100 Notable alumni of
Barnard College
Updated:
Barnard College is 220th in the world, 96th in North America, and 93rd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Barnard College sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Lauren Graham
- Occupations
- film actorfilm producernovelistwritervoice actor
- Biography
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Lauren Graham is an American actress and author. She is best known for her roles as Lorelai Gilmore on The WB/CW television series Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), for which she received nominations for Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and Satellite Awards, and as Sarah Braverman on the NBC television drama Parenthood (2010–2015).
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Greta Gerwig
- Occupations
- writeractorvoice actorfilm directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress, writer, and director. Initially known for working on mumblecore films, she has since expanded from acting in and co-writing independent films to directing major studio films. Gerwig was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2018.
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Martha Stewart
- Occupations
- writermodeltelevision presenterjournalistentrepreneur
- Biography
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Martha Helen Stewart is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, focusing on home and hospitality, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, merchandising and e-commerce. She has written numerous bestselling books, was the publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine and hosted two syndicated television programs: Martha Stewart Living, which ran from 1993 to 2004, and The Martha Stewart Show, which ran from 2005 to 2012.
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Kesha
- Occupations
- rappercomposersingeractorrecording artist
- Biography
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Kesha Rose Sebert, known mononymously as Kesha (formerly stylized as Ke$ha), is an American singer and songwriter. In 2005, at age 18, she was signed to Kemosabe Records. Kesha's first major success came in early 2009 when she was featured on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single, "Right Round".
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Chelsea Peretti
- Occupations
- comedianfilm actorscreenwritervoice actorstand-up comedian
- Biography
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Chelsea Peretti is an American comedian, actress, television writer, singer, and songwriter. She is best known for portraying Gina Linetti in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She wrote for various TV series, including Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live and Kroll Show.
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Cynthia Nixon
- Occupations
- film actorpoetactortelevision actorslam poet
- Biography
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Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress, activist, and theater director. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998–2004), she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as the television show And Just Like That... (2021–present).
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Joan Rivers
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Studied in 1954
- Occupations
- screenwriterwriterfilm producercomedianjournalist
- Biography
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Joan Alexandra Molinsky, known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer, and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that was heavily self-deprecating and acerbic, especially towards celebrities and politicians, delivered in her signature New York accent. She is considered a pioneer of women in comedy. She received an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award, as well as nomination for a Tony Award.
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Vinessa Shaw
- Occupations
- television actormodelfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Vinessa Elizabeth Shaw is an American film actress and model. She began her career as a child actor, and had her breakout role in Disney's 1993 Halloween comedy-fantasy film Hocus Pocus. Shaw also appeared in Ladybugs (1992) and L.A. Without a Map (1998).
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Cassandra Clare
- Occupations
- children's writerwriterscreenwriterfilm producerjournalist
- Biography
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Judith Lewis, better known by her pen name Cassandra Clare, is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for her bestselling series The Mortal Instruments.
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Lee Remick
- Occupations
- television actorstage actorfilm actoractorcharacter actor
- Biography
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Lee Ann Remick was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Days of Wine and Roses (1962).
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Patricia Highsmith
- Occupations
- novelistcomics writerwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley.
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Margaret Mead
- Occupations
- film directoranthropologistwritercurator
- Biography
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Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
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Frankie Shaw
- Occupations
- television actorfilm directorfilm actoractortelevision producer
- Biography
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Rachel Frances Shaw is an American actress, writer and director. She is best known for playing Bridgette Bird on the Showtime series SMILF, based on the 2015 short film of the same title, which she wrote, directed and starred in. Shaw is also known for playing Mary Jo Cacciatore on the 2010–2011 Spike TV series Blue Mountain State, and her recurring role as Shayla Nico in the first season of the USA Network television series Mr. Robot.
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Mozhan Marnò
- Occupations
- television actorwriterfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Mozhan Navabi is an Iranian-American film and television actress. She is known for her roles in The Blacklist and House of Cards and played Soraya Manutchehri in The Stoning of Soraya M.. She was previously known as Mozhan Marno, but returned to her given last name, Navabi, in 2023.
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Suzanne Vega
- Occupations
- singer-songwriterwriterguitaristplaywrightsinger
- Biography
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Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American singer-songwriter of folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. In the mid-1980s and 1990s she released four singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK, "Marlene on the Wall", "Left of Center", "Luka" and "No Cheap Thrill".
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Christy Carlson Romano
- Occupations
- voice actorwriteractorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Christy Carlson Romano is an American actress, podcaster, and singer. She is best known for playing Ren Stevens on Even Stevens and voicing the titular character from Kim Possible, both of which aired on the Disney Channel.
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Maya Soetoro-Ng
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Studied in 1993
- Occupations
- teacher
- Biography
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Maya Kasandra Soetoro-Ng is an Indonesian-born American academic, who is a faculty specialist at the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, based in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is also a consultant for the Obama Foundation, working to develop the Asia-Pacific Leaders Program. Formerly a high school history teacher, Soetoro-Ng is the maternal half-sister of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.
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Zora Neale Hurston
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- 1925-1928 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in anthropology
- Occupations
- anthropologistwritercivil rights advocatehistorianfolklorist
- Biography
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Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote over 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
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Laurie Anderson
- Occupations
- choreographerdirectortelevision producerinventorpoet
- Biography
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Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She achieved unexpected commercial success when her song "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981.
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Kelly McCreary
- Occupations
- stage actorvoice actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Kelly J. McCreary is an American actress, best known for her role on the ABC drama series Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Maggie Pierce, the half-sister of series protagonist Meredith Grey. She joined the series as a guest at the end of the tenth season, becoming a series regular in the eleventh season. She has reprised her role on the spin-off series Station 19.
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Jhumpa Lahiri
- Occupations
- university teachernovelistwriteracademictranslator
- Biography
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Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
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Jeannette Walls
- Occupations
- journalistwriteropinion journalist
- Biography
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Jeannette Walls is an American author and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com and author of The Glass Castle, a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood. Published in 2005, it had been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 421 weeks as of June 3, 2018. She is a 2006 recipient of the Alex Award and Christopher Award.
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Park Yeon-mi
- Occupations
- journalistwriterhuman rights activist
- Biography
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Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector, YouTuber, author, and American conservative activist, described as being "one of the most famous North Korean defectors in the world". She fled from North Korea to China in 2007 at the age of 13 before moving to South Korea, then to the United States. Park made her media debut in 2011 on the show Now On My Way to Meet You, where she was dubbed "Paris Hilton" due to her stories of her family's wealthy lifestyle. She came to wider global attention following her speech at the 2014 One Young World Summit in Dublin, Ireland. Park's memoir In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom was published in September 2015, and as of 2023 has sold over 100,000 copies. During the 2020s, she became a voice for American conservatism with speeches, podcasts and the 2023 publication of her second book, While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America.
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Alexis Stewart
- Occupations
- television presenterjournalistradio personality
- Biography
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Alexis Gilbert Stewart is an American television host and radio personality. She is the only child of Martha Stewart and her ex-husband Andrew. She was the co-host of Whatever with Alexis and Jennifer on Sirius Satellite Radio, and Whatever with Alexis and Jennifer on the Hallmark Channel alongside co-host Jennifer Hutt.
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Jane Wyatt
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Jane Waddington Wyatt was an American actress. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, but is likely best known for her role as homemaker and mother Margaret Anderson on the CBS and NBC television comedy series Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science-fiction television series Star Trek. Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award–winner.
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Lionel Shriver
- Occupations
- novelistjournalistwriter
- Biography
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Lionel Shriver is an American author and journalist who lives in the United Kingdom. Her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.
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Carol S. Dweck
- Years
- 1946-.. (age 78)
- Occupations
- psychologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Carol Susan Dweck is an American psychologist. She holds the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professorship of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on motivation and mindset. She was on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Harvard, and Columbia before joining the Stanford University faculty in 2004. She was named an Association for Psychological Science (APS) James McKeen Cattell Fellow in 2013, an APS Mentor Awardee in 2019, and an APS William James Fellow in 2020, and has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2012.
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Ottessa Moshfegh
- Occupations
- novelistwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh is an American author and novelist. Her debut novel, Eileen (2015), won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a fiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moshfegh's subsequent novels include My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, and Lapvona.
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Erica Jong
- Occupations
- novelistpoetwriterwomen's rights activist
- Biography
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Erica Jong is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. According to The Washington Post, it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
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Sprague Grayden
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Sprague Grayden is an American actress. She played schoolteacher Heather Lisinski in the television drama Jericho, Karen Kawalski in John Doe, first daughter Olivia Taylor in the television thriller 24, and Kristi Rey in the films Paranormal Activity 2 and 3.
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Judith Miller
- Occupations
- journalistwar correspondentwriter
- Biography
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Judith Miller is an American journalist and commentator who covered Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, which was later discovered to have been based on inaccurate information from the intelligence community. She worked in The New York Times' Washington bureau before joining Fox News in 2008.
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Fatima Bhutto
- Occupations
- journalistwriterpoet
- Biography
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Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani writer and columnist. Born in Kabul, she is the daughter of politician Murtaza Bhutto, sister of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr, niece of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and granddaughter of former Prime Minister and President of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. She was raised in Syria and Karachi, and received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College, followed by a master's degree from the SOAS University of London.
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Twyla Tharp
- Occupations
- dancerchoreographerballet dancerwriter
- Biography
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Twyla Tharp is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music.
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Lis Wiehl
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Lis Wiehl is a New York Times bestselling American author of fiction and nonfiction books, and a legal analyst. She is the author of twenty books, including, most recently, A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen―America's Most Damaging Russian Spy, published by Pegasus Books.
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Sarah Thompson
- Occupations
- actorfilm actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Sarah Thompson is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Eve in Angel (2003–2004) and as Rose in 7th Heaven (2005–2006).
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Louise Post
- Occupations
- singer-songwritercomposersingerguitarist
- Biography
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Louise Lightner Post is an American musician. She is best known for being a vocalist and guitarist of the alternative rock band Veruca Salt, which she co-founded with Nina Gordon in 1992.
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Zuzanna Szadkowski
- Occupations
- film actorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Zuzanna Szadkowski is a Polish-American actress known for her role as Dorota Kishlovsky on CW teen drama series Gossip Girl. Szadkowski also appeared on The Knick, Girls, Search Party, The Good Wife, Sopranos, and Guiding Light. She made her New York Stage debut in Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore in which she appeared in a record-breaking five all-star casts.
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Peggy McCay
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Margaret Ann "Peggy" McCay was an American actress whose career began in 1949, and includes theatre, television, soap operas, and feature films. McCay may be best known for originating the roles of Vanessa Dale on the CBS soap opera Love of Life (a role she played from 1951 to 1955), and Caroline Brady, which she played from 1983 to 2016 on NBC's Days of Our Lives.
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Jeane Kirkpatrick
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Graduated with bachelor's degree
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teacherpolitical scientistdiplomat
- Biography
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Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick was an American diplomat and political scientist who played a major role in the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. An ardent anticommunist, she was a longtime Democrat who became a neoconservative and switched to the Republican Party in 1985. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 presidential campaign, she became the first woman to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
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Molly Jong-Fast
- Years
- 1978-.. (age 46)
- Occupations
- memoiristwriterpolitical punditnovelistpodcaster
- Biography
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Molly Jong-Fast is an American writer, journalist, author, political commentator, and podcaster.
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Lydia Davis
- Occupations
- writernovelistuniversity teachertranslatorlinguist
- Biography
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Lydia Davis is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of French literary classics, including Swann's Way by Marcel Proust and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
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Kathleen Neal Cleaver
- Occupations
- professorlawyeractivist
- Biography
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Kathleen Neal Cleaver is an American law professor and activist, known for her involvement with the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party, a political and revolutionary.
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Ntozake Shange
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- writeractorplaywrightchoreographerscreenwriter
- Biography
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Ntozake Shange was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work. She is best known for her Obie Award-winning play, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975). She also penned novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), Liliane (1994), and Betsey Brown (1985), about an African-American girl run away from home.
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Grace Lee Boggs
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- In 1935 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in philosophy
- Occupations
- writersocial activisteditorcivil rights advocateactivist
- Biography
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Grace Lee Boggs was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s, she and James Boggs, her husband of some forty years, took their own political direction. By 1998, she had written four books, including an autobiography. In 2011, still active at the age of 95, she wrote a fifth book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, with Scott Kurashige and published by the University of California Press. She is regarded as a key figure in the Asian American, Black Power, and Civil Rights movements.
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Rebecca Goldstein
- Occupations
- writerinternational forum participantclassical scholarbiographerphilosopher
- Biography
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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and is sometimes grouped with novelists such as Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable of, and sympathetic toward, science.
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Jamie Babbit
- Occupations
- writerfilm directordirectorscreenwriterfilm producer
- Biography
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Jamie Merill Babbit is an American director, producer and screenwriter. She directed the films But I'm a Cheerleader, The Quiet and Itty Bitty Titty Committee. She has also directed episodes of television programs including Russian Doll, Gilmore Girls, Malcolm in the Middle, United States of Tara, Looking, Nip/Tuck, The L Word, Silicon Valley, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Orville, and A League of Their Own.
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Helen Gahagan Douglas
- Occupations
- stage actorpoliticianfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Helen Gahagan Douglas was an American actress and politician. Her career included success on Broadway, as a touring opera singer, and in Hollywood films. Her portrayal of the villain in the 1935 movie She inspired Disney's Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
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Petra Costa
- Occupations
- actorfilm directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Petra Costa is a Brazilian filmmaker and actress. She has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2018.
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Eileen Ford
- Occupations
- model agent
- Biography
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Eileen Cecile Ford was an American modeling agency executive. Along with her husband Gerard "Jerry" Ford, she co-founded Ford Models in 1946, which emerged as one of the earliest and most successful modeling agencies in the mid and late-20th century.
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Edwidge Danticat
- Occupations
- novelistchildren's writerwriteruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. As of the fall of 2023, she will be the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
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Anna Quindlen
- Occupations
- writernovelistcolumnistchildren's writerjournalist
- Biography
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Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist.
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Sana Amanat
- Occupations
- comics writereditorexecutive producer
- Biography
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Sana Amanat is an American comic book editor and an executive of production and development at Marvel Studios, having formerly been the Director of Content and Character Development at Marvel Comics. She has worked on comics such as Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, and Ms. Marvel. Amanat is known for co-creating Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim-American superhero with a solo Marvel Comics series.
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Janna Levin
- Occupations
- physicisttheoretical physicistmathematician
- Biography
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Janna J. Levin is an American theoretical cosmologist and a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in astronomy and physics with a concentration in philosophy at Barnard College in 1988 and a PhD in theoretical physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993. Much of her work deals with looking for evidence to support the proposal that our universe might be finite in size due to its having a nontrivial topology. Other work includes black holes and chaos theory. She joined the faculty at Barnard College in January 2004 and is currently the Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
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Aline MacMahon
- Occupations
- actorfilm actorstage actor
- Biography
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Aline Laveen MacMahon was an American actress. Her Broadway stage career began under producer Edgar Selwyn in The Mirage during 1920. She made her screen debut in 1931, and worked extensively in film, theater, and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed (1944).
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Jeanine Tesori
- Occupations
- lyricistcomposer
- Biography
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Jeanine Tesori, known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson, is an American composer and musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and six Tony Award nominations. She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change, the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home (shared with Lisa Kron), making them the first female writing team to win that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kimberly Akimbo (shared with David Lindsay-Abaire). She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.
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Rana Foroohar
- Occupations
- international forum participantjournalist
- Biography
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Rana Aylin Foroohar is an American author, business columnist and an associate editor at the Financial Times. She is also CNN's global economic analyst.
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Sophia Takal
- Occupations
- film directorscreenwriterfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Sophia Takal is an American actress, writer and director, perhaps best known for her work in independent features such as All the Light in the Sky, Supporting Characters and Gabi on the Roof in July. Filmmaker magazine named Takal one of the "25 New Faces of Film" in 2011. She directed and co-wrote the 2019 remake of the 1974 horror film Black Christmas.
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Maria Hinojosa
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Maria de Lourdes Hinojosa Ojeda is a Mexican-American journalist. She is the anchor and executive producer of Latino USA on National Public Radio, a public radio show devoted to Latino issues. She is also the founder, president and CEO of Futuro Media Group, which produces the show. In 2022, Hinojosa won a Pulitzer Prize.
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Hope Portocarrero
- Occupations
- socialite
- Biography
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Hope Portocarrero, also known as Madame Somoza and Hope Somoza Baldocchi later in life, was the wife of president of Nicaragua Anastasio Somoza Debayle and, beginning in 1967, First Lady of Nicaragua for a time. In 1968 she was named to the International Best Dressed List. She was the mother of Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero and four other children.
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Sheila Nevins
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- In 1960 graduated with bachelor's degree in English
- Occupations
- television producerfilm producer
- Biography
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Sheila Nevins is an American television producer and head of MTV Documentary Films division of MTV Studios. Previously, Nevins was the President of HBO Documentary Films. She has produced over 1,000 documentary films for HBO and is one of the most influential people in documentary filmmaking. She has worked on productions that have been recognized with 35 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, 42 Peabody Awards, and 26 Academy Awards. Nevins has won 31 individual Primetime Emmy Awards, more than any other person. She is also a member of the board of directors for the Peabody Awards.
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Maria Semple
- Occupations
- novelistwriterscreenwritertelevision producer
- Biography
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Maria Keogh Semple is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of This One Is Mine (2008), Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012), and Today Will Be Different (2016). Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan, and Ellen. She is a 2013 recipient of the Alex Awards.
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Joan Whitney Payson
- Occupations
- entrepreneursocialitephilanthropistbusinesspersonart collector
- Biography
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Joan Whitney Payson was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist, patron of the arts and art collector, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was also co-founder and majority owner of Major League Baseball's New York Mets baseball franchise, and was the first woman to own a major league team in North America without inheriting it.
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Audrey Strauss
- Born in
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United States - Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Audrey Strauss is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from June 20, 2020, to October 10, 2021. Previously the deputy U.S. Attorney, Strauss became the acting U.S. Attorney after the previous U.S. attorney, Geoffrey Berman, was fired by President Donald Trump at the request of Attorney General William Barr. On December 22, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, effective January 16, 2021, and pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), unanimously appointed Strauss as U.S. Attorney for an indeterminate term.
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Sigrid Nunez
- Occupations
- novelistwriter
- Biography
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Sigrid Nunez is an American writer, best known for her novels. Her seventh novel, The Friend, won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction.
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Kristen Roupenian
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- In 2003 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in English and psychology
- Occupations
- writershort story writerscreenwriter
- Biography
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Kristen Roupenian is an American writer best known for her 2017 short story "Cat Person" and her 2019 short story collection You Know You Want This.
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Ellen Willis
- Occupations
- journalistmusic criticwomen's rights activistessayist
- Biography
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Ellen Jane Willis was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist, feminist, and pop music critic. A 2014 collection of her essays, The Essential Ellen Willis, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
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Leora Dana
- Occupations
- film actorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Leora Dana was an American film, stage and television actress.
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Ann Brashares
- Occupations
- novelistchildren's writerwriter
- Biography
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Ann Brashares is an American young adult novelist. She is best known as the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
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Anna Schwartz
- Occupations
- university teacherwritereconomist
- Biography
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Anna Jacobson Schwartz was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City and a writer for The New York Times. Paul Krugman has said that Schwartz is "one of the world's greatest monetary scholars."
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Azita Raji
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- investment bankerdiplomat
- Biography
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Azita Raji was an Iranian-born American diplomat, banker, and philanthropist. She was nominated by President Barack Obama in October 2014 to serve as the United States ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden, and confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate in February 2016. She presented her credentials to King Carl XVI Gustaf on March 15, 2016, and completed her tour of duty on January 20, 2017.
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Susan Stamberg
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Susan Stamberg is an American radio journalist. Stamberg was co-host of NPR's flagship program All Things Considered from 1972 to 1986. In that role Stamberg was the first female host of a national news broadcast. She's considered one of NPR's "Founding Mothers" along with Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer and the late Cokie Roberts. After nearly 50 years at the network, Stamberg is a Special Correspondent and her reports appear weekly on NPR's Morning Edition.
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Lauren Tarshis
- Occupations
- children's writerwriter
- Biography
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Lauren Tarshis is an American author of children's books, with several series of fiction, non-fiction and historical fiction works found in thousands of libraries and translated into several languages.
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Katherine Boo
- Occupations
- writerjournalist
- Biography
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Katherine "Kate" J. Boo is an American investigative journalist who has documented the lives of people in poverty. She has won the MacArthur "genius" award (2002) and the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2012), and her work earned the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for The Washington Post. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 2003. Her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity won nonfiction prizes from PEN, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the New York Public Library, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in addition to the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
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Suki Kim
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Studied in 1992
- Occupations
- journalistwriterteacher
- Biography
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Suki Kim is a Korean American journalist and writer. She is the author of two books: the award-winning novel The Interpreter and a book of investigative journalism, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea to conduct immersive journalism. Kim is currently a contributing editor at The New Republic.
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Laura Flanders
- Occupations
- radio personalityjournalist
- Biography
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Laura Flanders is an English broadcast journalist living in the United States who presents the weekly, long-form interview show The Laura Flanders Show. Flanders has described herself as a "lefty person". The brothers Alexander, Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, all journalists, are her half-uncles. Author Lydia Davis is her half-aunt. Her sister is Stephanie Flanders, a former BBC journalist. Actress Olivia Wilde is her cousin.
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Alexis Sablone
- Occupations
- skateboarderartistarchitect
- Biography
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Alexis Sablone is a goofy-footed American professional skateboarder, who ranked 12th in the world as of July 2021. She has competed in every X Games competition since 2009, the World Skateboarding Championship, and skated on the Dew Tour. Sablone competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, placing 4th in the women's street final. In addition to being a professional skateboarder, Sablone has a master's degree in architecture from MIT. She currently resides in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
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Agnes E. Meyer
- Occupations
- political activistactivistpatron of the artsjournalistart collector
- Biography
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Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer was an American journalist, philanthropist, civil rights activist, and art patron. Throughout her life, Meyer was engaged with intellectuals, artists, and writers from around the world. Meyer's marriage to the financier Eugene Meyer, son of Marc Eugene Meyer, provided her with wealth and status that enabled her to influence national policy, such as social welfare programs. Meyer lobbied for the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and for the U.S. government to provide federal aid to states for education. President Lyndon Johnson credited Meyer for building public support for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which for the first time directed federal assistance towards school districts that served children from low-income families. She advocated for equal employment and educational opportunities, regardless of race. Meyer's investigative journalism showed the inequities of racial segregation in schools in the Washington metropolitan area.
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Hallie Ephron
- Occupations
- novelistjournalist
- Biography
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Hallie Elizabeth Ephron is an American novelist, book reviewer, journalist, and writing teacher. She is the author of mystery and suspense novels. Her novels Never Tell a Lie, There Was an Old Woman, Come and Find Me, and Night Night, Sleep Tight were finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. In 2011, Never Tell a Lie was made into a Lifetime television movie entitled And Baby Will Fall, starring Anastasia Griffith, Brendan Fehr, and Clea DuVall.
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Sadie Dupuis
- Occupations
- poetwritermusicianguitarist
- Biography
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Sarah Elizabeth "Sadie" Dupuis is an American musician who is the guitarist, lead vocalist and lyricist for the band Speedy Ortiz. She has also released two solo albums, Slugger and Haunted Painting, under the name Sad13. Dupuis has published two books of poetry. A portrait of her was featured on the August 22, 2022 cover of The New Yorker. In October 2023, Rolling Stone named Dupuis as one of The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
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Annie Leonard
- Occupations
- film directorscreenwriteractivist
- Biography
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Annie Marie Leonard is an American proponent of sustainability and a critic of consumerism. She created the animated film The Story of Stuff (2007), which describes the life cycle of material goods. In 2014, she became the executive director of Greenpeace USA.
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Polly Trottenberg
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Polly Ellen Trottenberg is an American government official who is serving as Deputy Secretary of Transportation under Pete Buttigieg since April 14, 2021. She served as the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration from June 2023 to October 2023. She previously served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation from 2014 to 2020.
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Dean Spade
- Years
- 1977-.. (age 47)
- Occupations
- lawyerjuristLGBTQI+ rights activistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Dean Spade is an American lawyer, writer, trans activist, and associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law.
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Nancy Gernter
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Nancy Gertner is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She assumed senior status on May 22, 2011, and retired outright from the federal bench on September 1, 2011. She is now a professor of practice at Harvard Law School.
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Rachel Cohn
- Occupations
- novelistchildren's writerscience fiction writerwriter
- Biography
-
Rachel Cohn is an American young adult fiction writer. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and younger children's books, and has collaborated on six books with the author David Levithan.
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Nancy Dupree
- Occupations
- archaeologistanthropologisttravel guide writer
- Biography
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Nancy Hatch Dupree was an American-Afghan historian whose work primarily focused on the history of modern Afghanistan. She was the director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University and author of five books that she compiled while studying the history of Afghanistan from 1962 until the late 1970s, writing about tourism and history of Bamyan, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and so on. She was fondly called the "grandmother of Afghanistan", having spent more of her life there or with Afghans abroad.
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Mary Harriman Rumsey
- Occupations
- activist
- Biography
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Mary Harriman Rumsey was an American social activist and government official. She was the founder of The Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements, later known as the Junior League of the City of New York of the Association of Junior Leagues International Inc, and served as Chair of the Consumer Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. Mary was the daughter of railroad magnate E.H. Harriman and sister to W. Averell Harriman, former New York State Governor and United States Diplomat. In 2015 she was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
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Loretta Mester
- Occupations
- bankerbusinesspersoneconomist
- Biography
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Loretta J. Mester is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
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Irma Brandeis
- Occupations
- literary criticpoetwriteruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Irma Brandeis was an American scholar of Dante Alighieri. Her work The Ladder of Vision was acclaimed as a breakthrough in Dantean studies upon its publication in the 1960s.
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Susan N. Herman
- Occupations
- university teacherjurist
- Biography
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Susan N. Herman is an American legal scholar who served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union from October 2008 to January 2021. Herman has taught at Brooklyn Law School since 1980.
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Maxine Greene
- Occupations
- philosopher
- Biography
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Sarah Maxine Greene was an American educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher. Described upon her death as "perhaps the most iconic and influential living figure associated with Teachers College, Columbia University", she was a pioneer for women in the field of philosophy of education, often being the sole woman presenter at educational philosophy conferences as well as being the first woman president of the Philosophy of Education Society in 1967. Additionally, she was the first woman to preside over the American Educational Research Association in 1981.
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Louise Rosenblatt
- Occupations
- philosopher
- Biography
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Louise Michelle Rosenblatt was an American university professor. She is best known as a researcher into the teaching of literature.
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Peggy Feury
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
-
Peggy Feury was an American actress on Broadway, in films, and on television. She became a highly regarded acting teacher in New York and then in Los Angeles. Throughout her career, she taught many notable students.
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Helene D. Gayle
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- Graduated with bachelor's degree in psychology
- Occupations
- international forum participantpediatrician
- Biography
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Helene D. Gayle is an American physician, and academic and non-profit administrator. She has served as the president of Spelman College since 2023. She formerly served as CEO of the Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation's leading community foundations. Earlier in her career she was the director of international humanitarian organization CARE, and worked in the field of public health programs at the CDC.
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Nina Ansary
- Occupations
- writerhistorian
- Biography
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Nina Ansary is an Iranian–American historian and author best known for her work on women's equity in Iran. Ansary's research has notably countered conventional assumptions of the progress of women in Iran while continuing to advocate for full emancipation. In 2015, Women's eNews recognized Ansary as one of "21 leaders of the 21st century" and in 2019 she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
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Kang Tongbi
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Kang Tongbi, also romanized as Kang Tung Pih, was the daughter of Kang Youwei, a Chinese reformer and political figure of the late Qing dynasty and early Republican era.
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Elizabeth Hughes Gossett
- Occupations
- philanthropist
- Biography
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Elizabeth Evans Hughes Gossett, the daughter of US statesman Charles Evans Hughes, was the first American, and one of the first people in the world, treated with insulin for type 1 diabetes. She received over 42,000 insulin shots over her lifetime.
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Mary Gordon
- Occupations
- prose writeruniversity teacherwriterliterary criticjournalist
- Biography
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Mary Catherine Gordon is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York.
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Ellen Kushner
- Occupations
- novelistchildren's writerwriterradio personality
- Biography
-
Ellen Kushner is an American writer of fantasy novels. From 1996 until 2010, she was the host of the radio program Sound & Spirit, produced by WGBH in Boston and distributed by Public Radio International.
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Daphne Merkin
- Years
- 1954-.. (age 70)
- Enrolled in Barnard College
- 1972-1975 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
-
Daphne Miriam Merkin is an American literary critic, essayist and novelist. Merkin is a graduate of Barnard College and also attended Columbia University's graduate program in English literature.
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Juliet Stuart Poyntz
- Occupations
- political activistsuffragist
- Biography
-
Juliet Stuart Poyntz was an American suffragist, trade unionist and communist spy. As a student and university teacher, Poyntz espoused many radical causes and went on to become a co-founder of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). Later she began working as an intelligence agent for the Soviet Union, travelling secretly to Moscow just as some of her comrades were being executed in Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, after which she resigned from the party. This is widely assumed to have led to her unexplained disappearance in New York City in June 1937 as the likely victim of an assassination squad, possibly because she had been associating with Trotskyists.
