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
- editoractivistphilanthropistjournalistentrepreneur
- 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. Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest.
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Gene Hackman
- Occupations
- authorfilm actor
- 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
- film actorscreenwritertelevision actorstage actoractor
- Biography
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Nicholas David Offerman is an American actor. 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
- aircraft pilotcomputer scientistentrepreneuractor
- 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
- television producerentrepreneurcomputer scientistYouTubersoftware engineer
- Biography
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Jawed Karim is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders 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 345 million times as of January 2025. During Karim's time working at PayPal, where he met fellow YouTube co-founders Steve 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
- film producerscreenwriterdirectorfilm directorwriter
- Biography
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Ang Lee OBS is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
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Roger Ebert
- Occupations
- reporterscreenwriterwritertelevision presenterfilm critic
- Biography
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Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style 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 endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. 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." Per The New York Times, "The force and grace of his opinions propelled film criticism into the mainstream of American culture. Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw."
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Shahid Khan
- Occupations
- entrepreneurengineerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Shahid Rafiq "Shad" Khan is a Pakistani-American billionaire businessman and sports tycoon. Khan is 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 professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW), along with his son, Tony Khan. He is also the owner of Flex-N-Gate, an American supplier of motor vehicle components.
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Alan Ruck
- Occupations
- actorfilm actorstage actortelevision actorwriter
- Biography
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Alan Douglas Ruck is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Cameron Frye in John Hughes' 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. His other film credits include Bad Boys (1983), Three Fugitives (1989), Young Guns II (1990), Speed (1994), Star Trek Generations (1994), and Twister (1996).
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Jesse Jackson
- Occupations
- human rights activistpastorpoliticiancivil rights advocatefounder
- 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 from 1991 to 1997 as a shadow delegate and senator 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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Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
- Occupations
- actorfilm actorsingerstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is an American actress and singer. 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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Temple Grandin
- Occupations
- zoologistscreenwriteractivistnon-fiction writeruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Mary Temple Grandin is an American academic, inventor, and ethologist. 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
- actorfilm actorstage actortelevision actorvoice 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." Over his career he received a Tony Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award.
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Steve Chen
- Occupations
- computer scientistengineerdesignerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Steve Chen is a Taiwanese-American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur who is one of the co-founders and previous chief technology officer of the 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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Kelly Loeffler
- Occupations
- businesspersonpolitician
- 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 announced as the presumptive nominee for the Administrator of the Small Business Administration on December 5, 2024 by President-elect Trump.
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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
- politicianeconomist
- 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. Since 2017, he has been living in exile in Belgium.
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David Otunga
- Occupations
- television actorlawyerprofessional wrestleractor
- Biography
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David Daniel Otunga is an American actor and retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE.
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Kevin Anderson
- Occupations
- tennis player
- Biography
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Kevin Michael Anderson is an inactive 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.
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Jack Welch
- Occupations
- engineerjournalistwriterbusinesspersonentrepreneur
- Biography
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John Francis Welch Jr. was an American business executive, chemical engineer, and writer. He was Chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) between 1981 and 2001.
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Arden Cho Mamita
- Occupations
- taekwondo athletevoice actorsinger-songwriterfilm actormodel
- Biography
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Arden Lim Cho is an American actress, singer and model 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
- film actortelevision actorstage actoractor
- Biography
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Betsy Brandt is an American actress. She is known for playing Marie Schrader on the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad (2008–2013) and Heather Hughes on 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
- composerguitaristsingermandolinistsinger-songwriter
- Biography
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Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist widely known for his 1970s and 1980s soft rock hits, including "Longer" (1979), "Same Old Lang Syne" (1981), and "Leader of the Band" (1982).
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James Brady
- Occupations
- press agentpolitician
- 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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Barbara Bain
- Occupations
- film actorstage actormodeltelevision 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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Shanola Hampton
- Occupations
- actortelevision actor
- 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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James Holzhauer
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in mathematics
- Occupations
- game show contestantgambler
- 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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Tony Khan
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 2007 graduated with bachelor's degree in finance
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinessperson
- Biography
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Antony Rafiq 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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Andy Richter
- Occupations
- film actorscreenwritertelevision presentertelevision actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Paul Andrew Richter is an American actor, comedian, writer, and talk show announcer. He is best known as the sidekick for Conan O'Brien on each of O'Brien's talk shows: Late Night and The Tonight Show on NBC and Conan on TBS. He was also star of the Fox television series Andy Richter Controls the Universe. He voiced Mort in the Madagascar film franchise and Ben Higgenbottom in the animated television series The Mighty B! on Nickelodeon.
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Donna Mills
- Occupations
- film produceractorfilm actorstage actortelevision actor
- 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
- software engineerprogrammerinventorinvestorentrepreneur
- Biography
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Marc Lowell Andreessen is an American businessman and former 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; he also co-founded Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. He is an inductee in the World Wide Web Hall of Fame. Andreessen's net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion as of January 2025.
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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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Martin Eberhard
- Occupations
- entrepreneurengineer
- Biography
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Martin Eberhard is an American engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla, Inc. (then Tesla Motors) with Marc Tarpenning in 2003, where Eberhard was its original CEO serving until late 2007. In 2015, he was inducted into the University of Illinois Engineering Hall of Fame.
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Atsugiri Jason
- Occupations
- writerboard memberowarai tarentoactor
- 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
- rapperrecord producersingersinger-songwriterlyricist
- Biography
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Jeremy Phillip Felton, known professionally as Jeremih, is an American R&B singer. 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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Tommy DeVito
- Occupations
- American football player
- Biography
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Thomas N. DeVito is an American professional football quarterback for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He played five seasons of college football for the Syracuse Orange and one with the Illinois Fighting Illini before signing with the Giants as an undrafted free agent in 2023.
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Dorothy Day
- Occupations
- editortrade unionistsuffragistsocial activistjournalist
- 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 activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical among American Catholics.
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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 Basketball League (GBL) and the EuroLeague. He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.
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Brendan Eich
- Occupations
- computer scientistchief technology officerprogrammer
- 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 opposition to same-sex marriage. He subsequently became the cofounder and CEO of Brave Software.
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John Bardeen
- Occupations
- university teacherinventorphysicistelectrical engineer
- Biography
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John Bardeen was an American electrical engineer and theoretical physicist. 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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Max Levchin
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Studied in 1997
- Occupations
- computer scientistbusinesspersonentrepreneurweb development
- 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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Dave Eggers
- Occupations
- activist shareholderscreenwriterwriternovelistscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
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Dan Savage
- Occupations
- writerpodcasterjournalistsex 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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Fidel Ramos
- Occupations
- politicianmilitary personnelmilitary commander
- Biography
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Fidel Valdez Ramos CCLH GCS KGCR, popularly known as FVR, 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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Ryan McPartlin
- Occupations
- actorfilm actormodeltelevision actorvoice 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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George Will
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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George Frederick Will is an American libertarian conservative writer and political commentator. He writes columns for The Washington Post on a regular basis, and provides commentary for NewsNation. In 1986, The Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America". Will won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977.
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Money Boy
- Occupations
- rapper
- Biography
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Sebastian Meisinger, better known by his stage name Money Boy, is an Austrian rapper and 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
- civil engineerarchitectengineerstructural 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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Sean Evans
- Occupations
- vloggerfilm directorYouTuberfilm screenwritertelevision producer
- 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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Philip Ng
- Occupations
- taekwondo athletekaratekachoreographertelevision actoractor
- 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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Iris Chang
- Occupations
- writerhuman rights activistjournalistpolitical activist
- Biography
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Iris Shun-Ru Chang was an American journalist, historian, 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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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 (now Charlotte Hornets). 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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Sri Mulyani Indrawati
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with master's degree in economics
- Occupations
- politicianuniversity teachereconomist
- Biography
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Sri Mulyani Indrawati is an Indonesian economist who currently serves as the Minister of Finance of Indonesia as part of the Onward Indonesia Cabinet. She had served as Minister of Finance in two separate terms; under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono between 2005–2010 and under Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto since 2016.
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Esther Povitsky
- Occupations
- film actortelevision actorstand-up comedianactor
- Biography
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Esther Povitsky, for a time known by the stage name "Little Esther," is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, and producer. Povitsky, from Chicago, is the co-creator and star of the comedy series Alone Together (2018); 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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David A. Johnston
- Occupations
- volcanologistgeologist
- 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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César Pelli
- Occupations
- entrepreneuruniversity teacherarchitect
- Biography
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César Pelli was an Argentine architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Three of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the World Financial Center in New York City, and the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. 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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Ed Boon
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in computer science and mathematics
- Occupations
- screenwritergame programmervideo game designervideo game developerdirector
- Biography
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Edward 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 for one of its Subsidiaries, NetherRealm Studios.
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Avery Brundage
- Occupations
- politicianbusinesspersonathletics competitormodern pentathletebasketball player
- Biography
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Avery Brundage was the fifth president of the International Olympic Committee, serving 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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Suze Orman
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1976 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in social work
- Occupations
- businesspersontelevision presentermotivational speakerinvestorwriter
- 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
- computer scientistbankerhedge fund managerentrepreneur
- 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
- film actoractortelevision 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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Ned Luke
- Occupations
- film actorvoice actortelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Ned Armstrong Luke is an American actor. He is known for portraying Michael De Santa in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V. Luke also voiced Raffles in the animated movie Rover Dangerfield. He has appeared in 29 movies and television shows as well as over 100 commercials.
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Arte Johnson
- Occupations
- screenwritervoice actortelevision actoractor
- 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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Annette Lu
- Years
- 1944-.. (age 81)
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- 1969-1971 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- politicianwomen's rights activistlawyer
- Biography
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Annette Lu Hsiu-lien is a Taiwanese politician and lawyer. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1990, and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was vice president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian.
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Jon Corzine
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 1969 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- politicianbankerchief executive officer
- Biography
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Jon Stevens 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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Jack Kilby
- Occupations
- photographerphysicistcomputer scientistuniversity teacherengineer
- 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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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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Arvind Krishna
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- 1985-1991 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy in electrical engineering
- Occupations
- chief 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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John B. Anderson
- Occupations
- university teacherpolitician
- 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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Lin Chuan
- Occupations
- politicianeconomist
- Biography
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Lin Chuan is a Taiwanese economist and politician who served as the Premier of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2016 to 2017, he is the first cabinet head under the Tsai Ing-wen government. Before his premiership, he had also served as the Minister of Budget, Accounting and Statistics and Minister of Finance during Chen Shui-bian's presidency.
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Jesse Jackson Jr
- Occupations
- politiciantaekwondo athletelawyer
- Biography
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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 then-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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Richard Powers
- Occupations
- writernovelistscience fiction writer
- Biography
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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 2024, Powers has published fourteen 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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Irving Azoff
- Occupations
- talent manager
- Biography
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Irving Azoff is an American businessman, who is 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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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 trilogy, 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
- engineer
- 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
- film criticjournalistliterary critic
- Biography
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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
- editorbusinesspersonviolinistfilm producer
- Biography
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Sheila Crump Johnson is an American billionaire businesswoman, co-founder of BET, and CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts.
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Tim McCarthy
- Occupations
- U.S. Secret Service agentpolice officer
- Biography
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Timothy J. McCarthy is an American retired police officer and special agent of the U.S. Secret Service. He is best known for defending then-president Ronald Reagan during the assassination attempt on Reagan's life on March 30, 1981, in Washington, D.C.
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Piergiorgio Odifreddi
- Occupations
- historian of scienceuniversity teacherlogicianmathematicianscience communicator
- Biography
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Piergiorgio Odifreddi is an Italian mathematician, logician, scholar 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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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
- politicianengineerbusinesspersoninvestment banker
- Biography
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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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Jerry Colangelo
- Occupations
- businesspersonbasketball coachentrepreneurbasketball playerautobiographer
- 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 (later renamed to the Arizona Coyotes, now the Utah Hockey Club). 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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Andrew Davis
- Occupations
- film directorfilm producerscreenwritercinematographerdirector
- Biography
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Andrew Davis is an American filmmaker, known for having directed several successful action and thriller films during the 1980s and 1990s. His best known works include Above the Law (1988), Under Siege (1992), The Fugitive (1993), Chain Reaction (1996), A Perfect Murder (1998), and Holes (2003). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director and a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film for The Fugitive.
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Scott Atlas
- Occupations
- punditneurosurgeonradiologist
- Biography
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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
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Quamdeen Ayopo "Ayo" Dosunmu is an 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. He was selected with the 38th pick in the 2021 NBA draft by his hometown Chicago Bulls. He is considered one of the biggest steals of his draft class.
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Red Grange
- Occupations
- actorAmerican football player
- Biography
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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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Nelson Algren
- Occupations
- writernovelist
- 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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James Tobin
- Occupations
- economiststatisticianmilitary personnelprofessor
- 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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Thomas Siebel
- Occupations
- information scientistcomputer scientistbusinesspersonentrepreneur
- Biography
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Thomas M. Siebel is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He founded the 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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Derek Harper
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Derek Ricardo Harper is an American former professional basketball player. A second-team All-American at the University of Illinois, he was the 11th overall pick of the 1983 NBA draft and spent 16 seasons as a point guard in the National Basketball Association with the Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, and Los Angeles Lakers. Harper is widely regarded as one of the best players to never have been selected to an All-Star game.
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Jill Wine-Banks
- Occupations
- lawyerwriter
- 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 47)
- Enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
- In 2005 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- computer scientist
- Biography
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Christopher Arthur Lattner is an American software engineer and creator of LLVM, the Clang compiler, the Swift programming language and the MLIR compiler infrastructure.
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Robert Novak
- Occupations
- columnistpoliticianjournalistbusinessperson
- 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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Kendall Gill
- Occupations
- basketball playerboxer
- Biography
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Kendall Cedric Gill is an American former professional basketball player who now works as a television basketball analyst. Throughout his NBA career he was known as “Cold World” for his ice cold demeanor on the court.
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Jill Lepore
- Occupations
- journalisthistorianwriteruniversity teacheressayist
- 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
- computer scientistuniversity teacher
- 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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Jerry Sanders
- Occupations
- computer scientistentrepreneur
- Biography
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Walter Jeremiah Sanders III is an American businessman and engineer who was a co-founder and long-time CEO of the American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), serving in the position from 1969 to 2002.
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Stephen Moore
- Occupations
- writerpundit
- 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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Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah
- Occupations
- mathematicianresearcherinventortelecommunications engineer
- Biography
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Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah was a Lebanese electrical and electronics research engineer, mathematician and inventor. He was born in Nabatieh in present-day Lebanon.
