100 Notable alumni of
Brandeis University
Updated:
Brandeis University is 236th in the world, 103rd in North America, and 99th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Brandeis University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 1 individual affiliated with Brandeis University won Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine.
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Angela Davis
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1965 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- university teacherwomen's rights activisthuman rights defenderpolitical prisonerwriter
- Biography
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Angela Yvonne Davis is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author and social theorist. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She has been active in movements such as the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
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Debra Messing
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- 1986-1990 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in theater arts
- Occupations
- stage actoractortelevision producervoice actorfilm producer
- Biography
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Debra Lynn Messing is an American actress. After graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Messing starred in the television series Ned and Stacey on Fox (1995–1997) and Prey on ABC (1998). She achieved her breakthrough role as Grace Adler, an interior designer, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–2020), for which she received seven Golden Globe Award nominations and five Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, winning once, in 2003.
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Tony Goldwyn
- Occupations
- voice actorstage actoractortelevision actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Anthony Howard Goldwyn is an American actor and director. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) and had his breakthrough starring as Carl Bruner in the fantasy thriller film Ghost (1990), which earned him a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to star as Harold Nixon in the biographical film Nixon (1995), earning him a SAG Award nomination, and as Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998).
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Abbie Hoffman
- Occupations
- social activistwriterhuman rights defenderpeace activistpolitical activist
- Biography
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Abbot Howard Hoffman was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.
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Tyne Daly
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actorstage actor
- Biography
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Ellen Tyne Daly is an American actress whose six-decade career included many leading roles in movies and theater. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work and a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.
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Simon Sinek
- Occupations
- writermotivational speaker
- Biography
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Simon Oliver Sinek is an American author and inspirational speaker on business leadership. His books include Start with Why (2009) and The Infinite Game (2019).
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Loretta Devine
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorvoice actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Loretta Devine is an American actress. She is known for numerous roles across stage and screen. Her most high profile roles include Lorrell Robinson in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls (1981), Gloria Matthews in the film Waiting to Exhale (1995), and her recurring role as Adele Webber on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Devine also played Juanita Sims in the film adaptation of For Colored Girls (2010). She is also known for her roles as Stevie Rallen on NBC's A Different World during its first season and for her portrayal Marla Hendricks on the television series Boston Public (2000–2004).
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Aafia Siddiqui
- Occupations
- neuroscientist
- Biography
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Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani neuroscientist and educator who gained international attention following her conviction in the United States and is currently serving an 86-year sentence for attempted murder and other felonies at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Gates McFadden
- Occupations
- choreographertelevision actorcamera operatortelevision directorfilm actor
- Biography
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Cheryl Gates McFadden is an American actress and choreographer. She is usually credited as Cheryl McFadden when working as a choreographer and Gates McFadden when working as an actress. She played Dr. Beverly Crusher in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, its four subsequent films, the sequel series Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Prodigy.
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Edward Witten
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicisttheoretical physiciststring theoristmathematician
- Biography
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Edward Witten is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a professor emeritus in the school of natural sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics. Witten's work has also significantly impacted pure mathematics. In 1990, he became the first physicist to be awarded a Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union, for his mathematical insights in physics, such as his 1981 proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity, and his interpretation of the Jones invariants of knots as Feynman integrals. He is considered the practical founder of M-theory.
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Christie Hefner
- Occupations
- activistbusinesspersonsocialite
- Biography
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Christie Ann Hefner is an American businesswoman. She was chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 to 2009, and is the daughter of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.
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Robin Weigert
- Occupations
- television actorfilm directoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Robin Weigert is an American television and film actress. She is best known for portraying Calamity Jane on the television series Deadwood, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2004, Ally Lowen in Sons of Anarchy (2010–2013), Dr. Amanda Reisman in Big Little Lies (2017–2019), and Abby in Concussion (2013). She had a small role in HBO's acclaimed miniseries Angels in America in 2003.
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Louise Lasser
- Occupations
- screenwriterstage actortelevision actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Louise Lasser is an American actress, television writer, and performing arts teacher and director. She is known for her portrayal of the title character on the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, for which she was Primetime Emmy Award nominated.
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Jeffrey Lurie
- Occupations
- film producer
- Biography
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Jeffrey Robert Lurie is an American businessman, documentary film producer, and, since 1994, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). The Eagles have won two Super Bowls under his tenure as owner.
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Ian McElhinney
- Occupations
- television actorstage actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Ian McElhinney is a Northern Irish actor and director. He has appeared in many television series in a career spanning more than forty years; notable appearances include Taggart, Hornblower, Cold Feet, and The Tudors. In recent times, his best known roles are as Barristan Selmy in Game of Thrones, Morgan Monroe in The Fall, and Granda Joe in Derry Girls.
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Mitch Albom
- Occupations
- continuityjournalistradio personalitytelevision announcercolumnist
- Biography
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Mitchell David Albom is an American author, sports journalist, talk show host and philanthropist. As of 2021, his books are reported to have sold 40 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national recognition as a sports journalist early on in his writing career, Albom turned to writing inspirational stories and themes—a preeminent early one being Tuesdays with Morrie.
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Alexander Gould
- Occupations
- film producerfilm actorfilm directortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Alexander Jerome Gould is an American actor. He is known for voicing the title character of the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo and for his portrayal of Shane Botwin on the Showtime drama series Weeds, the latter of which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.
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Michael Sandel
- Occupations
- writerpolitical philosopherpedagogueuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Michael Joseph Sandel is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the 2011 "most influential foreign figure of the year" (China Newsweek).
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Karen Lynn Gorney
- Occupations
- dancerfilm actorstage actortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Karen Lynn Gorney is an American actress who had roles in television shows and films including the soap opera All My Children and the movie Saturday Night Fever.
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Arunoday Singh
- Occupations
- actor
- Biography
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Arunoday Singh is an Indian actor. He made his debut with Sikandar. He has appeared in films like Aisha (2010), Yeh Saali Zindagi (2011), Jism 2 (2012), Main Tera Hero (2014), Mr X (2015), Mohenjo Daro (2016) and Blackmail (2018). He also appeared in the web series Apaharan (2018–2022).
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Paul L. Smith
- Occupations
- actortelevision actorcharacter actordirectorfilm actor
- Biography
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Paul Lawrence Smith was an American actor. Burly, bearded and imposing, he appeared in feature films and occasionally on television since the 1960s, generally playing "heavies" and bad guys. His most notable roles include Hamidou, the vicious prison guard in Midnight Express (1978), Bluto in Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), Gideon in the ABC miniseries Masada (1981), Glossu "Beast" Rabban in David Lynch's Dune (1984) and Falkon in Red Sonja (1985). He was most frequently credited as Paul Smith or Paul L. Smith, but was also billed as P. L. Smith and Paul Lawrence Smith.
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Barry Newman
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actorstage actor
- Biography
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Barry Foster Newman was an American actor of stage, screen, and television known for his portrayal of Kowalski in Vanishing Point, and for his title role in the 1970s television series Petrocelli. He was nominated for Golden Globe and Emmy awards.
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Christina Hoff Sommers
- Occupations
- writerphilosopher
- Biography
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Christina Marie Hoff Sommers is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism. Her work includes the books Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She also hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist.
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Allan Lichtman
- Occupations
- historianpolitical scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Allan Jay Lichtman is an American historian and political analyst who has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 1973. He is known for creating the Keys to the White House with Soviet seismologist Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981.
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Veronica Taylor
- Occupations
- voice actoractor
- Biography
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Kathleen Charlotte McInerney, known professionally as Veronica Taylor, is an American voice actress known for her dubbing work in English-language adaptations of Japanese anime, in particular for voicing Ash Ketchum and his mother Delia in the Pokémon anime for its first eight seasons. Other voices she has done include Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun from Slayers, Sailor Pluto from Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal, Nico Robin in the 4Kids dub of One Piece, April O'Neil in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series and has voiced video game characters like Cosmos from Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Dissidia Final Fantasy, and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. Additionally, using her real name, she is a narrator for various audio books, such as the Omen of the Stars arc from the Warriors series.
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Stuart Damon
- Occupations
- film actoractortelevision actor
- Biography
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Stuart Damon was an American actor. He was best known for his 30-year portrayal of Dr. Alan Quartermaine on the American soap opera General Hospital, for which he won an Emmy Award in 1999. Outside the United States, he was known for the role of Craig Stirling in The Champions.
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Josh Mostel
- Occupations
- television actorstage actoractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Joshua Mostel is an American actor with numerous film and Broadway credits. The son of Zero Mostel, he is best known for his supporting roles in films such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Harry and Tonto (1974), Sophie's Choice (1982), City Slickers (1991), Billy Madison (1995), and Big Daddy (1999).
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Leslie Lamport
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics
- Occupations
- writercomputer scientistmathematicianengineerprogrammer
- Biography
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Leslie Barry Lamport is an American computer scientist and mathematician. Lamport is best known for his seminal work in distributed systems, and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX and the author of its first manual.
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Sidney Blumenthal
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Sidney Stone Blumenthal is an American journalist, political operative, and Abraham Lincoln scholar. A former aide to Bill Clinton, he is a long-time confidant of Hillary Clinton, and was formerly employed by the Clinton Foundation. As a journalist, Blumenthal wrote about American politics and foreign policy. He is also the author of a multivolume biography of Lincoln, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln. Three books of the planned five-volume series have already been published (A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel, and All the Powers of Earth), and subsequent volumes were planned for later.
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Kathy Acker
- Occupations
- performance artistuniversity teacherwritercomics writerprose writer
- Biography
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Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, critic, performance artist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with complex themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality, language, identity, and rebellion. Her writing incorporates pastiche and the cut-up technique, involving cutting-up and scrambling passages and sentences; she also defined her writing as existing in the post-nouveau roman European tradition. In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence.
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Gloria La Riva
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Gloria Estela La Riva is an American perennial political candidate and communist activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the Peace and Freedom Party. She was the PSL's nominee and the Peace and Freedom's nominee in the 2020 presidential election, her tenth consecutive run as either a presidential or vice presidential candidate. She was previously a member of the Workers World Party. She ran as the PSL's and the Peace and Freedom Party's presidential candidate in the 2016 presidential election, with Eugene Puryear and Dennis J. Banks as her running mates respectively. She was the PSL's presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election. For the 2020 election, Sunil Freeman was her running mate.
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Drew Weissman
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1981 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- university teacherbiologistresearcherinventorbiochemist
- Biography
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Drew Weissman is an American physician and immunologist known for his contributions to RNA biology. Weissman is the inaugural Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, and professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).
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Thomas Friedman
- Occupations
- screenwritercolumnistwriterjournalisttelevision producer
- Biography
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Thomas Loren Friedman is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.
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Michael Walzer
- Occupations
- political scientistwritersociologistuniversity teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Michael Laban Walzer is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of the left-wing magazine Dissent, which he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University, an advisory editor of the Jewish journal Fathom, and sits on the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books.
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Fatema Mernissi
- Occupations
- women's rights activistnon-fiction writeruniversity teachersociologistessayist
- Biography
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Fatema Mernissi was a Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist.
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Michael E. Horowitz
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Biography
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Michael Evan Horowitz is an American attorney and government official. He is the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He previously served as Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice from 2012 to 2025.
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Arjun Appadurai
- Occupations
- anthropologistacademictheoristsociologist
- Biography
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Arjun Appadurai FRAI is an Indian-American anthropologist who has been recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation-states and globalization. He is the former professor of anthropology and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, Humanities Dean at the University of Chicago, director of the Center on Cities and Globalization at Yale University, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at The New School, and professor of education and human development studies at New York University's Steinhardt School. He is currently professor emeritus of the Media, Culture, and Communication Department in the Steinhardt School.
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Karen Uhlenbeck
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1968 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- mathematicianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck ForMemRS is an American mathematician and one of the founders of modern geometric analysis. She is a professor emerita of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she held the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair. She is currently a distinguished visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and a visiting senior research scholar at Princeton University.
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Joan Wallach Scott
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1962 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- historianlabor historianuniversity teacherwriter
- Biography
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Joan Wallach Scott is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history. She is a professor emerita in the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Scott is known for her work in feminist history and gender theory, engaging post-structural theory on these topics. Geographically, her work focuses primarily on France, and thematically she deals with how power works, the relation between language and experience, and the role and practice of historians. Her work grapples with theory's application to historical and current events, focusing on how terms are defined and how positions and identities are articulated.
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Elizabeth Bruenig
- Occupations
- philologistcolumnistpodcasterwriterjournalist
- Biography
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Elizabeth Bruenig is an American journalist working as an opinion writer for The Atlantic since 2021. She previously worked as a staff writer for The New Republic (2015), an opinion writer and editor for The Washington Post (2016–2020), and as an opinion writer for The New York Times (2020–2021). Bruenig has written about ethics, politics, theology, morality, economics, gender, family, class, and faith. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2019 and in 2023. In 2023, she published her first book, On Human Slaughter: Evil, Justice, Mercy, a collection of her reporting on the death penalty.
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Guy Raz
- Occupations
- university teacherjournalistmanagerreporterradio personality
- Biography
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Guy Raz is an American journalist and podcaster. After degrees at Brandeis and Cambridge, and early positions writing for newspapers (including the Washington Post), Raz began work with NPR. There, he went on to serve as their bureau chief in Berlin (2000-2002) and London (2002-2004), and as their Pentagon correspondent (2006-2008), with an intervening stint as a CNN correspondent in Jerusalem (2004-2006). He went on to host NPR's Weekend All Things Considered (2009-2012) and then their TED Radio Hour (2012-2019). He followed this by creating the new NPR programs, How I Built This (2016), Wow in the World (2017), Wisdom from the Top (2019), and The Great Creators (2022). In 2018, NPR noted, along with The New York Times, that Raz was, at that time, the only person to ever have had three podcasts simultaneously among Apple’s top 20 programs.
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Debra Granik
- Occupations
- writerfilm directorcinematographerscreenwriter
- Biography
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Debra Granik is an American filmmaker. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
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Elaine Showalter
- Occupations
- literary criticuniversity teacherwriterjournalistsociologist
- Biography
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Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics, a term describing the study of "women as writers".
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Patricia Hill Collins
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1969 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- researcherphilosophersociologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Collins was elected president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and served in 2009 as the 100th president of the association – the first African-American woman to hold this position.
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Yuri Felshtinsky
- Occupations
- historian
- Biography
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Yuri Georgievich Felshtinsky is a Russian American historian. Felshtinsky has authored a number of books on Russian history, including The Bolsheviks and the Left SRs (Paris, 1985), Towards a History of Our Isolation (London, 1988; Moscow, 1991), The Failure of the World Revolution (London, 1991; Moscow, 1992), Blowing up Russia (with Alexander Litvinenko), and The Age of Assassins (with Vladimir Pribylovsky).
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Ha Jin
- Occupations
- novelistuniversity teachershort story writerwriterpoet
- Biography
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Jin Xuefei is a Chinese American poet and novelist who uses the pen name Ha Jin (哈金). The name Ha comes from his favorite city, Harbin. His poetry is associated with the Misty Poetry movement.
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Daniel B. Shapiro
- Occupations
- diplomatcongressional stafflobbyist
- Biography
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Daniel Benjamin Shapiro is an American diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017. He was nominated by President Barack Obama on March 29, 2011, and confirmed by the Senate on May 29. He was sworn in as ambassador by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 8, 2011. Previously, he was the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on the United States National Security Council. As an Obama administration political appointee, Shapiro was ordered on January 5, 2017, to resign upon the inauguration of President Donald Trump. On August 30, 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Shapiro as a special liaison to Israel on Iran.
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Janice Burgess
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1974 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in art history
- Occupations
- executive producertelevision producer
- Biography
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Janice Burgess was an American television executive, screenwriter and producer for Nickelodeon. She created the Nick Jr. series The Backyardigans and worked as a writer and story editor for Nickelodeon's revival of Winx Club. Both shows were produced at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio. Burgess joined Nickelodeon in 1995 as executive-in-charge of production.
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Michael Rosbash
- Occupations
- geneticistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Michael Morris Rosbash is an American geneticist and chronobiologist. Rosbash is a professor and researcher at Brandeis University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rosbash's research group cloned the Drosophila period gene in 1984 and proposed the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop for circadian clocks in 1990. In 1998, they discovered the cycle gene, clock gene, and cryptochrome photoreceptor in Drosophila through the use of forward genetics, by first identifying the phenotype of a mutant and then determining the genetics behind the mutation. Rosbash was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. Along with Michael W. Young and Jeffrey C. Hall, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".
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Stephen J. Cloobeck
- Years
- 1961-.. (age 65)
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Stephen J. Cloobeck is an American businessman and the founder, former chairman, and chief executive officer of the timeshare company Diamond Resorts. He was a candidate for governor of California in the 2026 election.
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Harald Helfgott
- Occupations
- mathematicianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Harald Andrés Helfgott is a Peruvian mathematician working in number theory. Helfgott is a researcher (directeur de recherche) at the CNRS at the Institut Mathématique de Jussieu, Paris. He is best known for submitting a proof, now widely accepted but not yet fully published, of Goldbach's weak conjecture.
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Katherine Ann Power
- Occupations
- bank robber
- Biography
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Katherine Ann Power, also known under the aliases Mae Kelly and Alice Louise Metzinger, is an American ex-convict and long-time fugitive, who, along with her fellow student and accomplice Susan Edith Saxe, was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives list in 1970. The two participated in robberies at a Massachusetts National Guard armory and a bank in Brighton, Massachusetts, where Boston police officer Walter Schroeder was shot and killed. Power remained at large for twenty-three years.
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Elliot Aronson
- Occupations
- writersociologistpsychologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Elliot Aronson is an American psychologist who has carried out experiments on the theory of cognitive dissonance, and invented the Jigsaw Classroom, a cooperative teaching technique that facilitates learning while reducing interethnic hostility and prejudice. In his 1972 social psychology textbook, The Social Animal, he stated Aronson's First Law: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy", thus asserting the importance of situational factors in bizarre behavior.
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David Silverman
- Occupations
- bloggertelevision director
- Biography
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David Silverman is an American secular advocate.
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Marshall Herskovitz
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directorfilm producertelevision producer
- Biography
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Marshall Schreiber Herskovitz is an American film director, writer, and producer, and currently the President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America. Among his productions are Traffic, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and I Am Sam. Herskovitz has directed two feature films, Jack the Bear and Dangerous Beauty. Herskovitz was a creator and executive producer of the television shows thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again, and also wrote and directed several episodes of all three series.
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Alvin Lucier
- Occupations
- composeruniversity teacherperformance artistmusic journalistsound artist
- Biography
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Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. was an American experimental composer and sound artist. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which also included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of Lucier's work explores psychoacoustic phenomena and the physical properties of sound.
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George Saitoti
- Occupations
- ministeruniversity teacherpoliticianmathematicianeconomist
- Biography
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George Musengi Saitoti, E.G.H. was a Kenyan politician, businessman and American- and British-trained economist, mathematician and development policy thinker.
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Anand Patwardhan
- Occupations
- film director
- Biography
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Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker known for his socio-political, human rights-oriented films. Some of his films explore the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India, while others investigate nuclear nationalism and unsustainable development. Notable films include Bombay: Our City (1985), In Memory of Friends (1990), In the Name of God (1992), Father, Son, and Holy War, A Narmada Diary (both 1995), War and Peace (2002), Jai Bhim Comrade (2011), Reason (2018) and The World is Family (2023), which have won national and international awards.
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Roderick MacKinnon
- Occupations
- chemistbiophysicistcrystallographerinternistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Roderick MacKinnon is an American biophysicist, neuroscientist, and businessman. He is a professor of molecular neurobiology and biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter Agre in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels.
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Walt Mossberg
- Occupations
- journalistwriter
- Biography
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Walter S. Mossberg is an American retired technology journalist and moderator.
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Josh Gondelman
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- Graduated with bachelor's degree in creative writing and English
- Occupations
- magazine writercomedy writerstand-up comedianactor
- Biography
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Joshua Lyons Gondelman is an American author, comedy writer, producer, and stand-up comedian. He was a supervising producer and writer for Desus & Mero on Showtime. He was previously a writer on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He is also known for co-creating the parody Twitter account @SeinfeldToday.
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Robert Zimmer
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- university presidentmathematician
- Biography
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Robert Jeffrey Zimmer was an American mathematician and academic administrator. He served as the 13th president of the University of Chicago from July 2006 to August 2021 and as the honorary 3rd chancellor of the university from September 2021 to July 2022.
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Geir Haarde
- Occupations
- diplomateconomistpolitician
- Biography
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Geir Hilmar Haarde is an Icelandic politician who served as prime minister of Iceland from 15 June 2006 to 1 February 2009, and as president of the Nordic Council in 1995. Geir was chairman of the Icelandic Independence Party from 2005 to 2009. From 2015 to 2019 he served as the ambassador of Iceland to the United States and several Latin American countries. Since 2019 he has been a chief representative at the World Bank Group.
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Samrat Chakrabarti
- Occupations
- actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Samrat Chakrabarti is a British-American film actor and musician of Indian descent.
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Shen Tong
- Occupations
- activistbusinesspersonentrepreneurtelevision producer
- Biography
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Shen Tong is an American impact investor, activist, and writer. He founded business & Impact accelerators TheFutureCo in 2023, FoodFutureCo in 2015, and Food-X in 2014, recognized by Fast Company as one of "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Food". He was a Chinese dissident who was exiled as one of the student leaders in the democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Shen was one of the People of the Year in Newsweek 1989, and he became a media, software, social entrepreneur, and impact investor in the late 1990s. He serves on multiple boards and advisory.
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Halim El-Dabh
- Occupations
- composerpianistethnomusicologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had a career spanning six decades. He is particularly known as an early pioneer of electronic music. In 1944 he composed one of the earliest known works of tape music, or musique concrète. From the late 1950s to early 1960s he produced influential work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
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V. Balakrishnan
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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V. Balakrishnan is an Indian theoretical physicist, who has worked in a number of fields and areas, including particle physics, many-body theory, the mechanical behavior of solids, dynamical systems, stochastic processes, and quantum dynamics. He is an accomplished researcher who has made important contributions to the theory of anelasticity, continuous-time random walks, and recurrences in dynamical systems.
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Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, also known as Olaf Olafsson, is an Icelandic businessman and writer. He is best known for his tenure at Sony and his leadership in the creation of the PlayStation video game console.
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Jennifer Lafleur
- Occupations
- film actoractorfilm director
- Biography
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Jennifer Lafleur is an American actress. She is known for appearing in the independent films The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, The Pretty One (2013), The Midnight Swim (2014), MAD (2016) and 6 Years (2015). On television, Lafleur has appeared on the HBO series Big Little Lies, Room 104 and Animals., the Showtime series Billions, American Crime on ABC, Married on FX, Chicago Fire on NBC, Workaholics and Review on Comedy Central, Childrens Hospital and Newsreaders on Adult Swim, and Major Crimes on TNT.
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Zanele Dlamini Mbeki
- Occupations
- social workerpolitician
- Biography
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Zanele Mbeki OMSS is a feminist South African social worker who founded the Women's Development Bank. She is also a former first lady of South Africa.
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Evelyn Fox Keller
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- feministphysicistphilosopheruniversity teacherbiographer
- Biography
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Evelyn Fox Keller was an American physicist, author, and feminist. She was Professor Emerita of History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Keller's early work concentrated at the intersection of physics and biology. Her subsequent research focused on the history and philosophy of modern biology and on gender and science.
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Alan Taylor
- Enrolled in Brandeis University
- In 1986 graduated with doctorate
- Occupations
- historianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Alan Shaw Taylor is an American historian and scholar who, most recently, was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial history of the United States, the American Revolution, and the early American Republic. Taylor has received two Pulitzer Prizes and the Bancroft Prize, and was also a finalist for the National Book Award for non-fiction. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
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Arthur Caplan
- Occupations
- bioethicist
- Biography
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Arthur L. Caplan is an American ethicist and a professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
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Michael Ratner
- Occupations
- juristlawyerwriter
- Biography
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Michael Ratner was an American attorney. For much of his career, he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City, and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.
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Adam Cheyer
- Years
- 20th Century
- Occupations
- computer scientistartificial intelligence researcherengineer
- Biography
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Adam Cheyer is a co-founder of Siri Inc. and formerly a director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple.
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Nelson Figueroa
- Occupations
- baseball player
- Biography
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Nelson Figueroa is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets, and Houston Astros. Figueroa also played for the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan. He featured a fastball topping out at 91 mph, slider, curveball, changeup, and a splitter. He has also worked as a post-game studio analyst for Mets broadcasts.
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Wakako Hironaka
- Occupations
- writerpolitician
- Biography
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Wakako Hironaka is a Japanese writer and politician. She served four terms in the House of Councillors, the upper house of the national Diet, from 1986 until 2010. Her husband is Heisuke Hironaka, a mathematician.
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Malidoma Patrice Somé
- Occupations
- ethnologistwriter
- Biography
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Malidoma Patrice Somé was a writer and workshop leader, primarily in the field of spirituality. Born in a Dagara community in Dano, Burkina Faso, West Africa, he was raised by Jesuit priests from the age of four, pursued higher education in the West, and spent most of his adult life in the United States and Europe.
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Tom Rapp
- Occupations
- songwriterguitaristsinger-songwriter
- Biography
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Thomas Dale Rapp was an American singer and songwriter who led Pearls Before Swine, an influential psychedelic folk rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Described as having "a slight lisp, gentle voice and apocalyptic vision", he also released four albums under his own name. He later practiced as a lawyer after graduating from University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1984.
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Charles H. Bennett
- Occupations
- computer scientisttheoretical physicistphysicistcryptographer
- Biography
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Charles Henry Bennett is an American physicist, information theorist and IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange. He has played a major role in elucidating the interconnections between physics and information, particularly in the realm of quantum computation, but also in cellular automata and reversible computing. He discovered, with Gilles Brassard, the concept of quantum cryptography and is one of the founding fathers of modern quantum information theory (see Bennett's four laws of quantum information).
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Myq Kaplan
- Occupations
- television actor
- Biography
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Myq Kaplan is an American stand-up comedian. Born Michael Kaplan in Livingston, New Jersey, he works out of Boston and New York City.
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Mark Leyner
- Occupations
- writernovelist
- Biography
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Mark Leyner is an American postmodernist author.
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George Loewenstein
- Occupations
- researchereconomist
- Biography
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George Loewenstein is an American educator and economist. He is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology in the Social and Decision Sciences Department at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the Center for Behavioral Decision Research. He is a leader in the fields of behavioral economics (which he is also credited with co-founding), neuroeconomics, Judgment and Decision Making.
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Margo Jefferson
- Occupations
- journalistwriter
- Biography
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Margo Lillian Jefferson is an American writer and academic. Also a journalist, writing since 1993 for The New York Times, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1995. Other publications for which she has written include Vogue, New York Magazine, The Nation, and Guernica.
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Michael Kaiser
- Occupations
- impresario
- Biography
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Michael M. Kaiser is an American arts administrator who served as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (2001–2014) in Washington, D.C. Kaiser currently lives in Great Falls, Virginia.
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Letty Cottin Pogrebin
- Occupations
- journalistwriter
- Biography
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Letty Cottin Pogrebin is an American author, journalist, lecturer, and social activist. She is a founding editor of Ms. magazine, the author of twelve books, and was an editorial consultant for the TV special Free to Be... You and Me (as well as for the album and book associated with it) for which she earned an Emmy.
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Laura Whitehorn
- Occupations
- political activist
- Biography
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Laura Jane Whitehorn is an American activist who participated in the 1983 United States Senate bombing and was imprisoned for 14 years in federal prison. In the 1960s, she organized and participated in civil rights and anti-war movements.
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin
- Years
- 1969-.. (age 57)
- Biography
-
Rachel Goldberg-Polin is an American-Israeli activist. During the hostage crisis which began with the October 7 attacks in 2023, Goldberg and her husband became two of the highest profile relatives of Israeli hostages advocating for their release on the world stage, meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Pope Francis, among other world leaders.
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Deborah Berebichez
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Deborah Berebichez is a Mexican physicist, data scientist, TV host, educator and entrepreneur who dedicates her career to promoting education in science, technology, engineering and math fields. She was the first Mexican woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. She has developed models for cellular wave transmission which are in the process of being patented. Sometimes known as "The Science Babe", she appears in mainstream television and radio segments where she explains concepts in physics in everyday life.
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Alma Katsu
- Occupations
- writerpolitical historiannovelistjournalist
- Biography
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Alma Katsu is an American writer of adult fiction. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, and have been published in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Spain, and Italy.
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Dimitrij Rupel
- Occupations
- literary historianuniversity teacherwriterdiplomatsociologist
- Biography
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Dimitrij Rupel is a Slovenian politician.
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Gustavo Gelpí
- Occupations
- judge
- Biography
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Gustavo Antonio Gelpí Jr. is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He is a former chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.
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Zach Sherwin
- Occupations
- actorscreenwriterrapper
- Biography
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Zach Sherwin is an American comedian, rapper, writer, and actor best known for writing for and performing in the Epic Rap Battles of History YouTube series, as well as writing for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on The CW. He specializes in comedic rap. He previously performed with The Late Night Players under the stage name "MC Mr. Napkins".
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Freada Kapor Klein
- Occupations
- philanthropistventure capitalist
- Biography
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Freada Kapor Klein is an American venture capitalist, social policy researcher and philanthropist. As a partner at Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center for Social Impact, she is known for efforts to diversify the technology workforce through activism and investments. Her 2007 book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay examines the reasons people have for leaving corporate America as well as the human and financial cost.
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Ruth Deech, Baroness Deech
- Occupations
- authornon-fiction writeruniversity teacherpolitician
- Biography
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Ruth Lynn Deech, Baroness Deech, DBE is a British academic, bioethicist and politician, most noted for chairing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), from 1994 to 2002, and as the former Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford. Deech sits as a Crossbench peer in the House of Lords (2005–) and chaired the Bar Standards Board (2009–2014).
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Arthur Green
- Years
- 1941-.. (age 85)
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Arthur Green is an American scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian. He was a founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston. He describes himself as an American Jew who was educated entirely by the generation of immigrant Jewish intellectuals cast up on American shores by World War II.
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Laura Janner-Klausner
- Occupations
- rabbi
- Biography
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Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020. Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years. She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue (North Western Reform Synagogue) until 2011. She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.
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Stephen J. Solarz
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Stephen Joshua Solarz was an American educator and politician who served as a United States representative from New York until his political career ended in the wake of the House banking scandal in 1992.
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Giriraja Swami
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Giriraj Swami is an American hindu author and an initiating guru, with very highly respected position in International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
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Paul Anastas
- Occupations
- university teacherchemistscientist
- Biography
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Paul T. Anastas is an American scientist, inventor, author, entrepreneur, professor, and public servant. He is the Director of Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, Previously he served as the Science Advisor to the United States Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Agency's Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, appointed by President Barack Obama.
