100 Notable alumni of
CUNY City College
CUNY City College is 138th in the world, 63rd in North America, and 60th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from CUNY City 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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Stanley Kubrick
- Occupations
- photographerscenographerscreenwritercamera operatorproducer
- Biography
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Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. He is frequently cited as one of the greatest filmmakers in cinematic history. His films, almost all of which are adaptations of novels or short stories, cover a wide range of genres and are noted for their realism, dark humor, unique cinematography, extensive set designs, and evocative use of music.
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Henry Kissinger
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied accounting
- Occupations
- writerpoliticianpolitical scientistdiplomatentrepreneur
- Biography
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Henry Alfred Kissinger is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, he became National Security Advisor in 1969 and U.S. Secretary of State in 1973. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances, with two members of the committee resigning in protest.
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Tony Curtis
- Occupations
- actorwriterpaintertelevision actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Tony Curtis was an American actor whose career spanned six decades, achieving the height of his popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films, in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances.
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Colin Powell
- Occupations
- army officerdiplomatpolitician
- Biography
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Colin Luther Powell was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State. He served as the 16th United States national security advisor from 1987 to 1989 and as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
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Eli Wallach
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Graduated with Master of Education
- Occupations
- character actorfilm actorfilm producerautobiographeractor
- Biography
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Eli Herschel Wallach was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. From his 1945 Broadway debut to his last film appearance, Wallach's entertainment career spanned 69 years. Originally trained in stage acting, he became "one of the greatest character actors ever to appear on stage and screen" and ultimately garnered over 90 film credits. He and his wife Anne Jackson often appeared together on stage, eventually becoming a notable acting couple in American theater.
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Barry Manilow
- Occupations
- actorcomposersinger-songwriterpianistsinger
- Biography
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Barry Manilow is an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and producer with a career that spans seven decades. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "I Write the Songs", "Can't Smile Without You" and "Copacabana (At the Copa)".
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Russell Simmons
- Occupations
- fashion designertelevision producerentrepreneurwriterrecord producer
- Biography
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Russell Wendell Simmons is an American entrepreneur, record executive, and writer. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons' net worth was estimated at $340 million in 2011.
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Mark Duplass
- Occupations
- screenwriteractortelevision actorfilm directorshowrunner
- Biography
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Mark David Duplass is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and musician. He is the brother of filmmaker Jay Duplass and together the brothers started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions in 1996, and have written and directed the films The Puffy Chair (2005), Baghead (2008), Cyrus (2010), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012). Duplass played the role of Pete Eckhart in the FX television series The League (2009–2015). He was also one of the stars of Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) with Aubrey Plaza.
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Luis Guzmán
- Occupations
- film actoractortelevision actorcharacter actor
- Biography
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Luis Guzmán is an American actor. His career spans over forty years and includes dozens of films and television shows.
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Judd Hirsch
- Occupations
- voice actortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Judd Seymore Hirsch is an American actor known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), John Lacey on the NBC series Dear John (1988–1992), and Alan Eppes on the CBS series Numb3rs (2005–2010). He is also well known for his career in theatre and for his roles in films such as Ordinary People (1980), Running on Empty (1988), Independence Day (1996), A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).
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Héctor Elizondo
- Occupations
- stage actorvoice actorfilm actortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Héctor Elizondo is an American character actor. He is known for playing Phillip Watters in the television series Chicago Hope (1994–2000) and Ed Alzate in the television series Last Man Standing (2011–2021). His film roles include The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), American Gigolo (1980), Leviathan (1989), Pretty Woman (1990), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Runaway Bride (1999), The Princess Diaries (2001), and Valentine's Day (2010).
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Henry Miller
- Occupations
- essayistnovelistpainterwriter
- Biography
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Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, stream of consciousness, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association, and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricorn, and the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris (all of which were banned in the United States until 1961). He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors.
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Sheldon Adelson
- Occupations
- entrepreneur
- Biography
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Sheldon Gary Adelson was an American businessman, investor, political donor and philanthropist. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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Mario Puzo
- Occupations
- science fiction writerdiplomatwriternovelistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Mario Francis Puzo was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.
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Edward G. Robinson
- Occupations
- art collectorcharacter actortelevision actorstage actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor of stage and screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in such films as Little Caesar and Key Largo. He played the claims adjuster Barton Keyes in the 1944 Film noir classic Double Indemnity. During his career Robinson had won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his performance in House of Strangers.
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Jonas Salk
- Occupations
- virologistinventorbiologistimmunologistepidemiologist
- Biography
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Jonas Edward Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.
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Richard Schiff
- Occupations
- film actoractorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Richard Schiff is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing Toby Ziegler on The West Wing, a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his directorial debut with The West Wing, directing an episode titled "Talking Points". He is on the National Advisory Board of the Council for a Livable World. He had a recurring role on the HBO series Ballers. Since September 2017 he has had a leading role in ABC's medical drama The Good Doctor, as Dr. Aaron Glassman, president of a fictional teaching hospital in San Jose, California.
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Upton Sinclair
- Occupations
- novelistdietitianjournalistpoliticianopinion journalist
- Biography
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Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
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Ed Koch
- Occupations
- writerlawyerfilm criticpoliticianjudge
- Biography
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Edward Irving Koch was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989.
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Ross Martin
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Ross Martin was an American radio, voice, stage, film and television actor. Martin was best known for portraying Artemus Gordon on the CBS Western series The Wild Wild West, which aired from 1965 to 1969. He was the voice of Doctor Paul Williams in 1972's Sealab 2020, additional characters in 1973's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, and additional character voices in 1978's Jana of the Jungle.
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Hal Linden
- Occupations
- voice actortelevision actorstage actorjazz musicianfilm actor
- Biography
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Hal Linden is an American stage and screen actor, television director and musician.
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Alfred Stieglitz
- Occupations
- photographerpublisherphotography criticexhibition curator
- Biography
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Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1943
- Occupations
- politicianteachermilitary personnelsociologistwriter
- Biography
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an American politician, diplomat, and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an adviser to Republican President Richard Nixon.
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Zero Mostel
- Occupations
- film actorstage actorvoice actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968). Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, and he used an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well publicized. Mostel later starred in the Hollywood Blacklist drama film The Front (1976) alongside Woody Allen, for which Mostel was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actor.
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Herman Hollerith
- Years
- 1860-1929 (aged 69)
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1879
- Occupations
- statisticianinventorengineermathematicianbusinessperson
- Biography
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Herman Hollerith was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in accounting. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine, patented in 1884, marks the beginning of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.
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Jackie Mason
- Occupations
- screenwritervoice actortelevision actorrabbistage actor
- Biography
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Jackie Mason was an American stand-up comedian and film and television actor.
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Bernard Mannes Baruch
- Occupations
- stockbrokerpoliticianfinanciereconomistbanker
- Biography
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Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier and statesman.
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Leonard Susskind
- Occupations
- non-fiction writerphysicistuniversity teacheracademicscientist
- Biography
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Leonard Susskind is an American physicist, who is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
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Butterfly McQueen
- Occupations
- actortelevision actordancerstage actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Butterfly McQueen was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in films as "Prissy" in Gone with the Wind (1939). She was unable to attend the film's premiere because it was held at a whites-only theater. Often typecast as a maid, she said: "I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn't mind being funny, but I didn't like being stupid." She continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, and then moved to television acting in the 1950s. She won a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in the ABC Afterschool Special episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid".
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Bob Kahn
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1960 graduated with bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
- Occupations
- inventorengineerpatent inventorcomputer scientistelectrical engineer
- Biography
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Robert Elliot Kahn is an American electrical engineer, who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.
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Dick Miller
- Occupations
- voice actorfilm actorscreenwritercharacter actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Richard Miller was an American character actor who appeared in more than 180 films, including many produced by Roger Corman. He later appeared in the films of directors who began their careers with Corman, including Joe Dante, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese, with the distinction of appearing in every film directed by Dante. He was known for playing the beleaguered everyman, often in one-scene appearances.
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Ira Gershwin
- Occupations
- composerlyricistsongwriterlibrettistpoet
- Biography
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Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century. With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.
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George Friedman
- Occupations
- political scientistnon-fiction writerbusinesspersongeopolitician
- Biography
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George Friedman is a Hungarian-born U.S. geopolitical forecaster, and strategist on international affairs. He is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, an online publication that analyzes and forecasts the course of global events. Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures, he was chairman of its predecessor Stratfor, the private intelligence publishing and consulting firm he founded in 1996.
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Kenneth Arrow
- Occupations
- statisticianprofessorpolitical scientistteachereconomist
- Biography
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Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. He was the joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with John Hicks in 1972.
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A. Philip Randolph
- Occupations
- politiciancivil rights advocatesocialisttrade unionist
- Biography
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Asa Philip Randolph was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American led labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement, Randolph was a prominent voice. His continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against racist unfair labor practices, eventually helped lead President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully maintained pressure, so that President Harry S. Truman, proposed a new Civil Rights Act, and issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 in 1948, promoting fair employment, anti-discrimination policies in federal government hiring, and ending racial segregation in the armed services.
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Benjamin B. Ferencz
- Occupations
- lawyerjuristuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Benjamin Berell Ferencz is an American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. Later, he became an advocate of international rule of law and for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. From 1985 to 1996, he was adjunct professor of international law at Pace University.
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Felix Frankfurter
- Occupations
- judgelawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Felix Frankfurter was an Austrian-American lawyer, professor, and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962 and was a noted advocate of judicial restraint in the judgments of the Court.
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Paddy Chayefsky
- Occupations
- playwrightscience fiction writerwriternovelistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays.
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John Marley
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actor
- Biography
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John Marley was an American actor who was known for his role as Phil Cavalleri in Love Story and as Jack Woltz— the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head of his prized horse in his bed—in The Godfather (1972). He starred in John Cassavetes' feature Faces (1968) and appeared in The Glitter Dome (1984).
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Barnett Newman
- Occupations
- graphic artistsculptorillustratorpainterprintmaker
- Biography
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Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters. His paintings are existential in tone and content, explicitly composed with the intention of communicating a sense of locality, presence, and contingency.
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Sam Jaffe
- Occupations
- actorengineertelevision actorstage actorfilm actor
- Biography
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Shalom "Sam" Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician, and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and appeared in other classic films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959). He is also remembered for other outstanding performances such as the title role in Gunga Din (1939) and the High Lama in Lost Horizon (1937).
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Samuel R. Delany
- Occupations
- essayistnovelistauthorwriterscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Samuel R. Delany, born April 1, 1942, nicknamed "Chip", is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays (on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society).
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Lewis Mumford
- Occupations
- historianhistorian of technologyphilosopherarchitectural theoreticianscreenwriter
- Biography
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Lewis Mumford was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford made signal contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history and the history of technology. He was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford. Mumford was also a contemporary and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, Clarence Stein, Frederic Osborn, Edmund N. Bacon, and Vannevar Bush.
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Larry Cohen
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm producerfilm director
- Biography
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Lawrence George Cohen was an American screenwriter, producer, and director of film and television, best known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s, such as It's Alive (1974), God Told Me To (1976), It Lives Again (1978), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987). He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Bone (1972), Black Caesar, and Hell Up in Harlem (both 1973). Later on he concentrated mainly on screenwriting, including Phone Booth (2002), Cellular (2004) and Captivity (2007).
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Solomon Asch
- Occupations
- psychologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Solomon Eliot Asch was a Polish-American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. He created seminal pieces of work in impression formation, prestige suggestion, conformity, and many other topics. His work follows a common theme of Gestalt psychology that the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but the nature of the whole fundamentally alters the parts. Asch stated: "Most social acts have to be understood in their setting, and lose meaning if isolated. No error in thinking about social facts is more serious than the failure to see their place and function" (Asch, 1952, p. 61). Asch is most well known for his conformity experiments, in which he demonstrated the influence of group pressure on opinions. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Asch as the 41st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
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Walter Mosley
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm producernovelistchildren's writerscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California; they are perhaps his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
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Rosalind Cash
- Occupations
- film actoractorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Rosalind Theresa Cash was an American actress. Her best-known film role is in the 1971 science-fiction film The Omega Man. Cash also had another notable role as Mary Mae Ward in ABC's General Hospital, a role she portrayed from 1994 until her death in 1995.
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Michael Parenti
- Occupations
- political scientisthistorianjournalist
- Biography
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Michael John Parenti is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and is a leading intellectual of the American Left.
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Bernard Malamud
- Occupations
- university teachernovelistwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer (also filmed), about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Leonard Kleinrock
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- 1951-1957 graduated with Bachelor of Electrical Engineering
- Occupations
- mathematicianprofessorcomputer scientistpatent inventor
- Biography
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Leonard Kleinrock is an American computer scientist. A professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, he made several important contributions to the field of computer science, in particular to the theoretical foundations of data communication in computer networking.
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Julian Schwinger
- Occupations
- nuclear physicistmathematiciannon-fiction writertheoretical physicistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Julian Seymour Schwinger was a Nobel Prize winning American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED), in particular for developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory, and for renormalizing QED to one loop order. Schwinger was a physics professor at several universities.
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Maurice Ashley
- Occupations
- chess playernon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Maurice Ashley is a Jamaican-American chess player, author, and commentator. In 1999, he earned the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM), making him the first black person to do so.
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Abraham Beame
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Abraham David Beame was the 104th mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977. As mayor, he presided over the city during its fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy.
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Robert Aumann
- Occupations
- pedagogueprofessoreconomistmathematician
- Biography
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Robert John Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He also holds a visiting position at Stony Brook University, and is one of the founding members of the Stony Brook Center for Game Theory.
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Andy Mineo
- Occupations
- record producerrappertelevision directorcomposer
- Biography
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Andrew Aaron Mineo, is an American Christian hip hop artist, producer, music executive, and video director based in New York City. He is signed to Reach Records and his creative initiative Miner League. In addition to his solo work, he is a member of Reach Records' hip hop collective 116 Clique.
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Daniel Bell
- Occupations
- writercomputer scientistjournalistuniversity teachersociologist
- Biography
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Daniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era". His three best known works are The End of Ideology, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.
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David Wechsler
- Occupations
- psychologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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David Wechsler was a Romanian-American psychologist. He developed well-known intelligence scales, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Wechsler as the 51st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
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Irving Kristol
- Occupations
- journalistpoliticianpublisherphilosophersociologist
- Biography
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Irving Kristol was an American journalist who was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism". As a founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the last half of the twentieth century. After his death, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as being "perhaps the most consequential public intellectual of the latter half of the century".
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Alexander Lowen
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1930 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- psychotherapist
- Biography
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Alexander Lowen was an American physician and psychotherapist.
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Leon M. Lederman
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicist
- Biography
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Leon Max Lederman was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, along with Martin Lewis Perl, for research on quarks and leptons. Lederman was director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, where he was Resident Scholar Emeritus from 2012 until his death in 2018.
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Arno Allan Penzias
- Occupations
- astronomerphysicist
- Biography
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Arno Allan Penzias is an American physicist, radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory of cosmology.
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Faith Ringgold
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- In 1959 graduated with Master of Arts
- Occupations
- illustratorpaintervisual artistperformance artistsculptor
- Biography
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Faith Ringgold is an American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts.
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Arthur Kornberg
- Occupations
- academicbiochemistuniversity teachernon-fiction writerchemist
- Biography
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Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)" together with Spanish biochemist and physician Severo Ochoa of New York University. He was also awarded the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1951, L.H.D. degree from Yeshiva University in 1962, as well as National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1991, Kornberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the Gairdner Foundation Award in 1995.
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Herb Stempel
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied study of history
- Occupations
- military personnel
- Biography
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Herbert Milton Stempel was an American television game show contestant and subsequent whistleblower on the fraudulent nature of the industry, in what became known as the 1950s quiz show scandals. His rigged six-week appearance as a winning contestant on the 1950s show Twenty-One ended in an equally rigged defeat by Columbia University teacher and literary scion Charles Van Doren.
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William Klein
- Occupations
- film directorphotographerdirectorscreenwriterfilmmaker
- Biography
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William Klein is an American-born French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was ranked 25th on Professional Photographer's list of 100 most influential photographers.
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Emmett J. Rice
- Occupations
- economistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Emmett John Rice was a governor of the Federal Reserve System, a Cornell University economics professor, an expert in the monetary systems of developing countries, and the father of President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor, Susan E. Rice.
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William Lombardy
- Occupations
- chess playernon-fiction writerpriesttheologian
- Biography
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William James Joseph Lombardy was an American chess grandmaster, chess writer, teacher, and former Catholic priest. He was one of the leading American chess players during the 1950s and 1960s, and a contemporary of Bobby Fischer, whom he seconded during the World Chess Championship 1972. He won the World Junior Championship in 1957, the only person to win that tournament with a perfect score. Lombardy led the U.S. Student Team to Gold in the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad.
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Red Holzman
- Occupations
- basketball coachbasketball playercoach
- Biography
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William "Red" Holzman was an American professional basketball player and coach. He is best known as the head coach of the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1967 to 1982. Holzman helped lead the Knicks to two NBA championships in 1970 and 1973, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1986.
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Julie Bovasso
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1948-1951
- Occupations
- stage actorfilm actorwritertelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Julia Anne Bovasso was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.
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Ned Glass
- Occupations
- film actoractorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Nusyn "Ned" Glass was a Polish-born American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and on television more than one hundred times, frequently playing nervous, cowardly, or deceitful characters. Short and bald, with a slight hunch to his shoulders, he was immediately recognizable by his distinct appearance, his nasal voice, and his pronounced New York City accent.
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Ray Simpson
- Occupations
- actorsinger
- Biography
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Ray Simpson is an American singer best known as a former lead singer and "Cop" of the disco super-group Village People, having been in that role for over 30 years. In August 1979, he replaced original lead singer, Victor Willis as the Cop, a role he would fill until 1982, and again from 1987 until Willis' return in 2017. Simpson had been doing backup singing for Village People in its first years, which is why he was recruited (on very short notice) to join the group when Willis left.
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Robert Hofstadter
- Occupations
- university teacherphysicistastrophysicistnuclear physicist
- Biography
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Robert Hofstadter was an American physicist. He was the joint winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons".
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John O'Keefe
- Occupations
- psychologistuniversity teacherneurologist
- Biography
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John O'Keefe, is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist and a professor at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and the Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College London. He discovered place cells in the hippocampus, and that they show a specific kind of temporal coding in the form of theta phase precession. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014, together with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser; he has received several other awards. He has worked at University College London for his entire career, but also held a part-time chair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the behest of his Norwegian collaborators, the Mosers.
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Alphonse Mouzon
- Occupations
- composeractorjazz musician
- Biography
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Alphonse Lee Mouzon was an American jazz fusion drummer and the owner of Tenacious Records, a label that primarily released Mouzon's recordings. He was a composer, arranger, producer, and actor. He gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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George Koval
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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George Abramovich Koval was an American who acted as a Soviet intelligence officer for the Soviet atomic bomb project. Koval's infiltration of the Manhattan Project as a GRU (Soviet military intelligence) agent reduced the time it took for Russia to develop nuclear weapons.
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Morton Sobell
- Occupations
- engineerspy
- Biography
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Morton Sobell was an American engineer and Soviet spy during and after World War II; he was charged as part of a conspiracy which included Julius Rosenberg and his wife. Sobell worked on military and government contracts with General Electric and Reeves Instrument Corporation in the 1940s, including during World War II. Sobell was tried and convicted of espionage in 1951 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
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Jean Toomer
- Occupations
- playwrightwriternovelistteacherpoet
- Biography
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Jean Toomer was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and modernism. His reputation stems from his novel Cane (1923), which Toomer wrote during and after a stint as a school principal at a black school in rural Sparta, Georgia. The novel intertwines the stories of six women and includes an apparently autobiographical thread; sociologist Charles S. Johnson called it "the most astonishingly brilliant beginning of any Negro writer of his generation". He resisted being classified as a Negro writer, as he identified as "American". For more than a decade Toomer was an influential follower and representative of the pioneering spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. Later in life he took up Quakerism.
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Mitchell Feigenbaum
- Occupations
- mathematicianuniversity teacherphysicist
- Biography
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Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum was an American mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants.
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Michael Kidd
- Occupations
- choreographeractortheatrical directordancerfilm director
- Biography
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Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.
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Reuben Fine
- Occupations
- chess playernon-fiction writerpsychologistacademic
- Biography
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Reuben C. Fine was an American chess player, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology. He was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the mid-1930s until his retirement from chess in 1951. He was granted the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1950, when titles were introduced.
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Persi Diaconis
- Occupations
- statisticianmathematicianuniversity teacheracademicmagician
- Biography
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Persi Warren Diaconis is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician. He is a Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University.
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Henry Morgenthau
- Occupations
- entrepreneurlawyerdiplomat
- Biography
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Henry Morgenthau was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans who spoke about the Greek genocide and the Armenian genocide of which he stated, "I am firmly convinced that this is the greatest crime of the ages".
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Julius Axelrod
- Occupations
- biochemistchemistscientistpharmacologistneuroscientist
- Biography
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Julius Axelrod was an American biochemist. He won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 along with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. The Nobel Committee honored him for his work on the release and reuptake of catecholamine neurotransmitters, a class of chemicals in the brain that include epinephrine, norepinephrine, and, as was later discovered, dopamine. Axelrod also made major contributions to the understanding of the pineal gland and how it is regulated during the sleep-wake cycle.
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Norman Spinrad
- Occupations
- journalisttrade unionistnovelistwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards.
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Mordecai Kaplan
- Occupations
- philosopheressayistrabbiuniversity teacherdiarist
- Biography
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Mordecai Menahem Kaplan, was a Lithuanian-born American rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian, philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist branch of Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein. He has been described as a "towering figure" in the recent history of Judaism for his influential work in adapting it to modern society, contending that Judaism should be a unifying and creative force by stressing the cultural and historical character of the religion as well as theological doctrine.
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Edward Kasner
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- 1891-1896 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
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Edward Kasner was an American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jewish person appointed to a faculty position in the sciences at Columbia University. Subsequently, he became an adjunct professor in 1906, and a full professor in 1910, at the university. Differential geometry was his main field of study. In addition to introducing the term "googol", he is known also for the Kasner metric and the Kasner polygon.
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George Washington Goethals
- Occupations
- engineercivil engineermilitary officer
- Biography
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George Washington Goethals was a United States Army General and civil engineer, best known for his administration and supervision of the construction and the opening of the Panama Canal. He was the State Engineer of New Jersey and the Acting Quartermaster General of the United States Army.
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Marvin Kalb
- Occupations
- news presentertelevision presenterjournalist
- Biography
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Marvin Leonard Kalb is an American journalist. Kalb was the founding director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. The Shorenstein Center and the Kennedy School are part of Harvard University. He is currently a James Clark Welling Fellow at George Washington University and a member of the Atlantic Community Advisory Board. He is a guest scholar in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution.
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Robert Ferdinand Wagner
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1898
- Occupations
- judgelawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Robert Ferdinand Wagner I was an American politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Senator from New York from 1927 to 1949.
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John Johnson
- Occupations
- reporterfilmmakertelevision presenter
- Biography
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John Johnson is an American television anchorman, senior correspondent, documentary filmmaker and artist. He was a reporter on New York City television news for many years.
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Oscar Lewis
- Occupations
- university teacheranthropologist
- Biography
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Oscar Lewis, born Lefkowitz was an American anthropologist. He is best known for his vivid depictions of the lives of slum dwellers and his argument that a cross-generational culture of poverty transcends national boundaries. Lewis contended that the cultural similarities occurred because they were "common adaptations to common problems" and that "the culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the poor classes to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individualistic, capitalistic society." He won the 1967 U.S. National Book Award in Science, Philosophy and Religion for La vida: a Puerto Rican family in the culture of poverty--San Juan and New York.
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Jean Nidetch
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Jean Evelyn Nidetch was an American business entrepreneur who was the founder of the Weight Watchers organization.
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Emil Leon Post
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1917
- Occupations
- university teacherphilosopherlogicianmathematician
- Biography
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Emil Leon Post was an American mathematician and logician. He is best known for his work in the field that eventually became known as computability theory.
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William Gibson
- Occupations
- playwrightwriternovelistscreenwriterpoet
- Biography
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William Gibson was an American playwright and novelist. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for The Miracle Worker in 1959, which he later adapted for the film version in 1962.
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Ben Shneiderman
- Enrolled in CUNY City College
- Studied in 1964-1968
- Occupations
- engineercomputer scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Ben Shneiderman is an American computer scientist, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the founding director (1983-2000) of the University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab. He conducted fundamental research in the field of human–computer interaction, developing new ideas, methods, and tools such as the direct manipulation interface, and his eight rules of design.
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Gail Carson Levine
- Occupations
- children's writerwriter
- Biography
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Gail Carson Levine is an American author of young adult books. Her second novel, Ella Enchanted, received a Newbery Honor in 1998.
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Steve Lappas
- Occupations
- basketball coachbasketball player
- Biography
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Stephan Thomas Lappas is an American former college basketball coach. He coached at Manhattan (1988–1992), Villanova (1992–2001) and UMass (2001–2005), compiling a 280–237 (.542) record over a 17-year coaching career. He is currently a basketball color commentator and studio analyst for CBS Sports Network.
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Robert Scheer
- Occupations
- columnistuniversity teacherjournalistcommunication scholar
- Biography
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Robert Scheer is an American journalist who has written for Ramparts, the Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Hustler Magazine, Truthdig, Scheerpost and other publications as well as having written many books. His column for Truthdig was nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. Scheer is the former editor in-chief for the Webby Award-winning online magazine Truthdig. For many years, he co-hosted the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program Left, Right & Center on National Public Radio (NPR), produced at public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica. The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Scheer the 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Award for his column.
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Irving Howe
- Occupations
- journalisthistorianwriteruniversity teacherliterary critic
- Biography
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Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.
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Daniel Goldin
- Occupations
- businesspersonengineerpolitician
- Biography
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Daniel Saul Goldin served as the 9th and longest-tenured Administrator of NASA from April 1, 1992, to November 17, 2001. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and also served under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is an entrepreneur and technologist. Most recently he is the founder of Cold Canyon AI, an innovation advisory company. His career has spanned numerous technologies and businesses in space science, aeronautics, national security, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence.
