100 Notable alumni of
Pomona College
Updated:
Pomona College is 411th in the world, 165th in North America, and 154th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Pomona 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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Kris Kristofferson
- Occupations
- film actorguitaristcomposersinger-songwriterrecording artist
- Biography
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Kristoffer Kristofferson is an American retired country singer, songwriter, and actor. Among his songwriting credits are "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", all of which were hits for other artists.
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Richard Chamberlain
- Occupations
- autobiographertelevision actoractorstage actortheatrical director
- Biography
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George Richard Chamberlain is an American actor and singer who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show Dr. Kildare (1961–1966). He subsequently appeared in several miniseries, such as Shōgun (1980) and The Thorn Birds (1983) and was the first to play Jason Bourne in the 1988 television film The Bourne Identity. Chamberlain has also performed classical stage roles and worked in musical theatre.
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Marianne Williamson
- Occupations
- peace activistwriterphilanthropistpoliticianinternational forum participant
- Biography
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Marianne Deborah Williamson is an American author, speaker, and politician. She began her professional career as spiritual leader of the Church of Today, a Unity Church in Warren, Michigan. Williamson has written several self-help books, including A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles in 1992, which became a New York Times Best Seller. She was launched into prominence by Oprah Winfrey, being a frequent guest on her daytime talk show and becoming known as her "spiritual advisor".
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Jason Beghe
- Occupations
- actorfilm actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Jason Deneen Beghe is an American actor. Since 2014, he has starred in the NBC TV series Chicago P.D. as Sergeant Hank Voight. He is also known for starring in the 1988 George A. Romero film Monkey Shines, playing Demi Moore's love interest in G.I. Jane, appearing as a police officer in the film Thelma & Louise, starring opposite Moira Kelly in the television series To Have & to Hold, and having recurring roles on Picket Fences, Melrose Place, Chicago Hope, American Dreams, Cane, and Californication.
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Amanda Blake
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Amanda Blake was an American actress best known for the role of the red-haired saloon proprietress "Miss Kitty Russell" on the western television series Gunsmoke. Along with her fourth husband, Frank Gilbert, she ran one of the first successful programs for breeding cheetahs in captivity.
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Roy E. Disney
- Occupations
- cinematographerscreenwriterbusiness executiveexecutive produceranimator
- Biography
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Roy Edward Disney KCSG was an American businessman. He was the longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, which was founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his father, Roy O. Disney. At the time of his death, he held more than 16 million shares (about 1% of the company), and served as a consultant for the company, as director emeritus for the board of directors. During his tenure, he organized the ousting of two top Disney executives: Ron W. Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005.
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Robert Taylor
- Occupations
- television actoraircraft pilotactorfilm actor
- Biography
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Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor and singer who was one of the most popular leading men of cinema.
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Joel McCrea
- Occupations
- actorfilm actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known.
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Jennifer Doudna
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- In 1985 graduated with bachelor's degree in chemistry
- Occupations
- university teacherinternational forum participantmolecular biologistchemistcrystallographer
- Biography
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Jennifer Anne Doudna is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a Nobel in the sciences. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Emmanuelle Charpentier, "for the development of a method for genome editing." She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997.
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Rosalind Chao
- Occupations
- television actorvoice actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Rosalind Chao is an American actress. Chao's best-known roles have been Soon-Lee Klinger in the mid-1980s CBS show AfterMASH, Rose Hsu Jordan in the 1993 movie The Joy Luck Club, the recurring character Keiko O'Brien on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the 1990s, and Dr. Kim on The O.C. in 2003. She played Hua Li, Mulan's mother, in the live-action 2020 remake of Mulan.
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FanFan
- Occupations
- recording artistcomposersingeractor
- Biography
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Christine Fan, better known by her stage name FanFan or her Mandarin name Fan Wei-chi, is a Taiwanese-American singer-songwriter, TV presenter, record producer, actress, author and philanthropist. She sings mostly in Mandarin, but has also recorded in English. A popular singer, she has 3 million followers on Facebook and over 47 million fans on the Chinese portal Sina Weibo. She speaks Mandarin fluently but is also proficient in English.
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Anthony Zerbe
- Occupations
- film actorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Anthony Jared Zerbe is an American actor. His notable film roles include the post-apocalyptic cult leader Matthias in The Omega Man, a 1971 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend; as an Irish Catholic coal miner and one of the Molly Maguires in the 1970 film The Molly Maguires; as a corrupt gambler in Farewell, My Lovely; as the leper colony chief Toussaint in the 1973 historical drama prison film Papillon; as Abner Devereaux in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park; as villain Milton Krest in the James Bond film Licence to Kill; Rosie in The Turning Point; Roger Stuart in The Dead Zone; Admiral Dougherty in Star Trek: Insurrection; and Councillor Hamann in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
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Mike Budenholzer
- Occupations
- basketball playerbasketball coach
- Biography
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Michael Vincent Budenholzer is an American professional basketball coach who was most recently head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association, with which he won an NBA title in 2020–21 during his coaching stint from 2018–2023. Before joining the Bucks, he spent five seasons as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks and 19 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, serving as an alternate video coordinator for the first two seasons and then as an assistant coach behind head coach Gregg Popovich. As a protégé of Gregg Popovich, Budenholzer is, similar to his mentor, commonly referred to by other coaches, players and media as "Bud" or "Coach Bud".
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James Turrell
- Occupations
- photographerpsychologistmathematicianinstallation artistenvironmental artist
- Biography
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James Turrell is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, Roden Crater, a natural cinder cone crater located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, that he is turning into a massive naked-eye observatory; and for his series of skyspaces, enclosed spaces that frame the sky.
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Brian Schatz
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- In 1994 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in philosophy
- Occupations
- chief executive officerpoliticianteacher
- Biography
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Brian Emanuel Schatz is an American educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Hawaii, a seat he has held since 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, Schatz served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 1998 to 2006, representing the 25th legislative district; as the chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii from 2008 to 2010; and as the 12th lieutenant governor of Hawaii from 2010 to 2012.
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Robert Towne
- Occupations
- actorfilm directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Robert Towne is an American screenwriter and director. He started with writing films for Roger Corman including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Later, he was a part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He wrote the Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), and the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975). He has collaborated with Tom Cruise on the films Days of Thunder (1990), The Firm (1993) and the first two installments of Mission: Impossible franchise (1996, 2000).
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Twyla Tharp
- Occupations
- dancerchoreographerballet dancerwriter
- Biography
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Twyla Tharp is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music.
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Hashim Djojohadikusumo
- Occupations
- international forum participantentrepreneur
- Biography
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Hashim Djojohadikusumo is an Indonesian entrepreneur and politician.
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Will Hutchins
- Occupations
- television actoractor
- Biography
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Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster, in the Western television series Sugarfoot, which aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961 for 69 episodes.
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Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Occupations
- civil rights advocatejournalistscreenwriter
- Biography
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Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her husband Medgar Evers, another civil rights activist. She also served as chairwoman of the NAACP, and published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband's legacy. On January 21, 2013, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.
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Seraphim Rose
- Occupations
- religious writerhieromonk
- Biography
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Seraphim Rose, also known as Seraphim of Platina, was an American hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia who co-founded the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California. He translated Eastern Orthodox Christian texts and authored several works (some of them considered polemical). His writings have been credited with helping to spread Eastern Orthodox Christianity throughout the West; his popularity equally extended to Russia itself, where his works were secretly reproduced and distributed by samizdat during the Communist era, remaining popular today.
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Alan Cranston
- Occupations
- journalistpoliticianathletics competitor
- Biography
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Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American politician and journalist who served as a United States Senator from California from 1969 to 1993, and as a President of the World Federalist Association from 1949 to 1952.
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Ted Field
- Occupations
- film producerracing automobile driverentrepreneur
- Biography
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Frederick Woodruff "Ted" Field is an American media mogul, record executive, entrepreneur and film producer.
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George C. Wolfe
- Occupations
- theatrical directorfilm directorplaywright
- Biography
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George Costello Wolfe is an American playwright and director of theater and film. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk. He served as Artistic Director of The Public Theater from 1993 until 2004.
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Bernard Charnwut Chan
- Occupations
- justice of the peacemerchantinternational forum participantpolitician
- Biography
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Bernard Charnwut Chan GBM GBS JP, is a Hong Kong politician and businessman. He served as Non-official Convenor of the Executive Council from 2017 to 2022.
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Rick Strassman
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- 1969-1971 studied zoology
- Occupations
- writerpsychiatrist
- Biography
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Rick Strassman is an American clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He has held a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology research at the University of California San Diego and was Professor of Psychiatry for eleven years at the University of New Mexico. After 20 years of intermission, Strassman was the first person in the United States to undertake human research with psychedelic, hallucinogenic, or entheogenic substances with his research on N,N-dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. He is also the author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, which summarizes his academic research into DMT and other experimental studies of it, and includes his own reflections and conclusions based on this research.
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David S. Ward
- Occupations
- film directordirectorscreenwriter
- Biography
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David Schad Ward is an American screenwriter and film director. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for his screenplays for the films The Sting (1973) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), winning for the former. He was also nominated for a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Writers Guild of America Awards.
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Paul Fussell
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterliterary criticjournalistliterary historian
- Biography
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Paul Fussell Jr. was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America's class system. Fussell served in the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II and was wounded in fighting in France. Returning to the US, Fussell wrote extensively and held several faculty positions, most prominently at Rutgers University (1955–1983) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1983–1994). He is best known for his writings about World War I and II, which explore what he felt was the gap between the romantic myth and reality of war; he made a "career out of refusing to disguise it or elevate it".
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Sylvain White
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm director
- Biography
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Sylvain White is a French film director and screenwriter.
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Ashlee Vance
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- 1996-2000 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy
- Occupations
- writerjournalist
- Biography
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Ashlee Vance is an American reporter, writer and filmmaker. He wrote a biography of Elon Musk, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, that was released on May 19, 2015.
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David Murray
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- Studied in 1977-1979
- Occupations
- clarinetistfilm actorjazz musiciancomposersaxophonist
- Biography
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David Keith Murray is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who performs mostly on tenor and bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s. He lives in New York City.
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Norris Bradbury
- Occupations
- physicistnuclear physicist
- Biography
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Norris Edwin Bradbury, was an American physicist who served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years from 1945 to 1970. He succeeded Robert Oppenheimer, who personally chose Bradbury for the position of director after working closely with him on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Bradbury was in charge of the final assembly of "the Gadget", detonated in July 1945 for the Trinity test.
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Mrs. Miller
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
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Elva Ruby Miller, who recorded under the name Mrs. Miller, was an American singer who gained some fame in the 1960s for her series of shrill and off-tempo renditions of popular songs such as "Moon River", "Monday, Monday", "A Lover's Concerto" and "Downtown". An untrained mezzo-soprano, she sang in a heavy, vibrato-laden style; according to Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace in The Book of Lists 2, Miller's voice was compared to the sound of "roaches scurrying across a trash can lid."
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Mary GrandPré
- Occupations
- designerwriterdrawerillustrator
- Biography
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Mary GrandPré is an American illustrator best known for her cover and chapter illustrations of the Harry Potter books in their U.S. editions published by Scholastic. She received a Caldecott Honor in 2015 for illustrating Barb Rosenstock's The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art. GrandPré, who creates her artwork with paint and pastels, has illustrated more than twenty books and has appeared in gallery exhibitions and periodicals such as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal.
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James H. Howard
- Occupations
- military officeraircraft pilot
- Biography
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James Howell Howard was a general in the United States Air Force and the only fighter pilot in the European Theater of Operations in World War II to receive the Medal of Honor — the United States military's highest decoration. Howard was an ace in two operational theaters during World War II, with six kills over Asia with the Flying Tigers of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in the Pacific, and six kills over Europe with the United States Army Air Forces. CBS commentator Andy Rooney, then a wartime reporter for Stars and Stripes, called Howard's exploits "the greatest fighter pilot story of World War II". In later life, Howard was a successful businessman, author, and airport director.
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Laszlo Bock
- Years
- 1972-.. (age 52)
- Occupations
- human resource managerwriteradvisor
- Biography
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Laszlo Bock is a Romanian-born Hungarian American businessman, who is co-founder and former CEO of Humu. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, Inc.
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Stephen Reinhardt
- Occupations
- judge
- Biography
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Stephen Roy Reinhardt was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in Los Angeles, California. He was the last federal appeals court judge in active service to have been appointed to his position by President Jimmy Carter.
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Cristina Garcia
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Cristina Garcia is an American educator and politician who served in the California State Assembly. She is a Democrat who represented the 58th Assembly District, which encompassed parts of southeastern Los Angeles County, including her home city of Bell Gardens. She had served in the Assembly since 2012.
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Bill Keller
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Bill Keller is an American journalist. He was the founding editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit that reports on criminal justice in the United States. Previously, he was a columnist for The New York Times, and served as the paper's executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, he announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer. Jill Abramson replaced him as executive editor.
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Darlene Hard
- Occupations
- tennis player
- Biography
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Darlene Ruth Hard was an American professional tennis player, known for her aggressive volleying ability and strong serves. She captured singles titles at the French Championships in 1960 and the U.S. Championships in 1960 and 1961.
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Virginia Prince
- Occupations
- chemistLGBTQI+ rights activistnon-fiction writer
- Biography
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Virginia Charles Prince, born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender activist. She published Transvestia magazine, and started the Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE) and later the Society for the Second Self for male heterosexual cross-dressers.
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David Keirsey
- Occupations
- academicuniversity teachernon-fiction writerpsychologist
- Biography
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David West Keirsey was an American psychologist, a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of several books. In his most popular publications, Please Understand Me (1978, co-authored by Marilyn Bates) and the revised and expanded second volume Please Understand Me II (1998), he laid out a self-assessed personality questionnaire, known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which links human behavioral patterns to four temperaments and sixteen character types. Both volumes of Please Understand Me contain the questionnaire for type evaluation with detailed portraits and a systematic treatment of descriptions of temperament traits and personality characteristics. With a focus on conflict management and cooperation, Keirsey specialized in family and partnership counseling and the coaching of children and adults.
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David Ossman
- Occupations
- novelistvoice actortelevision actorcomedianpoet
- Biography
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David Ossman is an American writer and comedian, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre and screenwriter of such films as Zachariah.
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Mac Barnett
- Occupations
- children's writerwriter
- Biography
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Mac Barnett is an American writer of children's books living in Oakland, California. He was born in Castro Valley, California but grew up in Castro Valley and Oakland.
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William Irwin Thompson
- Occupations
- historianwriteruniversity teachermythographerphilosopher
- Biography
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William Irwin Thompson was an American social philosopher, cultural critic, and poet. He received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He described his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient texts". He was the founder of the Lindisfarne Association, which proposed the study and realization of a new planetary culture.
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Judd Legum
- Occupations
- political stafferjournalistlawyer
- Biography
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Judd Legum is an American journalist, lawyer, and political staffer.
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Chris Cain
- Occupations
- jazz guitaristcomposerjazz musicianguitarist
- Biography
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Chris Cain is an American blues musician.
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Michelle Moran
- Occupations
- novelist
- Biography
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Michelle Moran is an American novelist known for her historical fiction writing.
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Jennifer Phang
- Occupations
- film directordirectorscreenwriterfilm producerfilm editor
- Biography
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Jennifer Phang is an American filmmaker (writer, director, producer), most known for her feature films Advantageous (2015) and Half-Life (2008). Advantageous premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning a Special Jury Award for Collaborative Vision, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name. Half-Life premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and won "Best Film" awards at a number of film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (now known as CAAMFest) as well an "Emerging Director Award" at the Asian American International Film Festival.
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Chris Strachwitz
- Occupations
- record producer
- Biography
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Christian Alexander Maria Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche und Camminetz was a German-born American record label executive and record producer. He was the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he established in 1960 and which became one of the leading labels recording and issuing blues, Cajun, norteño, and other forms of roots music from the United States and elsewhere in the world. Strachwitz despised most commercial music as mouse music.
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John Stephens
- Years
- 1972-.. (age 52)
- Occupations
- executive producerscreenwritertelevision producertelevision director
- Biography
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John Stephens is an American television producer, screenwriter and director best known for his work on The O.C., Gilmore Girls and Gotham.
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Jay Bernstein
- Occupations
- film producerbusinesspersontelevision producer
- Biography
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Jay Bernstein was an American producer and manager to actors, such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Michael Landon, and to actresses, such as Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers.
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Linda G. Alvarado
- Occupations
- restaurateur
- Biography
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Linda Alvarado is President and Chief Executive Officer of Alvarado Construction, Inc., a large commercial and industrial general contracting/site management and design/build firm in Denver, Colorado. She is also President of Palo Alto, Inc. (a restaurant company), co-owner of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, and currently a member of the board of 3M.
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George H. Wu
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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George Howping Wu is an American senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
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Jane Chen
- Years
- 1978-.. (age 46)
- Occupations
- international forum participantentrepreneur
- Biography
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Jane Marie Chen is the co-founder of Embrace, a social enterprise startup that produces a low-cost infant warmer, that gives premature and low-birth-weight infants a better chance at survival.
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Don Daglow
- Occupations
- engineergame programmergame designer
- Biography
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Don Daglow is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. He is best known for being the creator of early games from several different genres, including pioneering simulation game Utopia for Intellivision in 1981, role-playing game Dungeon in 1975, sports games including the first interactive computer baseball game Baseball in 1971, and the first graphical MMORPG, Neverwinter Nights in 1991. He founded long-standing game developer Stormfront Studios in 1988.
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Daniel Ziblatt
- Years
- 1972-.. (age 52)
- Occupations
- political scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Daniel Ziblatt is an American political scientist who has been Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University since 2018.
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Jimmy Rogers
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- Studied in 1935
- Occupations
- rancheractorfilm actor
- Biography
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James Blake Rogers, commonly known as Jimmy (also spelled Jimmie), was an American actor. He played Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick in six films. Rogers was also a horse rancher, polo player, and newspaperman. He was the family representative on the Will Rogers Memorial Commission, and worked with the staff at the Will Rogers State Historic Park.
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James Miller
- Years
- 1947-.. (age 77)
- Occupations
- historianwriterphilosopherlinguist
- Biography
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James Miller is an American writer and academic. He is known for writing about Michel Foucault, philosophy as a way of life, social movements, popular culture, intellectual history, eighteenth century to the present; radical social theory and history of political philosophy. He currently teaches at The New School.
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Xiao Guangyan
- Occupations
- chemist
- Biography
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Xiaoguang Yan was a Chinese petrochemist who researched catalysts used in petroleum processing. He was born in Japan to Chinese parents. When he was young, he moved to the United States to study and work, earning a B.A. in chemistry from Pomona College in 1942 after transferring from Pasadena City College in 1940, and later a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He returned to China in 1951 after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. He became one of the pioneers of petrochemical research in the PRC, researching various catalysts for hydrocracking, hydroisomerization, and other petroleum processing techniques. He fell out of favor during the Cultural Revolution and committed suicide in 1968 along with his wife and daughter, but was posthumously rehabilitated in 1972.
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Halim Dhanidia
- Occupations
- judge
- Biography
-
Halim Dhanidina is an American lawyer and former judge from California. As of April 1, 2022, is a partner at the criminal defense firm of Werksman Jackson & Quinn LLP in Los Angeles. He was a justice of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District. Appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court bench by Governor Jerry Brown in 2012, he is the first Muslim to ever be appointed judge in California. He is an Ismaili Shiite of Gujarati Indian heritage, his parents immigrating from Tanzania.
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Ed Krupp
- Occupations
- astronomeranthropologist
- Biography
-
Edwin Charles Krupp is an American astronomer, researcher, author, and popularizer of science. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of archaeoastronomy, the study of how ancient cultures viewed the sky and how those views affected their cultures. He has taught at the college level, as a planetarium lecturer, and in various documentary films. He has been the director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles since first taking over the position in 1974 after the departure of the previous director, William J. Kaufmann III. His writings include science papers and journal articles, astronomy magazine articles, books on astronomy and archaeoastronomy for adults, and books explaining sky phenomena and astronomy to children.
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Will Leer
- Occupations
- athletics competitor
- Biography
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Will Leer is an American mid-distance runner. He graduated from Pomona College in Claremont, California in May 2007. Leer has represented the United States in international competition.
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Esther Brimmer
- Years
- 1961-.. (age 63)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Esther Diane Brimmer is an American foreign policy expert and former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. In June 2013, she left her post as Assistant Secretary and returned to academia.
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John Coleman Burroughs
- Years
- 1913-1979 (aged 66)
- Occupations
- illustrator
- Biography
-
John Coleman Burroughs was an American illustrator known for his illustrations of the works of his father, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
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Kimberly J. Mueller
- Occupations
- politicianjudgelawyer
- Biography
-
Kimberly Jo Mueller is the chief United States district judge of the Sacramento division of United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. She is the first female district judge to serve in the Eastern District.
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Melissa Jo Peltier
- Years
- 20th Century
- Occupations
- film producerwriter
- Biography
-
Melissa Jo Peltier is a New York-based American producer and author. She produced, wrote and directed the 1994 A&E documentary mini-series Titanic: Death of a Dream and Titanic: The Legend Lives On, the show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan. She has also co-authored five books with Millan on the subject of raising and training dogs. In 2013, she published her first novel, entitled Reality Boulevard.
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Richard G. Taranto
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
-
Richard Gary Taranto is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
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R. Stanton Avery
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- Studied in 1926-1932
- Occupations
- inventorbusinesspersonengineer
- Biography
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R. Stanton Avery was an American inventor, most known for creating self-adhesive labels (modern stickers). Using a $100 loan from his then-fiancé Dorothy Durfee, and combining used machine parts with a saber saw, he created and patented the world's first self-adhesive (also called pressure sensitive) die-cut labeling machine. In 1935, he founded what is now the Avery Dennison Corporation.
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Hugh Simons Gibson
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
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Hugh Simons Gibson was an American diplomat. He was actively involved in disarmament talks from 1925 to 1932. Throughout his career, he remained a leading proponent in the drive to establish a professional Foreign Service based on merit rather than personal wealth or political influence.
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Betty Fussell
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
-
Betty Ellen Fussell is an American writer and is the author of 12 books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history and memoir. Over the last 50 years, her essays on food, travel and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers as varied as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Vogue, Food & Wine, Metropolitan Home and Gastronomica. Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Eat Live Love Die, and she is now working on How to Cook a Coyote: A Manual of Survival.
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David Prescott Barrows
- Years
- 1873-1954 (aged 81)
- Occupations
- anthropologist
- Biography
-
David Prescott Barrows was an American anthropologist, explorer, and educator. Born in Chicago in 1874, his family moved to California. He showed a keen interest in the life and customs of Native Americans, and was said to have "spent almost every summer during the period 1890–1899 in research work among the tribes of southern California and in the Colorado Desert." He later became President of the University of California. He traveled extensively, publishing descriptions of his findings in countries such as Morocco and the Philippines.
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Brenda Hillman
- Occupations
- poettranslatorwriteruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Brenda Hillman is an American poet and translator. She is the author of ten collections of poetry: White Dress, Fortress, Death Tractates, Bright Existence, Loose Sugar, Cascadia, Pieces of Air in the Epic, Practical Water, for which she won the LA Times Book Award for Poetry, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry, and Extra Hidden Life, among the Days, which was awarded the Northern California Book Award for Poetry. Among the awards Hillman has received are the 2012 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the 2005 William Carlos Williams Prize for poetry, and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. A professor of Creative Writing, she holds the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry at Saint Mary's College of California, in Moraga, California. Hillman is also involved in non-violent activism as a member of the Code Pink Working Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2016, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
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Julian Nava
- Occupations
- diplomatuniversity teacheracademic
- Biography
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Julian Nava was an American educator and diplomat. A member of the Democratic Party, Nava served as the United States Ambassador to Mexico from 1980 to 1981.
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Aaron Becker
- Occupations
- children's writerwriter
- Biography
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Aaron Becker is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He is best known for his wordless children's book Journey, which received positive reviews in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and a Caldecott Honor in 2014.
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Christina A. Snyder
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Christina Ann Snyder is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
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Andrew Palmer
- Occupations
- racing driver
- Biography
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Andrew Palmer is an American racing driver from Chicago, Illinois. He is a former official Lamborghini GT3 Junior driver and is currently contracted to Bentley Team Absolute. He is most known for winning the inaugural Lamborghini World Championship in 2013. He is also the youngest ever winner in the Pirelli World-Challenge, class winner of the 2015 24 Hours of Daytona, 2015 12 Hours of Sebring, and 2015 Petit Le Mans. With Lamborghini, he recorded their first ever overall win as a manufacturer at Monza in 2015.
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Harry Kingman
- Occupations
- baseball player
- Biography
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Henry Lees "Harry" Kingman was a first baseman in Major League Baseball. He played briefly for the New York Yankees in 1914. In later life, he worked against racial discrimination while working within institutions associated with the University of California, Berkeley and in retirement.
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Tinius Nagell-Erichsen
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- In 1955 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in socioeconomics
- Occupations
- publisherjournalistbusiness executive
- Biography
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Einar Fredrik Åke Tinius Nagell-Erichsen was a Norwegian publisher, noted for his leadership of the Schibsted media conglomerate which includes the broadsheet newspaper Aftenposten and the tabloid Verdens gang.
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Thomas E. Crow
- Occupations
- historianart criticacademicart historianjournalist
- Biography
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Thomas E. Crow is an American art historian and art critic who is best known for his influential writing on the role of art in modern society and culture. Since 2007, Crow has served as the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
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Burton Smith
- Occupations
- computer scientist
- Biography
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Burton J. Smith was an American computer architect. He was a Technical Fellow at Microsoft.
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Katie Hall
- Occupations
- sport cyclist
- Biography
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Katharine Hall is an American former professional cyclist, who rode professionally between 2014 and 2020, for the UnitedHealthcare, and Boels–Dolmans teams.
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Robert Lawson Vaught
- Occupations
- university teachermathematician
- Biography
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Robert Lawson Vaught was a mathematical logician and one of the founders of model theory.
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Sandra Knapp
- Years
- 1956-.. (age 68)
- Occupations
- botanical collectorcuratorbotanistnon-fiction writer
- Biography
-
Sandra Diane Knapp is an American-born botanist. She is a merit researcher of the Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London and from 2018 was the president of the Linnean Society of London. While working at the Natural History Museum, London she has overseen the Flora Mesoamericana inventory of Central American plants. She has published several books on botanical subjects as well as a significant number of scientific articles. In 2016 she was awarded the Linnean Medal. In 2022 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2023 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and was awarded the Engler Medal in Gold by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.
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Garrett Hongo
- Occupations
- university teacherpoet
- Biography
-
Garrett Kaoru Hongo is a Yonsei, fourth-generation Japanese American academic and poet. His work draws on Japanese American history and his own experiences.
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Robert Blalack
- Occupations
- special effects artist
- Biography
-
Robert Blalack was a Panama-born American mass-media visual artist, independent filmmaker, and producer. He is one of the founders of Industrial Light & Magic. Blalack received the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1978 for his work on the first Star Wars film. He also received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in 1984 for his work on the 1983 television film The Day After. Blalack directed experimental films and mixed-media television commercials, and he produced visual effects for theme park rides.
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Kameelah Janan Rasheed
- Occupations
- writerarchivistvisual artist
- Biography
-
Kameelah Janan Rasheed is an American writer, educator, and artist from East Palo Alto, California. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts known for her work in installations, book arts, immersive text-based installations, large-scale public text pieces, publications, collage, and audio recordings. Rasheed's art explores memory, ritual, discursive regimes, historiography, and archival practices through the use of fragments and historical residue. Based in Brooklyn, NY, she is currently the Arts Editor for SPOOK magazine. In 2021 her work was featured in an Art 21 (New York Close Up) documentary, "The Edge of Legibility."
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Eric Friedl
- Occupations
- guitaristsinger-songwriter
- Biography
-
Eric Friedl, also known by his stage name, Eric Oblivian, is a musician and the founder and owner of Goner Records, an independent music label and record store located in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Joe Palca
- Years
- 1953-.. (age 71)
- Occupations
- journalistwriterinternational forum participantoperator
- Biography
-
Joe Palca is an American correspondent for National Public Radio. He specializes in science, and is the backup host for Talk of the Nation Science Friday. Palca was also the president of the National Association of Science Writers from 1999 to 2000. He currently serves on Society for Science & the Public's board of trustees.
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David E. Bell
- Biography
-
David Elliott Bell was a director of the United States' Office of Management and Budget from January 22, 1961, until December 20, 1962, under President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy named him administrator of the Agency for International Development in late 1962. He left government service in 1966 to become the Executive Vice President of the Ford Foundation.
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Clara Breed
- Occupations
- human rights activistlibrarian
- Biography
-
Clara Estelle Breed was an American librarian remembered chiefly for her support for Japanese American children during World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many residents of California who were of Japanese descent were moved to remote Japanese American internment camps where they stayed until the end of the war. Breed kept in communication with many of the children who were sent to the camps, sending reading materials and visiting them regularly.
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Chip Pashayan
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
-
Charles Sahag "Chip" Pashayan Jr. is an American lawyer and politician from California. He served as a Republican Congressman from the Fresno area in California's Central Valley from 1979 to 1991.
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Maya Horgan Famodu
- Years
- 1991-.. (age 33)
- Enrolled in Pomona College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts in ecology
- Occupations
- entrepreneur
- Biography
-
Maya Horgan Famodu is a Nigerian-American entrepreneur, founder and partner at Ingressive, a firm that provides services for firms and businesses expanding into Africa. She also founded Ingressive Capital, a venture capital fund investing in Africa-based technology companies. She co-founded the High Growth Africa Summit, a conference on launching a successful business in Africa, and founded Tech Meets Entertainment Summit, for African celebrities and tech companies to build revenue-generating partnerships. Maya later co-founded Ingressive for Good, a nonprofit providing scholarships, technical training and talent placement for African youths.
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Verne Orr
- Occupations
- military officer
- Biography
-
George Vernon Orr, Jr. was the 14th Secretary of the Air Force, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. From California, he was a businessman and educator who served in both state and national government positions.
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Adam Zbar
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
-
Adam Zbar is a Webby Award-winning Bay Area entrepreneur who is CEO of Sun Basket, a San Francisco-based organic meal kit delivery company, which he co-founded with Chef Justine Kelly. Previously Zbar founded social analytics company Tap11, and same day food delivery service Lasso, which closed when he launched Sun Basket. He was also formerly CEO of micro-blogging service Zannel.
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Marilyn Ramenofsky
- Occupations
- researcherswimmer
- Biography
-
Marilyn Ramenofsky is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder in the 400-meter swim. After 2008, she worked as a researcher at the University of California at Davis, studying the physiology and behavior of bird migration. She previously taught and performed research at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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Henry D. Sokolski
- Years
- 1900-..
- Biography
-
Henry D. Sokolski is the founder and executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank promoting a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policymakers, scholars, and the media. He teaches as an adjunct professor at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., and at the University of Utah and has an appointment as senior fellow for nuclear security studies at the University of California at San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy.
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Denise Moreno Ducheny
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Denise Moreno Ducheny is an American lawyer and former politician from California. She is a former California State Senator who represented Senate District 40, which includes southern San Diego County, part of Riverside County, and all of Imperial County. Ducheny is a Democrat. She lives with her husband, Al, in San Diego, California. She is now a senior policy advisor at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
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Mark Wyland
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Mark Bryan Wyland is a U.S. Republican politician from the state of California, who represented the 38th District in the California State Senate.
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Peter Shelton
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
-
Peter Shelton is a contemporary American sculptor born in 1951 in Troy, Ohio.
