100 Notable alumni of
University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
Updated:
The University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign is 68th in the world, 34th in North America, and 33rd in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff. 3 individuals affiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign won Nobel Prizes in Physics and Physiology or Medicine.
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Hugh Hefner
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- writerfilm produceractorjournalistnightclub owner
- Biography
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Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles.
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Gene Hackman
- Occupations
- film actorauthor
- Biography
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Eugene Allen Hackman is an American retired actor. In a career that spanned more than six decades, he received two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Silver Bear. Hackman's two Academy Award wins included one for Best Actor for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in William Friedkin's acclaimed thriller The French Connection (1971) and the other for Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Little" Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Western film Unforgiven (1992). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and Mississippi Burning (1988).
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Nick Offerman
- Occupations
- carpentertelevision actorcomedianactorstage actor
- Biography
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Nicholas David Offerman is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He became widely known for his role as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009–2015), for which he received the Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy and was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
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Larry Ellison
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- 1962-1964 studied mathematics
- Occupations
- computer scientistaircraft pilotactorentrepreneur
- Biography
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Lawrence Joseph Ellison is an American businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014 and is now its chief technology officer and executive chairman.
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Jawed Karim
- Occupations
- computer scientistentrepreneurtelevision producerstudentYouTuber
- Biography
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Jawed Karim is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of YouTube and the first person to upload a video to the site. The site's inaugural video, "Me at the zoo", uploaded on April 23, 2005, has been viewed over 303 million times as of January 18, 2024. During Karim's time working at PayPal, where he met fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley, he designed many of its core components, including its real-time anti-fraud system.
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Ang Lee
- Occupations
- writerfilm directordirectorscreenwriterfilm producer
- Biography
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Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. As a filmmaker Lee's work is known for its emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, Lee was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
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Roger Ebert
- Occupations
- film critictelevision presenterwriterscreenwriterreporter
- Biography
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Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing voice and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert frequently endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, which often resulted in such films receiving greater exposure. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America."
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hunter triple coito
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinesspersonengineer
- Biography
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Shahid Rafiq "Shad" Khan is a Pakistani-American billionaire businessman and sports tycoon. He is the owner of Flex-N-Gate, an American supplier of motor vehicle components. Khan is also the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL) and Fulham F.C. of the Premier League, and co-owner of the American wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW), along with his son, Tony Khan.
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Alan Ruck
- Occupations
- writertelevision actorstage actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Alan Douglas Ruck is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Cameron Frye in John Hughes's film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), as well as television roles as Stuart Bondek on the ABC sitcom Spin City (1996–2002) and Connor Roy on the HBO series Succession (2018–2023), the latter earning him Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations.
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Steve Chen
- Occupations
- computer scientistbusinesspersonengineer
- Biography
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Steve Chen is a Taiwanese-born American Internet entrepreneur who is one of the co-founders and previous chief technology officer of the American video-sharing website YouTube. After he co-founded the company AVOS Systems, Inc. and built the video-sharing app MixBit, he joined Google Ventures in 2014.
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Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actorsinger
- Biography
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Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is an American actress. She made her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of West Side Story, and went on to appear in the 1983 film Scarface as Al Pacino's character's sister, Gina Montana, which proved to be her breakout role. For her role as Carmen in the 1986 film The Color of Money, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other film roles include The Abyss (1989), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and The Perfect Storm (2000). In 2003, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha.
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Jesse Jackson
- Occupations
- civil rights advocatehuman rights activistpastorpolitician
- Biography
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Jesse Louis Jackson is an American civil rights activist, politician, and ordained Baptist minister. Beginning as a young protégé of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, Jackson maintained his status as a prominent civil rights leader throughout his political and theological career for over seven decades. He served in the United States Senate from 1991 to 1997 as a shadow delegate for the District of Columbia. Jackson is the father of former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and current U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson.
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Temple Grandin
- Occupations
- academicwriteruniversity teachernon-fiction writeractivist
- Biography
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Mary Temple Grandin is an American academic and animal behaviorist. She is a prominent proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior, and is also an autism spokesperson.
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Jerry Orbach
- Occupations
- television actorstage actorfilm actoractorvoice actor
- Biography
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Jerome Bernard Orbach was an American actor and singer, described at the time of his death as "one of the last bona fide leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television" and a "versatile stage and film actor".
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Kelly Loeffler
- Occupations
- politicianbusinessperson
- Biography
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Kelly Lynn Loeffler is an American businesswoman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2020 to 2021. Loeffler was chief executive officer (CEO) of Bakkt, a subsidiary of commodity and financial service provider Intercontinental Exchange, of which her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is CEO. She is a former co-owner of the Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Loeffler is a member of the Republican Party.
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Deron Williams
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Deron Michael Williams is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini before being drafted third overall in the 2005 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz. A three-time NBA All-Star with the Jazz and Brooklyn Nets, Williams also played for Beşiktaş of the Turkish Basketball League during the 2011 NBA lockout, and was a gold medal winner on the United States national team at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics.
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Rafael Correa
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 2001 graduated with Master of Science
- Occupations
- economistpolitician
- Biography
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Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement from its foundation until 2017, Correa is a democratic socialist and his administration focused on the implementation of left-wing policies. Internationally, he served as president pro tempore of the UNASUR.
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David Otunga
- Occupations
- lawyertelevision actoractorprofessional wrestler
- Biography
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David Daniel Otunga is an American actor, lawyer and former professional wrestler best known for his time working with WWE.
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Kevin Anderson
- Occupations
- tennis player
- Biography
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Kevin Michael Anderson is a South African professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ranking of world No. 5 on 16 July 2018. He was the first South African to be ranked in the top 5 since Kevin Curren was No. 5 on 23 September 1985.On 6 February 2011, Anderson defeated Somdev Devvarman in his hometown of Johannesburg to capture the South African Open title for his first ATP Tour-level title. His second ATP title came at the 2012 Delray Beach Open when he defeated Marinko Matosevic. Anderson won his third championship in 2015 at the Winston-Salem Open with a victory over Pierre-Hugues Herbert. He ended 2017 winning the exhibition World Tennis Championship. His fourth title came in February 2018 at the New York Open. Anderson reached his maiden Grand Slam final at the 2017 US Open, where he lost to Rafael Nadal. In the 2018 Wimbledon semifinals, Anderson reached his second major final by defeating American John Isner in the second-longest match in the history of major tournaments. The match, which lasted 6 hours and 36 minutes, was only beaten in length by the 2010 match between Isner and France's Nicolas Mahut. He then lost to Novak Djokovic in the final in straight sets. On 3 May 2022, Anderson retired at age 35 but he announced his comeback in July 2023.
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Jack Welch
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinesspersonwriterjournalistengineer
- Biography
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John Francis Welch Jr. was an American business executive. He was chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) between 1981 and 2001.
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Arden Cho
- Occupations
- modelfilm actorsinger-songwritervoice actortaekwondo athlete
- Biography
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Arden Lim Cho is an American actress, singer, model and beauty pageant titleholder who competed at Miss Korea 2004. known for portraying Kira Yukimura in the 2011 MTV television series Teen Wolf and Ingrid Yun in the 2022 Netflix television series Partner Track.
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Betsy Brandt
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Betsy Brandt is an American actress. She portrayed Marie Schrader in Breaking Bad (2008–2013) and its spinoff show, Better Call Saul (2022) and played Heather Hughes in the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces (2015–2019).
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Jeffrey Jordan
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Jeffrey Michael Jordan is an American former basketball player who played for the University of Illinois and the University of Central Florida. He is the oldest child of retired Hall of Fame basketball player Michael Jordan. Jeffrey Jordan is the co-founder of Heir Jordan, a philanthropic foundation that he runs with his younger brother Marcus.
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Dan Fogelberg
- Occupations
- singer-songwritermandolinistsingerguitaristcomposer
- Biography
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Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is primarily known for his 1980s soft rock hits, including "Longer" (1980), "Same Old Lang Syne" (1981), and "Leader of the Band" (1982).
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James Holzhauer
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in mathematics
- Occupations
- gamblergame show contestant
- Biography
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James Holzhauer is an American game show contestant and professional sports gambler. He is the third-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time. Holzhauer is best known for his 32-game winning streak as champion on the quiz show Jeopardy! from April to June 2019, during which he set multiple single-game records for winnings, and for winning the following Tournament of Champions that November.
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Barbara Bain
- Occupations
- television actormodelstage actorfilm actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Barbara Bain is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Cinnamon Carter Crawford on the action television series Mission: Impossible (1966–1969), which earned her three Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination. She also starred as Dr. Helena Russell on the British-Italian coproduction science-fiction television series Space: 1999 (1975–1977). Bain has also appeared in the films Animals with the Tollkeeper (1998), Panic (2000), Forget Me Not (2009) and On the Rocks (2020).
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James Brady
- Occupations
- politicianpress agent
- Biography
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James Scott Brady was an American public official who served as assistant to the U.S. president and the 17th White House Press Secretary, serving under President Ronald Reagan. In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded Brady during Hinckley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, which occurred two months and ten days after Reagan's inauguration.
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Shanola Hampton
- Occupations
- television actoractor
- Biography
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Shanola Hampton is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Veronica Fisher on Showtime dramedy Shameless, Gabi Mosely in the NBC drama series Found, and as the face model of Rochelle in the video game Left 4 Dead 2.
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Tony Khan
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 2007 graduated with bachelor's degree in finance
- Occupations
- businesspersonentrepreneur
- Biography
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Antony Khan is an American businessman, promoter, and sports executive. He is known for his involvement in American football, professional wrestling, and association football. He is best known as the founder and co-owner of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), in which he also holds the positions of president, chief executive, general manager, executive producer, and Head of creative of the promotion.
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Donna Mills
- Occupations
- television actorstage actorfilm actoractorfilm producer
- Biography
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Donna Mills is an American actress. She began her television career in 1966 with a recurring role on The Secret Storm, and in the same year appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's comedy Don't Drink the Water. She made her film debut the next year in The Incident. She then starred for three years on the soap opera Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1967–70), before starring as Tobie Williams, the girlfriend of Clint Eastwood's character in the 1971 cult thriller Play Misty for Me. Mills played the female lead in the heist film Murph the Surf (1975), and had starring roles in a number of made-for-television movies during the 1970s.
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Marc Andreessen
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1993 graduated with bachelor's degree in computer science
- Occupations
- computer scientistbloggerentrepreneurinvestorinventor
- Biography
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Marc Lowell Andreessen is an American businessman and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser with a graphical user interface; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He co-founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard. Andreessen is also a co-founder of Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites and an inductee in the World Wide Web Hall of Fame. Andreessen's net-worth is estimated at $1.7 billion.
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Meyers Leonard
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Meyers Patrick Leonard is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the University of Illinois Fighting Illini before being selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 11th overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft. After spending his first seven seasons with the Trail Blazers, he was traded to the Miami Heat in the 2019 off-season. He reached the NBA Finals with the Heat in 2020.
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Atsugiri Jason
- Years
- 1986-.. (age 38)
- Occupations
- owarai tarentoboard memberwriteractor
- Biography
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Jason David Danielson, known professionally as Atsugiri Jason (厚切りジェイソン, Atsugiri Jeison, lit. "Thick-sliced Jason"), is an American comedian based in Japan and associated with Watanabe Entertainment. Danielson's comedic narrative is based on his confusion with kanji, ending with the punchline, "Why Japanese people?!"
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Jeremih
- Occupations
- singer-songwritersingerrecord producerrapperlyricist
- Biography
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Jeremy Phillip Felton, known professionally as Jeremih, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer from Chicago, Illinois. He embarked on a musical career after meeting record producer Mick Schultz in 2008, and signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings the following year.
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Martin Eberhard
- Occupations
- engineerentrepreneur
- Biography
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Martin Eberhard is an American inventor, engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla, Inc. (then Tesla Motors) with Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Eberhard served as Tesla's original chairman, and its CEO until late 2007. In 2015, he was inducted into the University of Illinois Engineering Hall of Fame.
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Dorothy Day
- Occupations
- autobiographerwriterjournalistsocial activistsuffragist
- Biography
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Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical among American Catholics.
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Brendan Eich
- Occupations
- chief technology officercomputer scientistprogrammer
- Biography
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Brendan Eich is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He served as the Mozilla Corporation's chief technical officer before he was appointed chief executive officer, but resigned shortly after his appointment due to pressure over his firm opposition to same-sex marriage. He subsequently became the CEO of Brave Software.
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Dan Savage
- Occupations
- journalistpodcasterwritersex educator
- Biography
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Daniel Keenan Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT community activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth. He has also worked as a theater director, sometimes credited as Keenan Hollahan.
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Dave Eggers
- Occupations
- editorscience fiction writernovelistwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers is also the founder of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, a literary journal; a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness; and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
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Max Levchin
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Studied in 1997
- Occupations
- computer scientistentrepreneurweb developmentbusinesspersoninternational forum participant
- Biography
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Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually became PayPal. Levchin made contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts and was the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA challenge response human test.
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John Bardeen
- Occupations
- physicistinventoruniversity teacherelectrical engineer
- Biography
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John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon N. Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS theory.
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Ryan McPartlin
- Occupations
- television actormodelfilm actoractorvoice actor
- Biography
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Ryan John McPartlin is an American actor, known for his role as Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb on the action-comedy series Chuck.
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Fidel Ramos
- Occupations
- politicianmilitary personnel
- Biography
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Fidel Valdez Ramos, popularly known as FVR and Eddie Ramos, was a Filipino general and politician who served as the 12th President of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. He was the only career military officer who reached the rank of five-star general/admiral de jure. Rising from second lieutenant to commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Ramos is credited for revitalizing and renewing international confidence in the Philippine economy during his six years in office.
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Kendrick Nunn
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Studied in 2013-2016
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Kendrick Melvin Nunn is an American professional basketball player for Panathinaikos of the Greek Basket League and the EuroLeague. He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.
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George Will
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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George Frederick Will is an American libertarian conservative writer and political commentator, who writes regular columns for The Washington Post and provides commentary for NewsNation.
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Money Boy
- Occupations
- rapper
- Biography
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Money Boy is an Austrian rap-singer. He became famous with his hit "Dreh den Swag auf".
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Mike Cernovich
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Michael Cernovich is an American right-wing social media personality, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. Though he initially called himself alt-right, he dissociated from the movement after Richard Spencer became its public face. Cernovich describes himself as part of the new right and some have described him as part of the alt-lite.
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Fazlur Khan
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in structural engineering
- Graduated with Master of Engineering in structural engineering
- Occupations
- engineerarchitectcivil engineerstructural engineer
- Biography
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Fazlur Rahman Khan was a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer and architect, who initiated important structural systems for skyscrapers. Considered the "father of tubular designs" for high-rises, Khan was also a pioneer in computer-aided design (CAD). He was the designer of the Sears Tower, since renamed Willis Tower, the tallest building in the world from 1973 until 1998, and the 100-story John Hancock Center.
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Ed Boon
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in mathematics and computer science
- Occupations
- directorvideo game developervideo game designergame programmerscreenwriter
- Biography
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Ed Boon is an American video game programmer, voice actor, and director. Boon was employed for over 15 years at Midway Games. Since 2011, he has worked for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in its daughter company NetherRealm Studios.
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Robert L. Johnson
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Robert Louis Johnson is an American entrepreneur, media magnate, executive, philanthropist, and investor. He is the co-founder of BET, which was acquired by Viacom in 2001. He also founded RLJ Companies, a holding company that invests in various business sectors. Johnson is the former majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. He became the first black American billionaire in 2001. Johnson's companies have counted among the most prominent black American businesses in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
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Sean Evans
- Occupations
- film screenwriterYouTuberfilm directorvideo bloggerpodcaster
- Biography
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Sean Evans is an American YouTuber who is best known for co-creating and hosting the series Hot Ones, in which he interviews celebrities as they eat progressively spicier chicken wings.
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Iris Chang
- Occupations
- journalisthuman rights activistwriterpolitical activist
- Biography
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Iris Shun-Ru Chang was an American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanjing Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography Finding Iris Chang, and the 2007 documentary film Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking starring Olivia Cheng as Iris Chang. The independent 2007 documentary film Nanking was based on her work and dedicated to her memory.
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David A. Johnston
- Occupations
- geologistvolcanologist
- Biography
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David Alexander Johnston was an American United States Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington. A principal scientist on the USGS monitoring team, Johnston was killed in the eruption while manning an observation post six miles (10 km) away on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away by a lateral blast; despite a thorough search, Johnston's body was never found, but state highway workers discovered remnants of his USGS trailer in 1993.
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Esther Povitsky
- Occupations
- stand-up comediantelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Esther Povitsky, formerly known by the stage name "Little Esther," is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, and producer. Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the nearby suburb of Skokie, Povitsky is the co-creator and star of the comedy series Alone Together (2018), and she starred as Izzy in the Hulu series Dollface. Her debut comedy special, Hot for My Name, premiered on Comedy Central on July 17, 2020.
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Philip Ng
- Occupations
- television actorchoreographerkaratekataekwondo athletestunt performer
- Biography
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Philip Ng Wan-lung is a Hong Kong-born American actor, martial artist and action choreographer. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
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Sri Mulyani Indrawati
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with master's degree in economics
- Occupations
- economistinternational forum participantpoliticianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Sri Mulyani Indrawati is an Indonesian economist who has been Minister of Finance of Indonesia since 2016; previously she served in the same post from 2005 to 2010. In June 2010 she was appointed as managing director of the World Bank Group and resigned as Minister of Finance. On 27 July 2016, Sri Mulyani was reappointed as Minister of Finance in a cabinet reshuffle by President Joko Widodo, replacing Bambang Brodjonegoro.
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César Pelli
- Occupations
- university teacherentrepreneurarchitect
- Biography
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César Pelli was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Two of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the World Financial Center in New York City. The American Institute of Architects named him one of the ten most influential living American architects in 1991 and awarded him the AIA Gold Medal in 1995. In 2008, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat presented him with The Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Suze Orman
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1976 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in social work
- Occupations
- writerinvestormotivational speakertelevision presenterbusinessperson
- Biography
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Susan Lynn "Suze" Orman is an American financial advisor, author, and podcast host. In 1987, she founded the Suze Orman Financial Group. Her work as a financial advisor gained notability with The Suze Orman Show, which ran on CNBC from 2002 to 2015.
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Robert Mercer
- Occupations
- hedge fund managerbankercomputer scientistentrepreneur
- Biography
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Robert Leroy Mercer is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissance Technologies.
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Jonathan Kite
- Occupations
- actorfilm actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Jonathan Kite is an American actor, comedian and impressionist. He is best known for his role as Oleg Golishevsky on 2 Broke Girls.
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Avery Brundage
- Occupations
- modern pentathleteathletics competitorbusinesspersonpoliticianart collector
- Biography
-
Avery Brundage was an American sports administrator who served as the fifth president of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972. The only American and only non-European to attain that position, Brundage is remembered as a zealous advocate of amateurism and for his involvement with the 1936 and 1972 Summer Olympics, both held in Germany.
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Arte Johnson
- Occupations
- television actorvoice actorscreenwriteractor
- Biography
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Arthur Stanton Eric Johnson was an American actor and comedian who was best known for his work as a regular on television's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
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Jon Corzine
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1969 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- chief executive officerbankerpolitician
- Biography
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Jonathan Stevens "Jon" Corzine is an American financial executive and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey from 2001 to 2006, and the 54th governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. Corzine ran for a second term as governor but lost to Republican Chris Christie. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously worked at Goldman Sachs; after leaving politics, he was CEO of MF Global from 2010 until its collapse in 2011.
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Annette Lu
- Years
- 1944-.. (age 80)
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- 1969-1971 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- women's rights activistpoliticianlawyer
- Biography
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Annette Lu Hsiu-lien is a Taiwanese politician. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1990, and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was the Vice President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian. Lu announced her intentions to run for the presidency on 6 March 2007, but withdrew to support eventual DPP nominee Frank Hsieh. Lu ran again in 2012, but withdrew for a second time, ceding the nomination to DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen. She lost the party's Taipei mayoral nomination to Pasuya Yao in 2018, and stated that she would leave the party. However, by the time Lu announced in September 2019 that she would contest the 2020 presidential election on behalf of the Formosa Alliance, she was still a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.
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Chadchart Sittipunt
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Chadchart Sittipunt is a Thai politician, engineer, and professor who is the incumbent Governor of Bangkok. He previously was Minister of Transport from 2012 to 2014.
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Jack Kilby
- Occupations
- university teachercomputer scientistphysicistphotographerinventor
- Biography
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Jack St. Clair Kilby was an American electrical engineer who took part, along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on 10 December 2000.
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Lin Chuan
- Occupations
- economistpolitician
- Biography
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Lin Chuan is a Taiwanese economist and politician who served as prime minister of Taiwan (Premier of the Executive Yuan) from 2016 to 2017, he is the first cabinet head under the Tsai Ing-wen government. Before his premiership, he have also served as the Minister of Budget, Accounting and Statistics and Minister of Finance during Chen Shui-bian's presidency.
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Arvind Krishna
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- 1985-1991 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in electrical engineering
- Occupations
- international forum participantchief executive officer
- Biography
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Arvind Krishna is an Indian-American business executive, and the chairman and CEO of IBM. He has been CEO of IBM since April 2020 and chairman since January 2021. Krishna began his career at IBM in 1990, at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and was promoted to senior vice president in 2015, managing IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software and IBM Research divisions. He was a principal architect of the acquisition of Red Hat, the largest acquisition in the company’s history.
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Jesse Jackson Jr
- Occupations
- politicianlawyertaekwondo athlete
- Biography
-
Jesse Louis Jackson Jr. is an American politician. He served as the U.S. representative from Illinois's 2nd congressional district from 1995 until his resignation in 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the son of activist and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson and, prior to his career in elected office, worked for his father in both the elder Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign and his social justice, civil rights and political activism organization, Operation PUSH. Jackson's wife, Sandi Jackson, served on the Chicago City Council. He served as a national co-chairman of the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign. Jackson established a consistent liberal record on both social and fiscal issues, and he has co-authored books on civil rights and personal finance.
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Irving Azoff
- Occupations
- talent manager
- Biography
-
Irving Azoff is an American entertainment executive and chairman of Full Stop Management, a company that represents recording artists. During the course of his career, he has worked as an agent, personal manager, concert promoter, movie producer, independent record label owner, merchandiser, music publisher, and CEO of a record label.
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John B. Anderson
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teacher
- Biography
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John Bayard Anderson was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 16th congressional district from 1961 to 1981. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the Chairman of the House Republican Conference from 1969 until 1979. In 1980, he ran an independent campaign for president, receiving 6.6% of the popular vote.
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Richard Powers
- Occupations
- science fiction writernovelistwriter
- Biography
-
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2023, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.
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Timothy Zahn
- Occupations
- novelist
- Biography
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Timothy Zahn is an American writer of science fiction and fantasy. He is known best for his prolific collection of Star Wars books, chiefly the Thrawn series, and has published several other series of sci-fi and fantasy novels of his own original creation, in addition to many works of short fiction.
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Luke Nosek
- Occupations
- international forum participantengineer
- Biography
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Łukasz Nosek is a Polish-American entrepreneur, notable for being a co-founder of PayPal.
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Gene Shalit
- Occupations
- journalistfilm criticliterary critic
- Biography
-
Eugene Shalit is an American retired journalist, television personality, film and book critic, and author. After starting to work part-time on NBC's The Today Show in 1970, he filled those roles from January 15, 1973, until retiring on November 11, 2010. He is known for his frequent use of puns, his oversized handlebar moustache and fuzzy hair, and for wearing colorful bow ties.
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Sheila Crump Johnson
- Occupations
- editorbusinessperson
- Biography
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Sheila Crump Johnson is an American businesswoman, co-founder of BET, CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts, and the first billionaire African-American woman.
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Piergiorgio Odifreddi
- Occupations
- logicianuniversity teacherhistorian of sciencescience communicatormathematician
- Biography
-
Piergiorgio Odifreddi is an Italian mathematician, logician, student of the history of science, and popular science writer and essayist, especially on philosophical atheism as a member of the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics. He is philosophically and politically near to Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky.
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Jerry Colangelo
- Occupations
- basketball playerentrepreneurbasketball coachbusinesspersonautobiographer
- Biography
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Jerry Colangelo is an American businessman and sports executive. He formerly owned the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, the Arizona Sandsharks of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League, and the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball. He was also instrumental in the relocation of the original Winnipeg Jets team in the NHL to Phoenix to become the Phoenix Coyotes (now the Arizona Coyotes). In 2014, Grand Canyon University renamed its Christian based school of business after Jerry Colangelo, replacing Ken Blanchard's namesake. From December 2015 to April 2016, Colangelo served as chairman of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, before serving as a special advisor to the team until December 2018.
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Neel Kashkari
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1995 graduated with Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering
- In 1998 graduated with Master of Science in mechanical engineering
- Occupations
- businesspersonengineerpoliticianinvestment banker
- Biography
-
Neel Tushar Kashkari is an American banker, economist and politician who is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. As interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability from October 2008 to May 2009, he oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was a major component of the U.S. government's response to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008. A Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in the 2014 election.
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Tim McCarthy
- Occupations
- police officerSecret Service agent
- Biography
-
Timothy J. McCarthy is an American former policeman and special agent in the United States Secret Service. McCarthy is best known for defending President Ronald Reagan during the assassination attempt on Reagan's life on Monday, March 30, 1981, in Washington, D.C.
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Scott Atlas
- Occupations
- neurosurgeonradiologist
- Biography
-
Scott William Atlas is an American radiologist, political commentator, and health care policy advisor. He is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located at Stanford University. During the United States presidential campaigns of 2008, 2012, and 2016, Atlas was a Senior Advisor for Health Care to several presidential candidates. From 1998 to 2012 he was a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.
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Ayo Dosunmu
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
-
Quamdeen Ayopo Dosunmu is a Nigerian-American professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball at Illinois, where he was named a consensus first-team All-American in his junior season.
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Nelson Algren
- Occupations
- novelistwriter
- Biography
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Nelson Algren was an American writer. His 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name.
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Red Grange
- Occupations
- player of American footballactor
- Biography
-
Harold Edward "Red" Grange, nicknamed "the Galloping Ghost" and "the Wheaton Iceman", was an American professional football halfback who played for the Chicago Bears and the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League (NFL).
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James Tobin
- Occupations
- military personnelstatisticianeconomistprofessor
- Biography
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James Tobin was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He contributed to the development of key ideas in the Keynesian economics of his generation and advocated government intervention in particular to stabilize output and avoid recessions. His academic work included pioneering contributions to the study of investment, monetary and fiscal policy and financial markets. He also proposed an econometric model for censored dependent variables, the well-known tobit model.
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Jill Wine-Banks
- Occupations
- writerlawyer
- Biography
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Jill Wine-Banks, formerly Jill Wine-Volner, is an American lawyer who was one of the prosecutors during the Watergate scandal. She was the first woman to serve as US General Counsel of the Army (1977–80) under President Jimmy Carter. She is also the first woman to have held the position of executive director of the American Bar Association.
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Chris Lattner
- Years
- 1978-.. (age 46)
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 2005 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- computer scientist
- Biography
-
Christopher Arthur Lattner is an American computer scientist, former Apple, Google, and Tesla employee and co-founder of LLVM, Clang compiler, MLIR compiler infrastructure and the Swift programming language. He worked as the President of Platform Engineering, SiFive after two years at Google Brain. Prior to that, he briefly served as Vice President of Autopilot Software at Tesla, Inc. and worked at Apple Inc. as Senior Director of the Developer Tools department, leading the Xcode, Instruments, and compiler teams.
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Robert Novak
- Occupations
- journalistpoliticiancolumnistbusinessperson
- Biography
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Robert David Sanders Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for The Wall Street Journal. He teamed up with Rowland Evans in 1963 to start Inside Report, which became the longest running syndicated political column in U.S. history and ran in hundreds of papers. They also started the Evans-Novak Political Report, a notable biweekly newsletter, in 1967.
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Thomas Siebel
- Occupations
- computer scientistentrepreneurbusinesspersoninternational forum participantinformation scientist
- Biography
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Thomas M. Siebel is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He was the founder of enterprise software company Siebel Systems and is the founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai, an artificial intelligence software platform and applications company.
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Kendall Gill
- Occupations
- boxerbasketball player
- Biography
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Kendall Cedric Gill is an American former professional basketball player who now works as a television basketball analyst.
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Jill Lepore
- Occupations
- historianwriteressayistacademicjournalist
- Biography
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Jill Lepore is an American historian and journalist. She is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics.
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Andrew Yao
- Occupations
- university teachercomputer scientist
- Biography
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Andrew Chi-Chih Yao is a Chinese computer scientist and computational theorist. He is currently a professor and the dean of Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) at Tsinghua University. Yao used the minimax theorem to prove what is now known as Yao's Principle.
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Stephen Moore
- Occupations
- punditwriter
- Biography
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Stephen Moore is an American conservative writer and television commentator on economic issues. He co-founded and served as president of the Club for Growth from 1999 to 2004. Moore is a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. He worked at The Heritage Foundation from 1983 to 1987 and again since 2014. Moore advised Herman Cain's 2012 presidential campaign and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
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Chuck Rosenberg
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Chuck Rosenberg is an American attorney who served as Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2015 to 2017. He formerly served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and for the Southern District of Texas; as a senior FBI official on the staff of two FBI Directors; as Counselor to the Attorney General; as the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General; and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk and Alexandria.
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Dee Brown
- Occupations
- basketball coachbasketball player
- Biography
-
Daniel "Dee" Brown is an American former professional basketball player and current college coach. Brown played at the University of Illinois from 2002 to 2006, receiving numerous awards and accolades, including the 2005 Sporting News National Player of the Year. Brown was selected in the second round of the 2006 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz. Brown played for several international basketball teams from 2007 to 2015.
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Eddie Johnson
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
-
Edward Arnet Johnson is an American former professional basketball player who spent 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and a year in the Greek Basket League midway through his career. With nearly 1,200 games in the NBA, he scored the second-most career points among players who never played in an NBA All-Star Game, behind Jamal Crawford. As of the 2018–19 season, he is ranked 52nd in all-time points scored, and ranked fifth-most in points scored by an eligible player not in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. As of 2019 he is the co-host of NBA Today, which airs weekdays on Sirius XM NBA Radio and also is the play-by-play TV analyst for the Phoenix Suns on Bally Sports Arizona.
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Kofi Cockburn
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
-
Kofi Cockburn is a Jamaican professional basketball player for the Seoul Samsung Thunders of the Korean Basketball League (KBL). He previously played for the Niigata Albirex of the Japanese B. League. He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini.
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Susanna Kallur
- Occupations
- sprinter
- Biography
-
Susanna Elisabeth "Sanna" Kallur is a Swedish former athlete competing mainly in sprint hurdles. She has won several international medals, including the gold medal in the 100 m hurdles at the 2006 European Athletics Championships. Kallur formerly holds the world indoor record for the 60 metres hurdles.
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Bob Dudley
- Occupations
- chief executive officerbusinesspersoninternational forum participant
- Biography
-
Robert Warren Dudley is an American-born businessman who is a former group chief executive of BP. He had been president and chief executive of TNK-BP and on June 18, 2010, was assigned to be BP executive in charge of the Gulf Coast Restoration Organization responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He is the chair of the international industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI). He is a former board member of Rosneft, the Russian state-owned energy giant.
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George Crumb
- Occupations
- university teachercomposer
- Biography
-
George Henry Crumb Jr. was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical language which "range in mood from peaceful to nightmarish". Crumb's compositions are known for pushing the limits of technical prowess by way of frequent use of extended techniques. The unusual timbres he employs evoke a surrealist atmosphere which portray emotions of considerable intensity with vast and sometimes haunting soundscapes. His few large-scale works include Echoes of Time and the River (1967), which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and Star-Child (1977), which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition; however, his output consists of mostly music for chamber ensembles or solo instrumentalists. Among his best known compositions are Black Angels (1970), a striking commentary on the Vietnam War for electric string quartet; Ancient Voices of Children (1970) for a mixed chamber ensemble; and Vox Balaenae (1971), a musical evocation of the humpback whale, for electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano.
