allyne Bennet – actress and member of Screen Actors Guild (SAG) national board of directors (2005–2007)
  • James Card – longtime film curator at George Eastman House
  • Mary Carruthers – among the world's foremost scholars on medieval religious literature
  • Janis Carter – film actress of 1940s and '50s
  • Gordon Cobbledick – recipient of J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest award given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America
  • Brenda Miller Cooper – operatic soprano
  • Franklin Cover – actor, Tom Willis in The Jeffersons
  • Jasmine Cresswell – best-selling author of over 50 romance novels
  • William Eleroy Curtis – journalist, diplomat, and advocate of Pan-Americanism
  • Anu Garg – author and speaker
  • Susie Gharib – co-anchor of Nightly Business Report
  • Gregg Gillis – musician; performs as Girl Talk
  • Dorothy Hart – film actress of 1940s and '50s
  • Jan Hopkins – journalist (CNN financial news show Street Sweep)
  • John Howard – actor, known for The Philadelphia Story and Bulldog Drummond films
  • Hal Lebovitz – recipient of J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest award given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America
  • Marc Parnell – second-most published ornithologist in the world, author of 41 bird-identification guides
  • M. Scott Peck – author of The Road Less Traveled and other self-help books
  • Harvey Pekar – comic book writer, creator of American Splendor
  • Jack Perkins – dubbed "America's most literate correspondent" by Associated Press; reporter, commentator, war correspondent, anchorman; seen on NBC's Nightly News and The Today Show, and on A&E as host of Biography
  • Alan Rosenberg – actor; played Ira Woodbine on TV series Cybill; Emmy-nominated for guest appearance on ER; elected president of Screen Actors Guild in 2005
  • Joe Russo and Anthony Russo – brothers, co-alumni, and directors of films Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Welcome to Collinwood, and TV series Arrested Development; producers of NBC's Community
  • Alix Kates Shulman – author of Memoir of an Ex-Prom Queen and To Love What Is
  • Rich Sommer – MFA theater alumnus; appeared in The Devil Wears Prada, Mad Men, and with Upright Citizens Brigade
  • Emma Rood Tuttle – writer
  • Thrity Umrigar – journalist; author of Bombay Time
  • Andrew Vachss – lawyer and child protection consultant; author of the Burke series
  • Roger Zelazny – science fiction and fantasy author; three-time Nebula Award winner and six-time Hugo Award winner; works include Lord of Light, Eye of Cat, and The Dream Master

Business and philanthropy

thumb|right|[[Craig Newmark (BS '75, MS '77), tech billionaire, philanthropist, founder of Craigslist]]

thumb|right|[[Richard Thaler (BA '67) is one of the founders of behavioral economics and recipient of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics.]]

  • William F. Baker – president and CEO of public television's flagship station Thirteen/WNET in New York
  • Ou Chin-der – former deputy mayor of Taipei, Taiwan; current chairman and CEO of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation
  • William Daroff – chief executive officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad
  • Bob Herbold – executive vice president at Microsoft
  • Pete Koomen – co-founder and CTO of Optimizely
  • Tshilidzi Marwala – academic, businessman and community leader
  • Barry Meyer – chairman and former CEO of Warner Bros
  • Allen J. Mistysyn – CFO of Sherwin-Williams
  • John Neff – value investor who led Vanguard's Windsor Fund, the largest and highest returning mutual fund of the 1980s
  • Craig Newmark – founder of Craigslist, tech billionaire, philanthropist
  • Philip Orbanes – former VP with Parker Brothers; founding partner and President of Winning Moves
  • Arthur L. Parker – founder of Parker Hannifin
  • Richard Thaler (BA '67) – Nobel laureate, father of behavioral finance, and behavioral economics pioneer
  • Peter Tippett – inventor of Norton (Symantec) Anti-Virus and CTO of CyberTrust
  • Tom Tribone – founder and CEO of Guggenheim Global Infrastructure Company
  • Donald E. Washkewicz – former CEO of Parker Hannifin
  • Mark Weinberger (JD/MBA '87) – CEO and chairman of Ernst & Young
  • Edward Porter Williams – co-founder of Sherwin-Williams
  • Nadya Zhexembayeva – founder of Reinvention Academy

Education

  • Edna Allyn – first librarian of the Hawaii State Library
  • Clara Breed – librarian, known for her "Dear Miss Breed" correspondence with children in Japanese American internment camps during World War II
  • Emile B. De Sauzé – language educator known for developing the conversational method of learning a language
  • Betty Fairfax – educator, counselor, and philanthropist
  • Susan Helper – Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics at the Weatherhead School of Management
  • Josephine Irwin – suffragist and educator
  • Lena Beatrice Morton – literary scholar, head of the humanities division at Texas College; earned her PhD from Case Western in 1947
  • Regenia A. Perry – one of the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. in art history, alumni with MA (1962) and PhD (1966)
  • Vivian Blanche Small – president, Lake Erie College

Government and military

thumb|right| [[Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Representative (1997–2013) and U.S. presidential candidate (2004 and 2008)]]

thumb|right| [[Donald A. Thomas|Don Thomas, former NASA Astronaut. (Physics BS '73)]]

thumb|right| [[Elioda Tumwesigye, member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Science Technology & Innovation, Republic of Uganda]]

  • John V. Azzariti (CWRU 1988) – physician; state legislator; member, New Jersey General Assembly (2024–present)
  • John E. Barnes Jr. – member of Ohio House of Representatives
  • Janet Bewley – member of the Wisconsin Legislature
  • Justin Bibb – 58th and current mayor of Cleveland
  • Zdravka Bušić – member of the European Parliament
  • John Cairncross – Soviet spy and member of the Cambridge Five
  • Gilbert S. Carpenter (1836–1904) – US Army brigadier general
  • Thomas J. Carran (1841–1894) – Ohio state senator
  • François-Philippe Champagne – Canadian member of Parliament for Saint-Maurice—Champlain
  • Schive Chi – governor of Fujian Province and Minister without Portfolio, Republic of China (Taiwan)
  • Victor Ciorbea – prime minister of Romania (1996–1998)
  • Bruce Cole – 8th chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities
  • John Charles Cutler – acting chief of the venereal disease program in the United States Public Health Service and head of the Guatemala and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments
  • William Daroff – chief executive officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad
  • Benjamin O. Davis Jr. – first African-American to receive star in US Air Force; awarded Distinguished Flying Cross in 1943; assistant secretary of transportation under Richard Nixon
  • Lincoln Díaz-Balart – U.S. representative
  • Alene B. Duerk – first female rear admiral in the United States Navy
  • James A. Garfield – served on the University Board of Trustees
  • T. Keith Glennan – Case Institute of Technology president, first NASA administrator
  • Subir Gokarn (Ph.D.) – deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India
  • Paul Hackett – Iraq War veteran and former Congressional candidate
  • Rutherford B. Hayes – 19th president of the United States, served on the University Board of Trustees
  • John Hutchins – former U.S. representative
  • Stephanie Tubbs Jones – former U.S. representative
  • Ron Klein – U.S. representative
  • Dennis Kucinich – former U.S. representative
  • Clarence Lam – Maryland state senator
  • James Thomas Lynn – United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Richard Nixon; Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Gerald Ford
  • Josh Mandel (J.D.) – Ohio State Treasurer
  • Nicole Nason (J.D.) – administrator of the Federal Highway Administration
  • Ogiame Atuwatse III – 21st Olu of Warri Kingdom
  • Salvatore Pais – inventor and aerospace engineer, U.S. Navy and Air Force
  • Alfredo Palacio – president of Ecuador, completed medical residency at Case
  • Raymond Stanton Patton (Ph.B.) – rear admiral and first flag officer of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps
  • Trista Piccola – former director of the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families
  • Paul A. Russo – ambassador of the United States to Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, Antigua, St. Vincent, and St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla
  • David Satcher – 16th Surgeon General of the United States
  • Milton Shapp – governor of Pennsylvania and 1976 Democratic presidential candidate
  • Louis Stokes – former U.S. representative
  • Don Thomas – former NASA astronaut
  • Elioda Tumwesigye – member of Parliament Sheema North and Cabinet Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Republic of Uganda
  • Michael R. Turner – U.S. representative
  • William H. Upson – former U.S. representative
  • Andrew R. Wheeler – deputy administrator (and acting administrator) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency
  • Milton A. Wolf – former U.S. ambassador to Austria

History

  • Robert C. Binkley – chair of history at Flora Stone Mather College, 1930–1940
  • Melvin Kranzberg – professor of history (1952–1971)
  • James Alexander Robertson – academic historian, archivist, and bibliographer (Ph.D., 1896)
  • Ted Steinberg – professor of history (1996–present)

Law

:See Notable Graduates section

thumb|Attorney [[Fred Gray (attorney)|Fred Gray represented Rosa Parks, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the Tuskegee syphilis experiment victims in his career. He marched from Selma to Montgomery.]]

  • William Bentley Ball – prominent constitutional lawyer known for his defense of religious liberty
  • John Hessin Clarke – undergraduate class of 1877, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • Robin Ficker – attorney and NBA heckler
  • Fred Gray – attorney to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, later president of the National Bar Association and first African-American president of the Alabama State Bar
  • Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Haitian-American activist and attorney for women's and immigrant rights
  • Edmund A. Sargus Jr. – U.S. District Court judge
  • James Sokolove – undergraduate class of 1966, pioneer in legal television advertising; philanthropist

Science, technology, and medicine

thumb|Case alum [[Herbert Henry Dow, founder of Dow Chemical]]

thumb|[[Julie Gerberding, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]]

thumb|right|[[John Macleod (physiologist)|John Macleod, 1923 Nobel Prize winner for discovering insulin and Western Reserve University Professor of Physiology]]

thumb|right|[[Ferid Murad, 1998 Nobel Laureate and Case Medical School MD/PhD alumnus]]

thumb|[[David Satcher, former Surgeon General of the United States]]

  • Peter B. Armentrout – distinguished chemistry professor, University of Utah
  • Roger Bacon – inventor of carbon fiber
  • Hans Baumann – inventor and engineer
  • Paul Berg – winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for biochemical characterization of recombinant DNA
  • John Blangero – human geneticist; highly cited scientist in the field of complex disease genetics
  • Murielle Bochud – Swiss physician, co-chief of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Systems at the Unisanté in Lausanne
  • Francois Boller – Swiss neurologist
  • Paul Buchheit – 23rd employee of Google and creator of Gmail
  • Clemens Burda - inventor of nanotechnology and Case Western professor
  • Neil W. Chamberlain – economist and industrial relations scholar (A.B., 1937; M.A., 1939)
  • Philippe G. Ciarlet – mathematician known for work on finite element method; received his Ph.D. from the Case Institute of Technology 1966 and was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1999
  • Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez – biomedical engineer who works on scaffolds for tissue regeneration
  • M. Jamal Deen, CM – Order of Canada and Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology at McMaster University
  • Conor P. Delaney – colorectal surgeon known for laparoscopy and developing enhanced recovery pathways
  • Herbert Henry Dow – founder of Dow Chemical
  • Slayton A. Evans Jr. – research chemist and professor
  • Xyla Foxlin – engineer, entrepreneur and YouTuber
  • Richard L. Garwin – physicist, designer of first hydrogen bomb, presidential advisor and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • H. Jack Geiger – founding member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights
  • Julie Gerberding – first woman director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Alfred G. Gilman – co-winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for co-discovery of G proteins
  • Donald A. Glaser – winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics, for invention of the bubble chamber
  • Millicent Goldschmidt – microbiologist, worked on NASA Lunar Receiving Laboratory and University of Texas
  • Siegfried S. Hecker – director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1986–1997)
  • Joseph A. Helpern – emeritus professor at Medical University of South Carolina
  • Corneille Heymans – winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on carotid sinus reflex
  • Samuel Hibben – pioneer in blacklight technology; designed the lighting displays for the Statue of Liberty and other national monuments
  • Bambang Hidayat – astronomer, former vice president of the International Astronomical Union
  • George H. Hitchings – co-winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for research leading to development of drugs to treat leukemia, organ transplant rejection, gout, herpes virus, and AIDS-related bacterial and pulmonary infections
  • Dorothy Evans Holmes – psychoanalytic thinker known for her work on racial and cultural trauma
  • Robert W. Kearns – inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper systems used on most automobiles since 1969; won one of the best-known patent infringement cases against a major corporation
  • Jane Kessler – psychologist
  • Donald Knuth – computer scientist and winner of the Turing Award (1974)
  • Lawrence M. Krauss – physicist in the field of dark energy; bestselling author (The Physics of Star Trek)
  • Polykarp Kusch – winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics, for determining the magnetic moment of the electron
  • George Trumbull Ladd (1842–1921) – philosopher, educator, and psychologist; first foreigner to receive the Second (conferred in 1907) and Third (conferred in 1899) Orders of the Rising Sun
  • Paul C. Lauterbur – co-winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for discoveries leading to creation of MRI
  • Matthew N. Levy – cardiac physiologist and textbook author
  • John Macleod – co-winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for discovery of insulin
  • Sidney Wilcox McCuskey – astronomer noted for his work on the Milky Way galaxy
  • Albert A. Michelson – winner of the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, for disproving existence of "ether"; first American to receive a Nobel Prize
  • Edward Morley – performed interferometry experiment with Michelson
  • Ferid Murad – co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for role in the discovery of nitric oxide in cardiovascular signaling
  • George A. Olah – winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for contributions to carbocation chemistry
  • Amit Patel – stem cell surgeon who demonstrated stem cell transplantation can treat congestive heart failure
  • Raymond Stanton Patton (Ph.B.) – engineer, rear admiral and first flag officer of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps and second director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (1929–1937)
  • M. Scott Peck – psychiatrist; author of The Road Less Traveled
  • David Pedlar – director of research at the National Headquarters of Veterans Affairs Canada
  • James Polshek – architect; designed William J. Clinton Presidential Library
  • Edward C. Prescott – co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, for theory on business cycles and economic policies
  • Charles Burleigh Purvis (1865) – leading physician at Howard University and the Freedmen's Hospital
  • Frederick Reines – co-winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the detection of the neutrino
  • Barry Richmond – developer of the iThink simulation environment
  • Frederick C. Robbins – co-winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for work on polio virus, which led to development of polio vaccines; past president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences
  • M. Frank Rudy – inventor of the Nike air sole
  • John Ruhl – physicist currently studying cosmic microwave background radiation
  • David Satcher – U.S. Surgeon General under President Clinton; first African-American director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Terry Sejnowski – pioneer in the field of neural networks and computational neuroscience; one of only ten living scientists to have been elected to all three national academies (IOM, NAS and NAE)
  • Jesse Leonard Steinfeld – U.S. Surgeon General (1969–1973), noted for achieving widespread fluoridation of water, requiring prescription drugs to be effective, and strengthening the Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes
  • Earl W. Sutherland – winner of 1971 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for establishing identity and importance of cyclic AMP in regulation of cell metabolism
  • Lars Georg Svensson – instrumental in the development of minimally invasive keyhole surgery and leader in aortic valve surgery
  • Peter Tippett – developer of the first anti-virus software, "Vaccine" (later sold and renamed Norton AntiVirus)
  • Alfred Wilhelmi – biochemist, medical researcher, and academic

Sports

thumb|right|Case alum [[Don Shula (MA Physical Education '53), former coach of the Miami Dolphins]]

  • Ed Andrews – Major League Baseball player
  • John Badaczewski – professional football player for the Washington Redskins and Chicago Bears
  • Steve Belichick – professional football player for the Detroit Lions and college football coach; father of NFL coach Bill Belichick
  • Manute Bol – at one time the tallest player to play in the National Basketball Association
  • Dick Booth – professional football player for the Detroit Lions
  • Esther Erb – marathon runner
  • Ed Kagy – professional football player and founder of Gyro International
  • William Kerslake – Olympic wrestler and co-inventor of the first ion thruster for space propulsion
  • Sandy Knott – Olympic runner for outdoor track and field
  • Warren Lahr – NFL All-Pro defensive back who played 11 seasons with the Cleveland Browns
  • Bill Lund – professional football player for the Cleveland Browns
  • Ray Mack – professional baseball player for the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees, and Chicago Cubs; All-Star second baseman in 1940
  • Michael McCaskey – chairman of the board, Chicago Bears
  • Paul O'Dea – outfielder for the Cleveland Indians
  • Peggy Parratt – professional football player credited for throwing the first forward pass in professional football
  • Milton C. Portmann – professional football player, CWRU Hall of Fame class of 1976 for football, track, and hockey; selected to the WRU 50-Year Football All-Star Team at offensive tackle
  • Phil Ragazzo – professional football player for the Cleveland Rams, Philadelphia Eagles, and New York Giants
  • Mike Rodak – professional football player for the Cleveland Rams, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers
  • George Roman – professional football player for the New York Giants
  • Frank Ryan – professional football player; quarterback for the Cleveland Browns; holds a PhD in math
  • Mickey Sanzotta – professional football player for the Detroit Lions
  • Don Shula (MA Physical Education '53) – former coach of the Miami Dolphins, member of Pro Football Hall of Fame
  • Denny Shute – professional golfer, British Open and PGA Championship champion
  • Bianca Smith – first black woman hired to coach for Major League Baseball, hired for the Boston Red Sox
  • Mark Termini – Hall of Fame basketball player for Case Western Reserve University, sports attorney and NBA agent/contract negotiator
  • Del Wertz – professional football and baseball player
  • Dan Whalen – Arena Football League quarterback for the Cleveland Gladiators and Orlando Predators
  • Johnny Wilson – professional football player for the Cleveland Rams

See also

  • List of presidents of Case Western Reserve University
  • List of Case Western Reserve University Nobel laureates

References