49 Notable alumni of
Rockefeller University
Rockefeller University is 872nd in the world, 327th in North America, and 305th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 49 notable alumni from Rockefeller University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 19 individuals affiliated with Rockefeller University won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine.
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Karl Landsteiner
- Occupations
- physicianhematologistpathologistprofessorimmunologist
- Biography
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Karl Landsteiner was an Austrian biologist, physician, and immunologist. He distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, and in 1937 identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient's life. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926. In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was posthumously awarded the Lasker Award in 1946, and has been described as the father of transfusion medicine.
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Ōsumi Yoshinori
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- Studied in 1974-1977
- Occupations
- biologist
- Biography
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Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist specializing in autophagy, the process that cells use to destroy and recycle cellular components. Ohsumi is a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology's Institute of Innovative Research. He received the Kyoto Prize for Basic Sciences in 2012, the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.
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Robert Sapolsky
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- neurologistbiologistacademicauthorwriter
- Biography
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Robert Morris Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is currently a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In addition, he is a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.
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Manuel Elkin Patarroyo Murillo
- Occupations
- pathologistphysicianimmunologist
- Biography
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Manuel Elkin Patarroyo Murillo is a Colombian Professor of Pathology and Immunology who made the world's first attempt to create a synthetic vaccine against the protozoal parasite Plasmodium falciparum, the cause of severe malaria, and responsible for the death of ~1.5 million people per year in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
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Miriam Adelson
- Occupations
- physicianpublisher
- Biography
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Miriam Adelson is an Israeli American physician and billionaire. After her marriage to American business magnate Sheldon Adelson in 1991, she became a donor to conservative political causes in the United States and Israel. The Adelsons donated to the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and the 2020 campaign.
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Barbara Ehrenreich
- Occupations
- novelistjournalistpoliticianopinion journalistessayist
- Biography
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Barbara Ehrenreich is an American author and political activist who has been called "a veteran muckraker" by The New Yorker. During the 1980s and early 1990s she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She is a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books. Ehrenreich is perhaps best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America; a memoir of Ehrenreich's three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum wage jobs. She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award.
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David Baltimore
- Occupations
- microbiologistuniversity teachervirologist
- Biography
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David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is currently President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he served as president from 1997 to 2006. He also served as the director of the Joint Center for Translational Medicine, which joined Caltech and UCLA in a program to translate basic scientific discoveries into clinical realities. He also formerly served as president of Rockefeller University from 1990 to 1991, founder and Director of the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research from 1982 to 1990, and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.
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Christian de Duve
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974
- Born in
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United Kingdom - Years
- 1917-2013 (aged 96)
- Occupations
- physicianprofessorbiochemistphysiologistacademic
- Biography
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Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisome and lysosome, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Albert Claude and George E. Palade ("for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell"). In addition to peroxisome and lysosome, he invented scientific names such as autophagy, endocytosis, and exocytosis in a single occasion.
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Rocky Tuan
- Occupations
- engineer
- Biography
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Rocky Tuan Sung-chi is a Hong Kong medical researcher and bioengineer, currently the vice-chancellor and president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he served as distinguished visiting professor and director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine prior to taking up the vice-chancellorship. Previously he was on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he held a number of roles: Arthur J. Rooney Sr. Professor of Sports Medicine and the executive vice chair of the department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and a professor in the department of bioengineering. He was the director of the Center for Military Medicine Research and an associate director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Despite his position in Hong Kong, he continues to serve as the director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering. For the 2018 fiscal year, he was one of the top 25 highest-paid University of Pittsburgh employees.
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Ralph Steinman
- Occupations
- immunologistprofessorresearcherbiologistphysician
- Biography
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Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian physician and medical researcher at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 discovered and named dendritic cells while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University. Steinman was one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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Gerald Edelman
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972
- Born in
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United States - Years
- 1929-2014 (aged 85)
- Occupations
- neuroscientistimmunologistuniversity teacherphysicistchemist
- Biography
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Gerald Maurice Edelman was an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concerned discovery of the structure of antibody molecules. In interviews, he has said that the way the components of the immune system evolve over the life of the individual is analogous to the way the components of the brain evolve in a lifetime. There is a continuity in this way between his work on the immune system, for which he won the Nobel Prize, and his later work in neuroscience and in philosophy of mind.
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Peter J. Hotez
- Occupations
- university teachervaccinologistwriterpediatrician
- Biography
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Peter Jay Hotez is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical disease control. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Texas Children's Hospital Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics, and University Professor of Biology at Baylor University. Hotez served previously as president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and is a founding Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is also the co-director of Parasites Without Borders, a global nonprofit organization with a focus on those suffering from parasitic diseases in subtropical environments.
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Michael W. Young
- Occupations
- geneticistchronobiologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Michael Warren Young is an American biologist and geneticist. He has dedicated over three decades to research studying genetically controlled patterns of sleep and wakefulness within Drosophila melanogaster.
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Günter Blobel
- Occupations
- biochemistresearcherbiologistuniversity teacherphysician
- Biography
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Günter Blobel was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell.
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Paul Greengard
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1925-2019 (aged 94)
- Occupations
- university teacherpharmacologistneuroscientistbiochemist
- Biography
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Paul Greengard was an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system. He was Vincent Astor Professor at Rockefeller University, and served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund, as well as the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. He was married to artist Ursula von Rydingsvard.
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Wendell Meredith Stanley
- Occupations
- biochemistchemistwriteruniversity teachervirologist
- Biography
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Wendell Meredith Stanley was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate.
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Roderick MacKinnon
- Occupations
- neuroscientistbiochemistuniversity teacherinternistcrystallographer
- Biography
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Roderick MacKinnon is an American biophysicist, neuroscientist, and businessman. He is a professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter Agre in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels.
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Seth Lloyd
- Years
- 1960-.. (age 63)
- Occupations
- engineernon-fiction writercomputer scientistphysicistacademic
- Biography
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Seth Lloyd is a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Charles M. Rice
- Occupations
- virologistresearcher
- Biography
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Charles Moen Rice is an American virologist and Nobel Prize laureate whose main area of research is the Hepatitis C virus. He is a professor of virology at the Rockefeller University in New York City and an adjunct professor at Cornell University and Washington University School of Medicine. At the time of the award he was a faculty at Rockefeller.
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Edward Tatum
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1909-1975 (aged 66)
- Occupations
- biochemistgeneticist
- Biography
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Edward Lawrie Tatum was an American geneticist. He shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958 with George Beadle for showing that genes control individual steps in metabolism. The other half of that year's award went to Joshua Lederberg.
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Robert Bruce Merrifield
- Occupations
- biochemistuniversity teacherchemist
- Biography
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Robert Bruce Merrifield was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 for the invention of solid phase peptide synthesis.
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Chang Yi Wang
- Occupations
- entrepreneurchairperson
- Biography
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Chang Yi Wang is the founder of United Biomedical, Inc. (UBI), headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, and its group of companies in Asia.
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John Howard Northrop
- Occupations
- university teacherchemistscientistbiochemist
- Biography
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John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was given for these scientists' isolation, crystallization, and study of enzymes, proteins, and viruses. Northrop was a Professor of Bacteriology and Medical Physics, Emeritus, at University of California, Berkeley.
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David Albert
- Years
- 1954-.. (age 69)
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- In 1981 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- philosopherphysicist
- Biography
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David Z. Albert is Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy and Director of the M.A. Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University in New York.
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Sidarta Ribeiro
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- 1995-2000 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- neuroscientistresearcherbiologist
- Biography
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Sidarta Tollendal Gomes Ribeiro is a Brazilian neuroscientist, writer, science communicator, and deputy director of the Brain Institute at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), which he joined in 2008 as full professor.
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Herbert Spencer Gasser
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1944
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1888-1963 (aged 75)
- Occupations
- university teacherpsychologistphysiologistphysician
- Biography
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Herbert Spencer Gasser was an American physiologist, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1944 for his work with action potentials in nerve fibers while on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, awarded jointly with Joseph Erlanger.
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Rafael Yuste
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- 1987-1992 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in neurobiology
- Occupations
- researcheruniversity teacherneurobiologist
- Biography
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Rafael Yuste is a Spanish-American neurobiologist and one of the initiators of the BRAIN Initiative announced in 2013. He is currently a professor at Columbia University.
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Haldan Keffer Hartline
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967
- Born in
- United States
- Years
- 1903-1983 (aged 80)
- Occupations
- neuroscientistphysiologistphysicianneurologist
- Biography
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Haldan Keffer Hartline was an American physiologist who was a co-recipient (with George Wald and Ragnar Granit) of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision.
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Odile Jacob
- Years
- 1954-.. (age 69)
- Occupations
- publisherpsychologist
- Biography
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Odile Jacob is a French publisher who founded Les Éditions Odile Jacob in the middle of the 1980s. She is also a trained scientist, studying the workings of the brain, the mind and thought. She is a member of Le Siècle.
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Peter Walter
- Occupations
- university teachermolecular biologistbiochemistbiologist
- Biography
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Peter Walter is a German-American molecular biologist and biochemist and Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator.
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Bruce McEwen
- Occupations
- researcherneuroscientist
- Biography
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Bruce Sherman McEwen was an American neuroendocrinologist and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University. He was known for his work on the effects of environmental and psychological stress, having coined the term allostatic load.
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Jeffrey M. Friedman
- Occupations
- university teachergeneticist
- Biography
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Jeffrey M. Friedman is a molecular geneticist at New York City's Rockefeller University and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight has had a major role in the area of human obesity. Friedman is a physician scientist studying the genetic mechanisms that regulate body weight. His research on various aspects of obesity received national attention in late 1994, when it was announced that he and his colleagues had isolated the mouse ob gene and its human homologue. They subsequently found that injections of the encoded protein, leptin, decreases body weight of mice by reducing food intake and increasing energy expenditure. Current research is aimed at understanding the genetic basis of obesity in human and the mechanisms by which leptin transmits its weight-reducing signal.
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Nina Fedoroff
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- In 1972 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- geneticistresearcheruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Nina Vsevolod Fedoroff is an American molecular biologist known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology, especially transposable elements or jumping genes. and plant stress response. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded her the National Medal of Science, she is also a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology.
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Stephen Grossberg
- Occupations
- university teachermathematician
- Biography
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Stephen Grossberg is a cognitive scientist, theoretical and computational psychologist, neuroscientist, mathematician, biomedical engineer, and neuromorphic technologist. He is the Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics & Statistics, Psychological & Brain Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University.
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Vanessa Ruta
- Occupations
- researcherneuroscientist
- Biography
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Vanessa Julia Ruta, Ph.D. is an American neuroscientist known for her work on the structure and function of chemosensory circuits underlying innate and learned behaviors in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. She is the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University and, as of 2021, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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Daniel W. Stroock
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
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Daniel Wyler Stroock is an American mathematician, a probabilist. He is regarded and revered as one of the fundamental contributors to Malliavin calculus with Shigeo Kusuoka and the theory of diffusion processes with S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan with an orientation towards the refinement and further development of Itô’s stochastic calculus.
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Olaf Sporns
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- In 1990 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- psychologistopinion journalistteacherneuroscientist
- Biography
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Olaf Sporns is Provost Professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and Scientific Co-Director of the Indiana University Network Science Institute. He is also the founding editor of the academic journal Network Neuroscience, published by MIT Press.
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Anthony Cerami
- Enrolled in Rockefeller University
- 1962-1967 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in biochemistry
- Occupations
- scientistbiochemist
- Biography
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Anthony Cerami is an American entrepreneur and medical research scientist.
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Amos Smith
- Occupations
- chemist
- Biography
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Amos B. Smith III is an American chemist.
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M. R. C. Greenwood
- Occupations
- academic administrator
- Biography
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Mary Rita Cooke Greenwood is a nationally recognized leader in higher education, nutrition, and health sciences. Additionally, her research has been extensively published, internationally recognized, and has earned awards.
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Linda-Gail Bekker
- Occupations
- HIV/AIDS activistuniversity teacherphysician
- Biography
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Linda-Gail Bekker MBChB, DTMH, DCH, FCP is a Professor of Medicine and Chief Operating Officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. She is also Director of the Desmund Tutu HIV Centre at the University of Cape Town. She is a Past President of the International AIDS Society (2016-18).
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Marina Picciotto
- Occupations
- neuroscientist
- Biography
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Marina Rachel Picciotto is an American neuroscientist known for her work on the role of nicotine in addiction, memory, and reward behaviors. She is the Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor in the Child Study Center and the Departments of Neuroscience and of Pharmacology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Since 2015, she has been editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuroscience.
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Hazel Sive
- Years
- 1956-.. (age 67)
- Occupations
- biologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Hazel L. Sive is a South African-born biologist and educator. She is Dean of the College of Science, and Professor of Biology at Northeastern University. Sive is a research pioneer, award-winning educator and innovator in the higher education space who was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in November 2021. Prior to June 2020, she was a Member of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Sive studies development of the vertebrate embryo, and has made unique contributions to understanding how the face forms and how the brain develops its structure. Her lab also seeks to understand the origins of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as epilepsy, autism, Pitt–Hopkins syndrome and 16p11.2 deletion syndrome.
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Bruce R. Korf
- Years
- 1944-.. (age 79)
- Occupations
- physiciangeneticist
- Biography
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Bruce Richard Korf is a medical geneticist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In April 2009, he began a two-year term as president of the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG), a professional organization.
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Erik van Nimwegen
- Occupations
- university teacher
- Biography
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Erik van Nimwegen is a Dutch computational biologist and Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland.
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Mandë Holford
- Occupations
- chemistdiplomat
- Biography
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Mandë Holford is an Associate Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College with scientific appointments at the American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medical College. Her interdisciplinary research covering 'mollusks to medicine' spans chemistry and biology and aims to discover, characterize, and deliver novel peptides from venomous marine snails as tools for manipulating cellular physiology in pain and cancer.
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Nina Papavasiliou
- Years
- 20th Century
- Occupations
- immunologist
- Biography
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Nina Papavasiliou is an immunologist and Helmholtz Professor in the Division of Immune Diversity at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Rockefeller University, where she was previously Associate Professor and head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Biology. She is best known for her work in the fields of DNA and RNA editing.
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Marius Sudol
- Occupations
- biologist
- Biography
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Marius Sudol is an American molecular and cellular biologist. He was born in 1954 in Tarnow, Poland. In 1978, he immigrated to the United States to study at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where he received his Ph.D. in 1983. He is currently an Adjunct Faulty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC.
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Jessica R. Barson
- Occupations
- neuroscientist
- Biography
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Jessica Barson is an American neuroscientist and associate professor at Drexel University College of Medicine. Barson investigates neuropeptide signalling in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus as well as the nucleus accumbens to understand the neurobiological basis of addiction and elucidate targets for therapy.
