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This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University. For further listing of notable Columbians see: Notable alumni at Columbia College of Columbia University; Columbia University School of General Studies; Columbia Law School; Columbia Business School; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Columbia University Graduate School of Education (Teachers College); Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science; Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Columbia University School of Professional Studies; Columbia University School of the Arts; the School of International and Public Affairs; and Barnard College. The following lists are incomplete.

Nobel laureates

As of the 2023 awards, 103 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia University as alumni or faculty. Among the 103 laureates, 72 are Nobel laureates in natural sciences;^[a] 46 are Columbia alumni (graduates and attendees) and 34 have been long-term academic members of the Columbia faculty; and subject-wise, 33 laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, more than any other subject. This list considers Nobel laureates as equal individuals and does not consider their various prize shares or if they received the prize more than once. It includes alumni and faculty of Barnard College after 1900 and those of Bard College by 1944, as well as physicians and long-term medical staff of the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital.

In the following list, the number following a person's name is the year they received the prize; in particular, a number with asterisk (*) means the person received the award while they were working at Columbia University (including emeritus staff). A name marked with a dagger (^†) indicates that this person has already been listed in a previous category (i.e., multiple affiliations).

Summary of Columbia University's Nobel Laureates
Category	Alumni	Professors of various ranks	Researchers or visitors
Total: 103	46	34	43
Physics (33)	Robert Millikan – 1923 Isidor Rabi – 1944 Julian Schwinger – 1965 Leon Cooper – 1972 James Rainwater – 1975 Arno Penzias – 1978 Val Fitch – 1980 Leon Lederman – 1988 Melvin Schwartz – 1988 Norman Ramsey – 1989 Martin Perl – 1995 Arthur Ashkin – 2018 John Clauser – 2022	Enrico Fermi – 1938 Isidor Rabi^† – 1944* Hideki Yukawa – 1949* Willis Lamb – 1955 Polykarp Kusch – 1955* Tsung-Dao Lee – 1957* Charles Townes – 1964 James Rainwater^† – 1975* Samuel Ting – 1976 Melvin Schwartz^† – 1988 Leon Lederman^† – 1988 Jack Steinberger – 1988 Norman Ramsey^† – 1989 Horst Störmer – 1998*	Emilio Segrè – 1959 Maria Mayer – 1963 Hans Bethe – 1967 Murray Gell-Mann – 1969 Aage Bohr – 1975 Samuel Ting^† – 1976 Steven Weinberg – 1979 Arthur Schawlow – 1981 Carlo Rubbia – 1984 Leon Lederman^† – 1988 Daniel Tsui – 1998 John C. Mather – 2006 Giorgio Parisi – 2021
Chemistry (16)	Irving Langmuir – 1932 John H. Northrop – 1946 William H. Stein – 1972 Roald Hoffmann – 1981 Herbert Hauptman – 1985 Sidney Altman – 1989 William S. Knowles – 2001 Robert Grubbs – 2005 Robert Lefkowitz – 2012 Louis E. Brus – 2023	Harold Urey – 1934* Martin Chalfie – 2008* Martin Karplus – 2013 Joachim Frank – 2017* Louis E. Brus^† – 2023*	Willard Libby – 1960 Luis Leloir – 1970
Physiology or Medicine (23)	Hermann J. Muller – 1946 Edward C. Kendall – 1950 Dickinson Richards – 1956 Joshua Lederberg – 1958 Konrad Bloch – 1964 George Wald – 1967 Konrad Lorenz – 1973 Baruch Blumberg – 1976 Baruj Benacerraf – 1980 Harold Varmus – 1989 Louis Ignarro – 1998 Richard Axel – 2004	Thomas H. Morgan – 1933 André Cournand – 1956* Dickinson Richards^† – 1956* Eric Kandel – 2000* Richard Axel^† – 2004* James Rothman – 2013	Hermann J. Muller^† – 1946 Joshua Lederberg^† – 1958 Konrad Bloch^† – 1964 Salvador Luria – 1969 Baruch Blumberg^† – 1976 Carleton Gajdusek – 1976 Daniel Nathans – 1978 Baruj Benacerraf^† – 1980 Sune Bergström – 1982 Donnall Thomas – 1990 Linda Buck – 2004 David Julius – 2021
Economics (17)	Simon Kuznets – 1971 Kenneth Arrow – 1972 Milton Friedman – 1976 Robert Fogel – 1993 William Vickrey – 1996 Robert C. Merton – 1997 Alvin Roth – 2012	George Stigler – 1982 Gary Becker – 1992 William Vickrey^† – 1996* Robert Mundell – 1999* James Heckman – 2000 Joseph Stiglitz – 2001* Edmund Phelps – 2006*	Milton Friedman^† – 1976 Franco Modigliani – 1985 Robert Solow – 1987 Joseph Stiglitz^† – 2001 David Card – 2021 Joshua Angrist – 2021
Literature (6)	Louise Glück – 2020	Orhan Pamuk – 2006	Gabriela Mistral – 1945 Joseph Brodsky – 1987 Nadine Gordimer – 1991 Derek Walcott – 1992 Orhan Pamuk^† – 2006
Peace (8)	Theodore Roosevelt – 1906 Nicholas Butler – 1931 Barack Obama – 2009	Nicholas Butler^† – 1931	Elie Wiesel – 1986 Al Gore – 2007 Liu Xiaobo – 2010 Leymah Gbowee – 2011 Maria Ressa – 2021

Fields Medalists

Jesse Douglas—(attended Columbia College from 1920 to 1924), one of two winners of the first Fields Medal in 1936
Heisuke Hironaka—former professor of mathematics, Columbia; winner of the Fields Medal in 1970
Shigefumi Mori—former professor of mathematics, Columbia; winner of the Fields Medal and the Cole Prize (both in 1990)
Andrei Okounkov—former professor of mathematics, Columbia; winner of the Fields Medal in 2006
Stephen Smale—former professor of mathematics, Columbia; winner of the Fields Medal in 1966 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2006/7, one of only twelve Fields Medallists to win both prizes

Wolf Prize

Robert Brout—(Ph.D.) Belgian theoretical physicist; 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics; 2010 Sakurai Prize; significant contributions in elementary particle physics
John Clauser—(M.A. 1966, Ph.D. 1969) theoretical and experimental physicist; 2010 Wolf Prize in Physics; Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality
Samuel J. Danishefsky—(postdoctoral fellowship) 1995 Wolf Prize in Chemistry; Danishefsky's diene, Danishefsky Taxol total synthesis
Samuel Eilenberg—1986 Wolf Prize in Mathematics; Eilenberg–Steenrod axioms, Eilenberg swindle
Peter Eisenmann—(M.A.) architect; 2010 Wolf Prize in Arts; work often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde
Harry B. Gray—2004 Wolf Prize in Chemistry
Leon M. Lederman—(Ph.D.) experimental physicist, Wolf Prize in Physics, National Medal of Science, Presidential Medal of Freedom
Karl Maramorosch—(Ph.D. 1949) virologist, entomologist and plant pathologist; 1980 Wolf Prize in Agriculture
Gilbert Stork—1995 Wolf Prize in Chemistry; 1982 National Medal of Science, Willard Gibbs Medal
Chien-Shiung Wu—physics professor and particle physicist, first woman to head the American Physical Society and the first woman to become a tenured professor in the physics department; 1978 Wolf Prize in Physics among other awards
Stephen Smale—2006 Wolf Prize in Mathematics; National Medal of Science (1975); Bonner Prize (1975); Comstock Prize in Physics (1964)

Crafoord Prize

Wallace Smith Broecker—(alumnus and faculty) Crafoord Prize in Geoscience (2006), Balzan Prize, National Medal of Science, Vetlesen Prize, among other awards
Peter K. Gregersen—(MD 1976) Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis (2013)^[1]
Richard Lewontin—(MA, Ph.D. 1954) Crafoord Prize in Bioscience (2015)
Peter Molnar (Ph.D. 1970 Geology) Crafoord Prize in Geosciences (2014)
Walter Munk—(undergrad attendee) Crafoord Prize in Geoscience (2010); National Medal of Science, Vetlesen Prize, Kyoto Prize, among other awards
Robert J. Winchester—(faculty) Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis (2013)

Templeton Prize

Francisco J. Ayala—(Ph.D. 1964) Templeton Prize for life's work in evolutionary biology and genetics (2010), National Medal of Science (2001), among other awards

ACM Turing Award

John Backus—(B.S. 1949, M.A. 1950 Mathematics) Inventor of Fortran programming language, Draper Prize^[2]
Alfred Aho—(faculty, 1995 to present) professor of computer science; John von Neumann Medal (2003); ACM Turing Award (2020)
Jeffrey Ullman—(B.S. 1963) professor of computer science at Stanford University; IEEE John von Neumann Medal (2010); ACM Turing Award (2020)

Founding Fathers of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States are the political leaders who signed the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution, or otherwise participated in the American Revolution as leaders of the Patriots.

Alexander Hamilton—Founding Father, American Revolutionary War officer and aide-de-camp to George Washington, initiator and co-author of The Federalist Papers, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, economist, one of the first U.S. constitutional lawyers (picture appears on U.S. ten-dollar bill)
John Jay—Founding Father, president of the Continental Congress, co-author of The Federalist Papers, second U.S. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, diplomat, architect of Jay's Treaty with Great Britain
Robert Livingston—Founding Father, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, first U.S. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, U.S. Minister to France, negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase
Gouverneur Morris—Founding Father, author of large sections of the Constitution of the United States, U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary to France, United States Senator from New York, creator of the Manhattan street grid system, a builder of the Erie canal
Egbert Benson—Founding Father, member of the Continental Congresses; with Alexander Hamilton, delegate from New York to the Annapolis Convention; ratifier of the United States Constitution; served in the First and Second United States Congresses

Presidents of the United States

Theodore Roosevelt—(law, attended 1880 to 1881) (posthumous J.D., class of 1882),^[3] 26th president of the United States (1901–1909); hero of the Spanish–American War (Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded 2001); Nobel Peace Prize recipient; Governor of New York; Assistant Secretary of the Navy; professional historian, explorer, author
Franklin Delano Roosevelt—(law, attended fall of 1904 to spring 1907) (posthumous J.D., class of 1907),^[3] 32nd president of the United States (1933–1945); consistently ranked as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents in scholarly surveys; Governor of New York; Assistant Secretary of the navy
Dwight Eisenhower—34th president of the United States (1953–1961); Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; president of Columbia University
Barack Obama—(B.A. 1983) 44th president of the United States (2009–2017); Nobel Peace Prize recipient; Democratic senator from Illinois (2005–2008); first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review

Vice presidents of the United States

Daniel D. Tompkins—6th vice president of the United States, 4th governor of New York, declined appointment as United States Secretary of State by President James Madison
Theodore Roosevelt—(Law) 25th vice president of the United States, organized and helped command the Rough Riders in the Spanish–American War, Medal of Honor

Presidents and prime ministers (international)

Ashraf Ghani—(M.A. 1977, Ph.D. 1983) President of Afghanistan; finance minister; chancellor of Kabul University
Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali—(M.A.) twice Prime Minister of Iraq (40th PM); six times Foreign Minister; member of both houses of Iraqi Parliament
Kassim al-Rimawi—(M.A. 1954, Ph.D. 1956) Prime Minister of Jordan (1980); Minister on six occasions (from 1962 through 1980)
Giuliano Amato—(M.A., Law 1963) twice Prime Minister of Italy (72nd and 78th PM); Minister of the Interior; Minister of Foreign Affairs
Hafizullah Amin—(Ph.D. 1962) 2nd General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council
Nahas Angula—(M.A., MEd) Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia (incumbent as of 2010); member of the National Assembly since 1990
Marek Belka—11th Prime Minister of Poland; twice Minister of Finance
Fernando Henrique Cardoso—(faculty) 34th president of Brazil (1995–2003); Minister of External Relations (1992–1993); Minister of Finance (1993–1994)
Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz—(Fulbright scholar, research, 1980 through 1981) Prime Minister of Poland (1996–97); Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (2001–05); speaker, Sejm (lower chamber, Polish parliament) (2005); Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland (1993–95); senator (2007–)
Gaston Eyskens—(MSc 1927) six-time Prime Minister of Belgium (1949–1950, 1958–1961, 1968–1973)
Mark Eyskens—(M.A. 1957) Prime Minister of Belgium (1981); Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (1989–92); Belgian Minister of Finance; Belgian Minister of Economic Affairs
Sun Fo—(M.S. 1917) twice Premier of the Republic of China (1931–32, 48–49); President of the Legislative Yuan (1932–48); President of the Examination Yuan (1966–73)
Chen Gongbo—(M.A., Economics, 1925) Chinese politician; president of the Republic of China (Nanjing regime) (1944–1945)
Václav Havel—(visiting artist in residence, 2006); 1st president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003); last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992)
Jose Ramos Horta—Nobel Laureate; President of East Timor (2007–2012); Prime Minister (2006–2007)
Lee Huan—(M.A.) former premier of the Republic of China (1989–1990); ROC Minister of Education (1984–1987)
Toomas Hendrik Ilves—(B.A.) twice President of Estonia ( 2011–, 2006–11); twice Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs (1999–2002, 1996–1998); Member of the European Parliament (2004–2006)
Radovan Karadžić—(M.D. 1975) Serb politician, 1st president of Republika Srpska (1992–1996), psychiatrist, poet; accused of committing war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre
Wellington Koo—(B.A., Ph.D.) twice Premier of China (1924; '26–27); interim President ('26–27); Amb. to the U.S. ('46–56); co-founder League of Nations, United Nations
Benjamin Mkapa—(M.A.) 3rd president of Tanzania (1995–2005); twice Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (1984–1990, 1977–1980)
Nwafor Orizu—(M.A.) Acting President of Nigeria (1965–1966); second President of the Nigerian Senate (1960–1966) (during the Nigerian First Republic)
Lucas Papademos—(faculty 1975–84) Prime Minister of Greece (November 2011–12); economist; former governor, Bank of Greece (1994–02) and vice president, European Central Bank (2002–10)
Hans-Gert Pottering—(graduate studies) 23rd president of European Parliament (2007–2009)
Mary Robinson—(faculty 2004–) 7th president of Ireland (1990–1997)
Mikhail Saakashvili—(Law 1994) twice President of Georgia (2004–2007, 2008–present); leader of Rose Revolution
Juan Bautista Sacasa—(M.D.) 66th president of Nicaragua (1933–1936); Vice President of Nicaragua (1926–1927)
Salim Ahmed Salim—(M.A.) 5th Prime Minister of Tanzania; deputy prime minister of Tanzania (1986–89); Minister for Foreign Affairs (1980–84); President of the United Nations General Assembly; 6th Secretary General, Organization of African Unity
Ernesto Samper—(M.A.) 56th president of Colombia (1994–98); 17th Secretary General of Non-Aligned Movement (1995–98); 1st Minister of Economic Development (1990–91)
Mohammad Musa Shafiq—(M.A.) Prime Minister of Afghanistan (1972–1973); Foreign Minister of Afghanistan (1971–1972)
Tang Shaoyi—twice Prime Minister of the Republic of China (1912, 1922); first president, Shandong University
T. V. Soong—(Ph.D.) twice Premier of Republic of China (1930 and 1945–1947); minister of finance (1932–1933); governor, Central Bank of China (1928–1931)
Charles Robberts Swart—(M.S.) first State President of the Republic of South Africa (1961–1967); last Governor-General of the Union of South Africa (1960–1961); Acting Prime Minister (1958)
Nur Mohammed Taraki—3rd president and 12th Prime Minister of Afghanistan (1978–1979)
Chung Un-chan—(faculty 1976–78) 40th Prime Minister of South Korea
Abdul Zahir—(M.D.) Prime Minister of Afghanistan; president of Parliament; ambassador to Italy; ambassador to Pakistan
Zhou Ziqi—(B.A.) former premier and President of the Republic of China

Notable alumni and attendees

Notable faculty

See also above at Nobel Laureates ("Alumni" and "Faculty") for separate listing of 41 notable faculty

Alfred Aho—Canadian computer scientist known for co-authorship of the AWK programming language; IEEE John von Neumann Medal (2003)
Anne Marie Albano–professor of medical psychology; known for clinical work and research on anxiety disorders
Hattie Alexander—professor of pediatrics, microbiologist; known for Haemophilus influenzae, antibiotic resistance
Dimitris Anastassiou—professor of electrical engineering, developer of MPEG-2 technology
Edwin Armstrong—professor, winner of the 1941 Franklin Medal and the 1942 Edison Medal, inventor and the Father of FM Radio
Karen Barkey—professor of sociology
Charles A. Beard—(Ph.D. 1904) American historian of the first half of the 20th century
Peter Bearman—professor of sociology
Daniel Bell—(graduate study, 1938–1939) professor of sociology
J. Bowyer Bell—adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, and research associate at the Institute of War and Peace Studies
Jagdish Bhagwati—professor of economics and law, author of In Defense of Globalization
Franz Boas—father of American Anthropology
Sophie Body-Gendrot–French sociologist
C. Louise Boehringer, first female superintendent of schools, Yuma County and first female to be elected to office in Arizona.
Lee Bollinger—(J.D.) University President/law professor, First Amendment scholar, Affirmative Action advocate
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen—professor of Germanic languages
Geovanny Vicente—associate faculty of strategic communications for professionals
Robert Branner—professor of art history and archeology (1957-1969, 1971-1973)
Ronald Breslow—university professor of chemistry, biology, pharmacology, and engineering; Priestley Medal (1999); Perkin Medal (2010)
Alan Brinkley—professor of American history and university provost; son of newscaster David Brinkley
Zbigniew Brzezinski—National Security Advisor under the Carter Administration, taught Foreign Affairs
Richard Bulliet—history professor and Middle East scholar, author of Kicked to Death by a Camel
John Burgess—founder of modern political science
Santiago Calatrava—(honorary doctorate, 2007), architect, sculptor and structural engineer, designer of Montjuic Communications Tower and World Trade Center Transportation Hub
Stephen Cameron—financial analyst and adjunct associate professor (2003–present) and former associate professor (1994–2003) of International and Public Affairs; noted for studies on GED
Gabo Camnitzer—Artist, and educator
Neil W. Chamberlain—business professor and industrial relations scholar
Charles F. Chandler—chemist, first Dean of Columbia University's School of Mines
Kartik Chandran—environmental engineer, MacArthur Fellowship Recipient 2015^[4]
Partha Chatterjee—anthropologist and scholar of postcolonial nationalism
Thomas J. Christensen—political scientist and interim dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Richard Clarida—C. Lowell Harriss Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Columbia University and current vice chair of the Federal Reserve
Hillary Clinton—First Lady of the United States, United States senator from New York, 67th United States Secretary of State
George R. Collins—professor of art history (1946-1986)
Lee Saunders Crandall—ornithologist and general curator of the Bronx Zoo
Hamid Dabashi—cultural and literary critic
Alexander Dallin—history and political science professor, director of Russian Institute
Samuel J. Danishefsky—professor of chemistry, winner of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1995/96
Pierre Dansereau—Canadian ecologist known as one of the "fathers of ecology".
Arthur Danto—Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy emeritus, art critic
William Theodore de Bary—scholar and translator of East Asian texts, particularly classical Chinese canon
Andrew Delbanco—2012 National Humanities Medal; director of American Studies at Columbia University
Emanuel Derman—professor and director of Columbia's financial engineering program, co-authors of the Financial Modelers' Manifesto
Donald Dewey—former Economics professor
John Dewey—former Philosophy professor
William Diver—linguistics professor, founder of the Columbia School of Linguistics
Theodosius Dobzhansky—(researcher, graduate study, professor in population genetics); National Medal of Science in 1964; the Franklin Medal in 1973
Andrew Dolkart—architectural historian
Ann Douglas — cultural critic, recipient of the Beveridge Award and Merle Curti Award
Karen Duff—Potamkin Prize winning pathologist
John R. Dunning—physicist who played key roles in the development of the atomic bomb
Samuel Eilenberg—winner of the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1986
Arnold Eisen—chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Jon Elster—Robert Merton Professor of Social Science, leading theorist of rational choice theory, Marxism, and social theory
Niki Erlenmeyer-Kimling—professor of clinical psychiatry
William Maurice Ewing—earth scientist and pioneer
Awi Federgruen, Affiliate Professor of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering
Enrico Fermi—Manhattan Project member, Nobel laureate
Edgar Fiedler (1929–2003) - economist
Miloš Forman—film director, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt, two Academy Awards
Annette Baker Fox—international relations scholar
William T. R. Fox—political scientist and international relations theoretician
David Freedberg—art historian
Ferdinand Freudenstein—Higgins Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering
Fred W. Friendly—CBS News producer and media scholar
Erich Fromm—noted psychologist
Virginia Page Fortna—American political scientist, recipient of the 2010 Karl Deutsch Award from the International Studies Association
Zvi Galil (born 1947)—Israeli computer scientist, mathematician, and President of Tel Aviv University
Patrick X. Gallagher—professor emeritus of mathematics
Herbert J. Gans—professor of sociology; author of Popular Culture and High Culture
Kristine Gebbie—professor of nursing and Bill Clinton's first AIDS Czar
Frank Gehry—Pritzker Prize-winning architect
Harry Gideonse (1901–1985), President of Brooklyn College, and Chancellor of the New School for Social Research
Dorian M. Goldfeld—professor of mathematics
Robert Gooding-Williams—M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and Professor of Philosophy
Al Gore—Vice President of the United States of America
Benjamin Graham—father of value investing, mentor of Warren Buffett
Brian Greene—mathematics and physics professor, researcher and author in String Theory
Victoria de Grazia—professor of history, founding editor of Radical History Review
Sunil Gulati—professor of economics and chair of the U.S. Soccer Federation
Joan Dye Gussow—food policy expert
Richard S. Hamilton—Davies Professor of mathematics; awarded Shaw Prize (2011), Leroy P. Steele Prize (2009), Clay Research Award (2003), Veblen Prize (1996)
Georg Friedrich Haas—professor of composition
Gisue Hariri—professor of architecture
Cyril M. Harris—professor of electrical engineering and architect
Carl Hart—first African American tenured sciences professor at Columbia
Ross Hassig—anthropologist and Mesoamerica scholar
Howard Hibbard—Professor of Italian Baroque Art
Roger Hilsman—political scientist, author, and government official
Geovanny Vicente—political strategist, author, Associate Professor of Strategic Communications for professional, award-winning columnist for CNN
Richard Hofstadter—noted historian
Ralph Holloway—physical anthropologist
Carl Hovde—professor and Dean during the Columbia University protests of 1968.^[5]
Andreas Huyssen—Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature
David Ignatow—poet, Bollingen Prize-winner
Lawrence R. Jacobs— political scientist and founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance (CSPG) at the University of Minnesota
Kenneth T. Jackson—historian of New York City
Hervé Jacquet—professor emeritus of mathematics
Jon Jaques—professional basketball player, assistant basketball coach (Cornell University)
Eric Kandel—neuroscientist, 2000 Nobel laureate; Biophysicist, uncovered secrets of synapses. Professor Physicians & Surgeons (1974–); research with the Biomedical Engineering department
Thomas Christian Kavanagh—professor of civil engineering
Donald Keene—Japanese studies expert
James Kent—first professor of law at Columbia College (1793–98), legal scholar and jurist, author of seminal "Commentaries on American Law"; the "Commentaries" treated state, federal, and international law, and the law of personal rights and property
Rashid Khalidi—Middle East historian
Cinta Laura Kiehl— Indonesian actress, singer, model and ambassador of anti-violence against women and children by the Indonesian Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection
Philip Kim—professor of applied physics and mathematics
Grayson L. Kirk—former president and instrumental in the founding of the United Nations Security Council
Kenneth Koch—poet
Masatake Kuranishi—professor emeritus of mathematics
Klaus Lackner—professor of environmental engineering
Serge Lang—former professor of mathematics, recipient of the 1960 Cole Prize, and political activist
Arthur M. Langer—professor of professional practice, academic director of the M.S. in professional technology program and founder of Workforce Opportunity Services
Jaron Lanier—visiting scholar at the Computer Science department
Leon M. Lederman—Nobel Laureate, discoverer of muon neutrino '62, bottom quark '77. Professor (1951–1989); M.A., Ph.D. Columbia
Tsung Dao Lee—physics professor, Nobel laureate
Rudolph Leibel—Christopher J. Murphy Memorial Professor of Diabetes; Co-discovered the hormone leptin, and cloned the leptin and leptin receptor genes, which have had a major role in the area of understanding human obesity.^[6]^[7]
Mark Lilla—professor of humanities; historian of ideas^[8]
Konrad Lorenz—psychology professor, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1973)
Walther Ludwig—classical studies professor
Nicholas F. Maxemchuk—professor of electrical engineering
Dusa McDuff—professor of mathematics
Myrtle Byram McGraw—psychologist, neurobiologist, and child development researcher
John Anthony McGuckin—professor of Byzantine Christian Studies
Rustin McIntosh—former pediatrics professor
Margaret Mead—professor of anthropology
Don Melnick—professor of environmental biology and advisor to the UN on environmental issues
Edward Mendelson—Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities
Robert K. Merton—professor of sociology; founder of sociology of science; National Medal of Science
Jacob Millman—professor of electrical engineering, creator of Millman's Theorem
C. Wright Mills—professor of sociology
Eben Moglen—Law and the Internet Society, general counsel of FSF
Sidney Morgenbesser—John Dewey Professor of Philosophy
Robert Mundell—economics professor, 1999 Nobel laureate in Economics
John Hine Mundy—professor of medieval history, former president of the Medieval Academy of America
Tristan Murail—professor of music composition, French composer
P. T. Narasimhan—theoretical chemist, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
Mira Nair—director of Monsoon Wedding, film studies professor
Shree K. Nayar—professor of computer science, scholar noted for his work in the fields of Computational Imaging and Computer Vision
Franz Leopold Neumann—political science professor, Communist spy in Redhead group
Gertrude Fanny Neumark— expert on doping wide-band semiconductors
Robert S. Neuwirth—Babcock Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology; pioneer in the use of gynecological endoscopy
Kimberly Noble–Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; American Psychological Association Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest Award
Rebecca Oppenheimer—Astronomical instrument builder; pioneer in studying exoplanet and substellar atmospheres; co-discoverer of first known brown dwarf
Robert G. O'Meally—Grammy Award-nominated producer, professor of English and comparative literature
Kevin O'Rourke—Irish economist, now Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford
John Ordronaux—Civil War army surgeon, professor of medical jurisprudence, mental health commissioner
Victor Perlo—economics professor, Soviet spymaster involved in Harold Ware spy ring and Perlo group as shown in Venona list of suspected subversives in the U.S.
Edmund Phelps—economist and Nobel laureate
Lorenzo da Ponte—first professor of Italian language and literature at Columbia; librettist to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Charles Lane Poor—astronomer
Peter Pouncey— classicist, novelist, college dean 1972–1976, former president of Amherst College
Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin—professor, Serbian physicist and physical chemist whose inventions include the Pupin coil
Isidor Isaac Rabi—professor, Ph.D. from Columbia (1927), Nobel Laureate, discoverer of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Eliezer Rafaeli—founding President of the University of Haifa
Shivaram Rajgopal Vice Dean for research at Columbia Business School and a professor of accounting and auditing
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.—professor (1940–1947) (B.A. 1935, Ph.D. 1940, Columbia); 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics, IEEE Medal of Honor, Discovery of deuteron electric quadrupole moment, molecular beam spectroscopy
Hyman G. Rickover—developer of the nuclear submarine, master's degree in electrical engineering
Michael Riffaterre—university professor, French & Romance philology, semiotician
Mary Robinson—7th president of Ireland, professor of practice in international affairs
Joseph Rothschild—political science and history professor, teacher of Contemporary Civilization
Jeffrey Sachs—head of the United Nations Millennium Project to end poverty, author of The End of Poverty.
Edward W. Said—university professor, professor of English and comparative literature, Palestinian activist, author of Orientalism, widely considered founder of Postcolonial studies
Mario Salvadori—architect, structural engineer, professor (1940s–1990s), consultant on Manhattan Project, inventor of thin concrete shells
Andrew Sarris—film studies professor and auteur theorist
Saskia Sassen—Dutch-American sociologist noted for analyses of globalization and international human migration; coined the term global city
Simon Schama—history Professor
James Schamus—film studies professor, co-president of Focus Features, three-time Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA Award-winning film screenwriter and producer
Robert Y. Shapiro—chairman of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, president of the Academy of Political Science, editor of the Political Science Quarterly
Avinoam Shalem—art historian, 24th director of the American Academy in Rome
Warner R. Schilling—political scientist and international relations scholar
Marshall D. Shulman—scholar of Soviet studies and the founding director of the Russian Institute
Sonia Sotomayor—lecturer in law, Columbia Law School (1999–); nominated by President Barack Obama, on May 26, 2009, to be a justice of the United States Supreme Court
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak—English professor
Henry Spotnitz—affiliate professor of biomedical engineering
Clifford Stein—professor of operations research and industrial engineering
Julian Steward—anthropologist, authority of Cultural ecology
Joseph Stiglitz—economics professor, 2001 Nobel laureate in Economics
Gilbert Stork—winner of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1995/6
Horst Ludwig Störmer—I.I. Rabi professor of physics and applied physics, winner of 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics
Mark Strand—poet, former U.S. Poet Laureate, Bollingen and Pulitzer Prize-winner
Bjarne Stroustrup—creator of the C++ programming language
Man-Chung Tang—professor of civil engineering and former chairman of American Society of Civil Engineers
Alan M. Taylor—economist
Marco Tedesco—Climatologist
Edward Lee Thorndike —father of American experimental psychology
Robert Thurman—Je Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, first American Tibetan Buddhist monk, father of actress Uma Thurman
Charles Tilly—professor of sociology
William York Tindall—James Joyce scholar
Adam Tooze—historian
Oliver Samuel Tonks—lecturer of Ancient Greek
Olivier Toubia—Glaubinger Professor of Business
Charles Hard Townes—professor and Nobel Prize-winning physicist who helped to invent the laser^[9]
Joseph F. Traub—founding chairman of the computer science department at Columbia
Lionel Trilling—literary scholar
Harold Clayton Urey—professor, Nobel Laureate (1934), extensive development in the Manhattan Project, discoverer of Deuterium
Carl Van Doren—Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer
Charles Van Doren—English professor whose national disgrace was the subject of the Oscar-nominated film Quiz Show
Mark Van Doren—Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Vladimir Vapnik—professor of computer science and co-developer of Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory
Geovanny Vicente— associate professor of strategic communications and CNN columnist
Kenneth Waltz—political science professor and noted neorealism scribe
Duncan Watts—professor of sociology and author of "Six Degrees" and "Small Worlds"
Sheldon Weinig—professor of operations research and industrial engineering and founder of Materials Research Corporation
Maxine Weinstein
David Weiss Halivni—rabbi, founder of Union for Traditional Judaism and developer of source-critical analysis of the Talmud
Ruth Westheimer (born Karola Siegel, 1928; known as "Dr. Ruth"), German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, Holocaust survivor, and former Haganah sniper.
Nancy Wexler—Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology
Harrison White—professor of sociology
Enos Wicher—professor and Soviet spy named in Venona list of suspected subversives in the U.S., stepfather of State Department Soviet spy Flora Wovschin
Peter Woit—mathematics professor, skeptic of string theory
Michael Wood— professor of English and comparative literature, holds endowed chair of English at Princeton
Howard Wriggins—political science and international relations professor, also U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives
Chien-Shiung Wu—physics professor, first woman to head the American Physical Society and winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978
David Tannor (born 1958), theoretical chemist, visiting professor, Hermann Mayer Professorial Chair in the Department of Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science
Mihalis Yannakakis—professor of computer science, scholar noted for his work in the fields of Computational complexity theory, Databases
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi—Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History at Culture and Society
Shou-Wu Zhang, former professor of mathematics; specializes in number theory and arithmetical algebraic geometry; winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009 and Fields Medal finalist
Theodore Zoli—adjunct professor of civil engineering and structural engineer

University professors

Richard Axel, molecular biology and neuroscience, 1999
Jagdish Bhagwati, economics and law, 2001
Martin Chalfie, biology, 2013^[10]
Ruth DeFries, sustainable development, 2016
Michael W. Doyle, international affairs, law, and political science, 2015
Nabila El-Bassel, social work, and public health, 2019^[11]
Wafaa El-Sadr, public health, 2013^[10]
Saidiya Hartman, English and comparative literature, 2020^[12]
Wayne Hendrickson, biochemistry and molecular biophysics
Eric R. Kandel, neurobiology, behavior and learning, 1983
Rosalind E. Krauss, art history, 2005
Jeffrey Sachs, economics, 2016
Simon Schama, history and art history
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, English and comparative literature, 2007^[13]
Joseph Stiglitz, economics, 2001
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, biomedical engineering, 2017

University professors emeriti

Caroline Bynum, history, 1999
Tsung-Dao Lee, theoretical physics

Former university professors

Jacques Barzun, cultural history
Ronald Breslow, organic chemistry, 1992
Samuel Eilenberg, mathematics, 1974
R. Kent Greenawalt, jurisprudence and constitutional law, 1991
Louis Henkin, international law, 1981
Donald Keene, Japanese Studies, 1988
Grayson L. Kirk, University President, 1953–68
Robert K. Merton, sociology, 1974
Robert A. Mundell, economics
Ernest Nagel, philosophy
Isidor Isaac Rabi, physics, 1964
Michael Riffaterre, semiotics, theory of literature and French literature, 1982
Edward Said, comparative literature, literary theory, and cultural studies, 1992
Meyer Schapiro, art history
Sol Spiegelman, genetics and microbiology
Fritz Stern, history, 1992
Lionel Trilling, literature, 1970
Jeremy Waldron, law, 2005, left Columbia in 2006

Others

Seth Low Professor of the University Lee C. Bollinger, law^[14]
John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University Jonathan R. Cole, sociology
John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus of the University Wm. Theodore de Bary, East Asian studies, 1979

Notes

^ The total number of laureates in natural sciences: Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine.

References

^ The Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis 2013, Crafoord Prize. Press Release. January 17, 2013. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
^ "John Backus - A.M. Turing Award Laureate".
^ ^a ^b "Columbia Law School : Presidents Roosevelt Receive Posthumous J.D.s". www.law.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on June 23, 2010.
^ "Kartik Chandran". MacArthur Foundation. September 28, 2015. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
^ Hevesi, Dennis. "Carl F. Hovde, Former Columbia Dean, Dies at 82", The New York Times, September 10, 2009. Retrieved September 11, 2009.
^ Shell E (January 1, 2002). "Chapter 4: On the Cutting Edge". The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-1422352434.
^ Shell E (January 1, 2002). "Chapter 5: Hunger". The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-1422352434.
^ "A Conversation with Mark Lilla on His Critique of Identity Politics". The New Yorker. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
^ About Seas Birth Place of Laser
^ ^a ^b "Martin Chalfie and Wafaa El-Sadr Appointed University Professors". Columbia Press Room. 2013. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 9, 2015.
^ ."Nabila El-Bassel Named University Professor". Office of the President. April 9, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
^ Bollinger, Lee. "Saidiya Hartman Named University Professor". Columbia University Office of the President. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
^ "Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Named University Professor". Columbia Press Room. March 12, 2007. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 9, 2015.
^ "Trustees Name President Lee C. Bollinger As Seth Low Professor of the University". Columbia Press Room. 2004. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 9, 2015.