Notable Alumni

JE has proudly been home to a number of brilliant minds and talents who went on to achieve great things after leaving Yale. The following are some particularly distinguished alumni:

  • McGeorge Bundy (1940) studied mathematics here at Yale then went on to become the United States National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson (1961-1966), where he was involved in the United States’ escalation of the Vietnam War
  • John Lindsay (1944) received both his bachelor’s and law degree from Yale, then served as a member of the US House of Representatives before being elected as mayor of New York City in (1966-1973).
  • Murray Gell-Mann (1948) studied physics at Yale then achieved great success in studying elementary particles (quarks, pions and neutrinos), which earned him a Nobel Prize in physics in 1969.
  • Nicholas F. Brady (1952) entered politics after Yale and served briefly in the Senate, then was appointed the 68th Secretary of the Treasury in 1988 and developed a debt-reduction plan for developing countries through the use of “Brady Bonds.”
  • James Gustave Speth (1964) graduated summa cum laude from Yale then helped found the National Resources Defense Council and later the World Resources institute. He also served as Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies 1999-2009.
  • John Kerry (1966) studied political science at Yale before launching a stellar career in politics, advancing from lieutenant governor of Massachusetts to the US Senate (1984-2013) where he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was elected the Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential race, and in 2013 assumed office as the 68th US Secretary of State under Barack Obama. Kerry recently spoke at the Yale commencement for the Class of 2014.
  • Fred Smith (1966) studied economics at Yale where he received a “C” on a paper outlining the plan for what became FedEx, which he founded in 1971. In 2014, Smith was listed as 26th on Fortune Magazine’s list of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”
  • Roland Betts (1968) is known for his work as a developer and investor in New York City, where he founded, and is now the owner of, Chelsea Piers in 1992. Betts also served on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation from 2001 to 2006, during which time he chaired the committee charged with rebuilding the World Trade Center site.
  • Gary Locke (1972) studied political science and Yale and went on to serve as the 21st governor of Washington (1997-2005) and the US Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration (2009-2011). Locke was the first US governor of Asian descent and the first Chinese American to serve as the US Ambassador to China, a position he held from 2011 to 2014.
  • Gary Lucas (1974) studied English at Yale and first established his career in music as a DJ for Yale’s radio station WYBC FM. Lucas now tours the world playing guitar, even recently playing at the US Consulate in Milan, was nominated for a Grammy Award, and was listed as one of the “100 Greatest Living Guitarists” by Classic Rock in 2009.
  • Christopher Buckley (1975) was the managing editor of Esquire on campus at Yale, then went on work as a speechwriter for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1981. He is known for his works of political satire, including numerous novels and articles for national newspapers and magazines.
  • Ronni Alexander (1977) studied psychology at Yale and is known for being a plaintiff in the 1980 case Alexander v. Yale, the first use of Title IX in charges of sexual harassment against a university.
  • Donald Ingber (1977) studied molecular biophysics & biochemistry and did cancer research at Yale, and is considered a founder of the field of biologically inspired engineering. He founded Tensegra, Inc., which 3-D printed medical devices, and most recently Emulate, Inc. to commercialize human “organs-on-chips.”
  • Donna Dubinsky (1977) studied history at Yale and went on to serve as CEO of Palm, Inc., developer of the Palm Pilot, and later co-founded Numenta, Inc., an artificial intelligence company. Fortune Magazine nominated Dubinsky to the Innovators Hall of Fame in 1999 for her contribution to the development of the PDA.
  • Marvin Krislov (1982) studied political science at Yale and was editor of the Yale Law Journal, before embarking on a law career during which he served at the US Department of Justice, the White House Counsel and the US Department of Labor. Krislov was the vice president and general counsel of the University of Michigan for nine years before being appointed the 14th president of Oberlin College.
  • Amy Klobuchar (1982) graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a degree in political science and went on to be elected to the US Senate in 2007. The New York Times listed Klobuchar as one of the seventeen women most likely to become the first female President of the United States, and MSNBC and The New Yorker listed her as a likely nominee to the US Supreme Court.
  • Amity Shlaes (1982) graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a degree in English and went on to serve on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and write columns for the Financial Times and Bloomberg News. Shlaes is now a current events columnist for Forbes Magazine and has also published four New York Times best-sellers.
  • Tom Perrotta (1983) studied English at Yale then went on to become a novelist and screenwriter. Two of his novels, Election and Little Children were adapted into Academy Award-nominated films and Perrotta himself earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Perrotta is also known for his novel The Leftovers, which was adapted into a television series on HBO in 2014.
  • Andrew Solomon (1985) graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a degree in English, and his 2001 book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the National Book Award, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and was included in The Times list of the one hundred best books of the decade.
  • David Leonhardt (1994) studied applied mathematics at Yale and was editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, before going on to write columns for Businessweek, the Washington Post and The Times, and later serving as the Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Times. In 2011 Leonhardt was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, and now serves as the managing editor of a new New York Times venture called The Upshot.
  • Theo Epstein (1995) majored in American Studies at Yale and served as the sports editor for the Yale Daily News. He is known for being the youngest general manager in the history of Major League Baseball, a position he assumed with the Boston Red Sox in 2002 at the age of 28. Epstein was general manager in 2004 when the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, and has been the President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs since 2011.
  • Anne Wojcicki (1996) studied biology at Yale and played on the varsity women’s hockey team, then went on to do research at the National Institutes of Health before becoming a health care consultant at Investment AB. In 2006, Wojcicki co-founded 23andMe, the company whose personal genome testing kit was named “Invention of the Year” by Time magazine in 2008. In 2013, The Fast Company named Wojcicki “The Most Daring CEO.”
  • Robert Lopez (1997) studied English at Yale, where he wrote three plays and was a member of the Yale Spizzwinks a capella group. After Yale, Lopez launched an incredibly successful career in songwriting of musicals, most notably The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q and the movie Frozen. Lopez is the youngest of only twelve people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award.