45 Notable alumni of
Connecticut College
Updated:
Connecticut College is 1022nd in the world, 375th in North America, and 353rd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 45 notable alumni from Connecticut 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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Joan Rivers
- Enrolled in Connecticut College
- Studied in 1950-1952
- 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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Sean Spicer
- Enrolled in Connecticut College
- 1989-1993 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in government
- Occupations
- politiciantelevision presenterpolitical adviserspokespersoncelebrity
- Biography
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Sean Michael Spicer is a former American political aide who served as the 30th White House Press Secretary and as White House Communications Director under President Donald Trump in 2017. Spicer was communications director of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017, and its chief strategist from 2015 to 2017.
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H. Jon Benjamin
- Occupations
- film actortelevision directorscreenwritervoice actortelevision producer
- Biography
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Harry Jon Benjamin is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer and musician. He is known for his voice roles in adult animated series, including Sterling Archer in Archer; Bob Belcher in Bob's Burgers; Carl in Aqua Teen Hunger Force; Ben in Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist; Kevin in O'Grady; Satan in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil; and Coach McGuirk and Jason Penopolis in Home Movies. Benjamin was named 2014's male comedy performer of the year at Vulture's TV Awards for his work in Bob's Burgers and Archer. He also appeared in the 2001 satirical comedy film Wet Hot American Summer; its subsequent 2015 television series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp; and the final installment of the franchise, the 2017 mini series Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later.
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Angela Bowie
- Occupations
- actorautobiographermodel
- Biography
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Mary Angela Barnett, also known as Angie Bowie, is a Cypriot-American model, actress, and journalist. Alongside her ex-husband David Bowie, she influenced the glam rock culture and fashion of the 1970s. She was married to Bowie (whom she assisted in conceptualizing the costumes for the Ziggy Stardust stage show) from 1970 until their divorce in 1980. They had one child, the film director Duncan Jones.
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Leland Orser
- Occupations
- film directortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Leland Jones Orser is an American actor, director, and writer. He has appeared in numerous film and television roles, notably as Lucien Dubenko in the television series ER (2004–2009) and Sam Gilroy in the Taken film series (2008–2014).
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Susan Saint James
- Occupations
- television actormodelfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Susan Saint James is an American actress and activist, most widely known for her work in television during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, especially the detective series McMillan & Wife (1971–1976) and the sitcom Kate & Allie (1984–1989).
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Estelle Parsons
- Occupations
- film actorscreenwritertelevision actorsingerfilm producer
- Biography
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Estelle Parsons is an American actress.
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Sam Seder
- Occupations
- radio personalityactorpunditcomedianpodcaster
- Biography
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Samuel Lincoln Seder is an American actor, left-leaning political commentator, and media host. His works include the film Who's the Caboose? (1997) as well as the television shows Beat Cops (2001) and Pilot Season (2004). He also appeared in Next Stop Wonderland (1998) and made guest appearances on Spin City (1997), Sex and the City (2000), America Undercover (2005), and Maron (2015). Since 2010, he has hosted a daily political talk show, The Majority Report with Sam Seder. He also voices Hugo, a recurring character on the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers.
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Laura Wilson
- Occupations
- photographer
- Biography
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Laura Cunningham Wilson is an American photographer. She has completed seven books of photography and text: Watt Matthews of Lambshead (1989), Hutterites of Montana (2000), Avedon at Work: In the American West (2003), Grit and Glory: Six-Man Football (2003), That Day: Pictures in the American West (2015), From Rodin to Plensa: Modern Sculpture at the Meadows Museum (2018), and The Writers: Portraits by Laura Wilson (2022). She is the mother of actors Andrew Wilson, Owen Wilson, and Luke Wilson.
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David Grann
- Occupations
- writerjournalist
- Biography
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David Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and author.
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Kimba Wood
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Kimba Maureen Wood is an American judge who is a senior district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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Julia Alvarez
- Occupations
- novelistpoetchildren's writerwriter
- Biography
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Julia Alvarez is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and Yo! (1997). Her publications as a poet include Homecoming (1984) and The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004), and as an essayist the autobiographical compilation Something to Declare (1998). She has achieved critical and commercial success on an international scale and many literary critics regard her to be one of the most significant contemporary Latina writers.
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Martha Chen
- Occupations
- university teacheracademic
- Biography
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Martha Chen is an American academic, scholar and social worker, who is presently a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and senior advisor of the global research-policy-action network WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) and a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). Martha is a development practitioner and scholar who has worked with the working poor in India, South Asia, and around the world. Her areas of specialization are employment, poverty alleviation, informal economy, and gender. She lived in Bangladesh working with BRAC, one of the world's largest non-governmental organizations, and in India, as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh for 15 years.
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Tim Armstrong
- Occupations
- international forum participantchief executive officer
- Biography
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Timothy M. Armstrong is an American business executive. He was formerly the CEO of Oath Inc., then a subsidiary of Verizon Communications that served as the umbrella company of its digital content subdivisions, including AOL and Yahoo!. Previously, he was the CEO of AOL Inc. from 2009 until its purchase by Verizon in 2015.
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Sloane Crosley
- Occupations
- novelistjournalistessayist
- Biography
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Sloane Crosley is an American writer living in New York City known for her humorous essays, including the collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There. She has also worked as a publicist at the Vintage Books division of Random House and as an adjunct professor in Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2000.
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Gayl Jones
- Occupations
- novelistwriterpoet
- Biography
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Gayl Carolyn Jones is an American writer from Lexington, Kentucky. She is recognized as a key figure in 20th-century African-American literature.
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Cynthia Enloe
- Occupations
- political scientistwriter
- Biography
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Cynthia Holden Enloe is an American political theorist, feminist writer, and professor. She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She has also influenced the field of feminist political geography, with feminist geopolitics in particular.
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Patricia McGowan Wald
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Patricia Ann McGowan Wald was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986 until 1991. She was the Court's first female chief judge and its first woman to be elevated, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. From 1999 to 2001, Wald was a Justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
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Alec Ounsworth
- Years
- 1977-.. (age 47)
- Occupations
- guitaristsinger-songwriter
- Biography
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Alec Ounsworth is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and frontman of indie rock band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. He is also a member of The Pelican Picnic and Flashy Python. His first solo album, Mo Beauty was released October 20, 2009, on Anti- Records.
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Ellen Lord
- Occupations
- politicianbusinesspersoncivil servant
- Biography
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Ellen M. Lord is an American businesswoman and government official who previously served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment in the Trump administration. She was previously the CEO of Textron Systems, a global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technologies industrial conglomerate. In her position, she was the chief weapons purchaser for the United States, responsible for overseeing hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons and services acquisitions programs in the United States Department of Defense.
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Betsy Gotbaum
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Elisabeth A. Gotbaum is an American civil servant, politician and a former New York City public advocate. She was elected Public Advocate for New York City in 2001 and reelected in 2005. She was the third woman elected to a citywide post in NYC history. The other two were Carol Bellamy, who served as city council president from 1978 to 1985, and Elizabeth Holtzman, who served as comptroller from 1990 to 1993. Gotbaum is a Democrat and currently serves as Executive Director of Citizens Union.
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Fernando Espuelas
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Fernando Espuelas is an American entrepreneur, author, media personality and philanthropist.
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David Haussler
- Years
- 1953-.. (age 71)
- Occupations
- bioinformaticiangeneticistcomputer scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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David Haussler is an American bioinformatician known for his work leading the team that assembled the first human genome sequence in the race to complete the Human Genome Project and subsequently for comparative genome analysis that deepens understanding the molecular function and evolution of the genome.
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Marcia Tucker
- Occupations
- art historianjournalistcurator
- Biography
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Marcia Tucker was an American art historian, art critic and curator. In 1977 she founded the New Museum of Contemporary Art, a museum dedicated to innovative art and artistic practice in New York City, which she ran as the director until 1999.
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Peter Som
- Years
- 1970-.. (age 54)
- Occupations
- fashion designer
- Biography
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Peter Som is a Chinese American fashion designer. He was creative director for Bill Blass and creative consultant for Tommy Hilfiger, where he designed the women’s wear collection, prior to founding his eponymous label. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Peter Som graduated from Connecticut College in 1993 with a degree in art history. He continued his studies at the Parsons School of Design where he apprenticed with American designers, Michael Kors and Calvin Klein. At Parsons, his talent was recognized through competitions; he won and was presented with the Parsons Gold Thimble Award by Isaac Mizrahi.
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Peggy Charren
- Occupations
- activist
- Biography
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Peggy Sundelle Charren was an American activist best known as the founder of Action for Children's Television (ACT), a national child advocacy organization. The organization was founded in an effort to encourage program diversity and eliminate commercial abuses in children's television programming. In 1995, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Vance Gilbert
- Occupations
- singer-songwritercomposersongwritersinger
- Biography
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Vance Gilbert is an American folk singer-songwriter. He started as a jazz singer, switched to folk music, became a regular on the open mike circuit in Boston and toured with Shawn Colvin. He has recorded sixteen albums, including Side of the Road, three of them on Philo/Rounder Records.
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Aracelis Girmay
- Years
- 1977-.. (age 47)
- Occupations
- writerpoet
- Biography
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Aracelis Girmay is an American poet. She is the author of three poetry collections, including Kingdom Animalia (2011), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. She is also an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Hampshire College. She has been teaching at Stanford University since the summer of 2023.
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Sean Fine
- Occupations
- cinematographerfilm directorscreenwriterfilm producer
- Biography
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Sean Fine is an American cinematographer, producer and film director whose film Inocente won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Documentary. He directs his films with his wife, Andrea Nix Fine. The Fines' first feature-length film War/Dance about child soldiers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2007. In 2013 their film, Life According to Sam won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary filmmaking. The Fines launched a boutique film studio Change Content to develop documentaries that affect way audiences feel about critical issues. Change Content's first film LFG (film) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was instrumental in the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team achieving equal pay.
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Mary Overlie
- Years
- 1946-2020 (aged 74)
- Occupations
- dancerchoreographer
- Biography
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Mary Overlie was an American choreographer, dancer, theater artist, professor, author, and the originator of the Six Viewpoints technique for theater and dance. The Six Viewpoints technique is both a philosophical articulation of postmodern performance and a teaching system addressing directing, choreographing, dancing, acting, improvisation, and performance analysis. The Six Viewpoints has been taught in the core curriculum of the Experimental Theater Wing within Tisch School of the Arts at New York University since its inception (1978).
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Judy Irving
- Years
- 1946-.. (age 78)
- Occupations
- film director
- Biography
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Judy Irving is an American filmmaker. She directed the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, about writer Mark Bittner's relationship with a flock of wild parrots. The film won the Genesis Award for "Outstanding Documentary Film" in 2005, and is one of the 25 top-grossing theatrical documentaries of all time with over $3 million in box-office receipts. On May 29, 2007, Parrots was featured on the PBS series Independent Lens.
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Michael Collier
- Occupations
- poet
- Biography
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Michael Robert Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripides' Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
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Jeremy Stamper
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Jeremy Stamper is an American entrepreneur, nonprofit leader and politician from South Carolina. Stamper first gained national media attention for pranks targeting incumbent politicians and has since founded several internet companies, including Spout, The Delaware Company, Progressive Homesellers and PersonRatings.com. In February 2013, he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the 2014 United States Senate election in South Carolina.
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Henrik Takkenberg
- Occupations
- songwritersinger
- Biography
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Henrik Takkenberg was a lead singer, songwriter, composer and producer who developed a new musical style he named Flamenco Chill.
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Vicki Lansky
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Vicki Lee Lansky was an American author and publisher, best known for her cookbook Feed Me I'm Yours.
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Michael W. King
- Years
- 1952-.. (age 72)
- Occupations
- teacher
- Biography
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Michael W. King is an American filmmaker, producer, director, and writer of music videos, documentaries, and films. King is the founder of Michael King Productions, LLC. and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his son, Mathias. He is a former board member of the International Documentary Association and a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA).
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Jeffrey Finn
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Jeffrey Finn is an American theatrical producer. He is the Vice President of Theater Producing and Programming at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Artistic Director of Broadway Center Stage. He received the Commercial Theater Institute's 2013 Robert Whitehead Award for outstanding achievement in commercial theatre producing. Finn is the President of Jeffrey Finn Productions and Hot On Broadway. He attended Connecticut College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1992. He attended Beaver Country Day School from 1984 to 1988. Finn is a executive member of The Broadway League and The Independent Presenters Network, and is also a Tony Award voter.
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Gloria Callen
- Occupations
- swimmer
- Biography
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Gloria Marie Callen was an American backstroke swimmer. She was the 1942 Associated Press Athlete of the Year.
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Miriam Butterworth
- Occupations
- activistpoliticianteacher
- Biography
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Miriam Butterworth was an American educator, activist, and politician.
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Spencer Luckey
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Spencer Walker Luckey is an American artist and president of Luckey Climbers, a design/fabrication firm that specializes in climbing sculptures for children's museums and other institutions world-wide.
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Linda Lear
- Years
- 1940-.. (age 84)
- Occupations
- historianwriterbiographerhistorian of science
- Biography
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Linda Jane Lear is an American historian of science and biographer.
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Frances Wheeler Sayler
- Occupations
- activistunion organizer
- Biography
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Frances Wheeler Sayler was an American civil rights and labor activist. She worked in the La Follette Committee and for the United States Women's Bureau, before became an organizer in the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America union. She was active in the early civil rights movement, fighting to desegregate facilities and abolish the poll tax.
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Martin J. Steinbach
- Occupations
- ophthalmologistscientist
- Biography
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Martin Jeffrey Steinbach was an American vision researcher who spent most of his career in Canada. He was Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at York University. He received a master's degree from Connecticut College in 1965 and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1968.
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Nina F. Elgo
- Occupations
- judge
- Biography
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Nina F. Elgo is an American lawyer who serves as a judge of the Connecticut Appellate Court. She is the first Asian Pacific American to be appointed to the Connecticut Appellate Court and the Connecticut Superior Court.
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Eli Coppola
- Enrolled in Connecticut College
- In 1983 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in English
- Occupations
- writerpoet
- Biography
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JoAnn Elizabeth "Eli" Coppola was an American poet and active contributor to the San Francisco spoken word scene in the mid 1980s and 1990s. She wrote poetry on a variety of subjects including disability, sexuality, and social injustice.
