Notable Brandeis Alumni

Brandeis counts among its graduates Pulitzer Prize winners, Emmy Award winners, best-selling authors — even a Nobel laureate. But it doesn't stop there. Brandeis graduates occupy leadership roles in virtually every walk of life. Here are just a few:

Activism and Public Service

  • Deborah Bial ’87, education strategist; founder and president, Posse Foundation (MacArthur Fellow)

  • Devika Mahadevan ’00, CEO, Mumbai Mobile Creches

  • Bobby Sager ’76, philanthropist; former president, Gordon Brothers Group

  • Michael Ratner ’65, president, Center for Constitutional Rights; professor, Columbia Law School

  • Shen Tong ’91, student leader, 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising

  • Sam Vaghar ’08, executive director and cofounder, Millennium Campus Network
  • Eric Yoffie ’69, president, Union for Reform Judaism


Arts and Entertainment

  • Caroline Baron ’83, film producer, “Capote” and “Monsoon Wedding;” founder, FilmAid
  • David Crane ’79 and Marta Kauffman ’78, co-creators, "Friends"
  • Loretta Devine, M.F.A. ’76, Emmy Award-winning actor ("Dreamgirls," "Grey's Anatomy")
  • Gary David Goldberg ’66, television producer and writer, "Family Ties," "Brooklyn Bridge" and "Spin City”
  • Debra Granik ’85, film director and screenwriter, “Winter’s Bone” and “Down to the Bone”
  • Marshall Herskovitz ’73, director, producer and screenwriter ("The Last Samurai," "Traffic")
  • Michael Kaiser ’75, president, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
  • Jonathan Landau ’68, music producer and manager (Bruce Springsteen)
  • Debra Messing ’90, Emmy Award-winning actor ("Will & Grace" and "Smash")
  • Anand Patwardhan ’72, documentary filmmaker
  • Theresa Rebeck, M.A. ’83, M.F.A. ’86, Ph.D. ’89, Broadway playwright
  • Gary Tinterow ’76, director, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
  • Adam Weinberg ’77, Alice Pratt Brown Director, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York

Authors

  • Mitch Albom ’79, "Tuesdays With Morrie," "Five People You Meet in Heaven"
  • Stacey Ballis ’92, “Inappropriate Men,” “Sleeping Over,” “Room for Improvement”
  • Edward Dolnick ’74, “The Clockwork Universe,” “The Forger's Spell,” “The Rescue Artist”
  • Karen Drogin ’87 (aka Carly Phillips), “Serendipity, “Destiny”
  • Ha Jin, M.A. ’89, Ph.D. ’93, "Waiting," “War Trash”
  • Jesse Kellerman, M.F.A. ’03, “Sunstroke,” “Genius,” “Trouble,” The Executor”

Business and Industry

  • Leonard Asper ’86, former president and chief executive officer, CanWest Global Communications
  • Mia Bauer ’91, co-founder and owner, Crumbs Bake Shops
  • Mitch Caplan ’79, adviser, Aquiline; former president and chief executive officer, E*Trade
  • Tony Chang, Ph.D. ’83, founder and director, Tech-Link Silicones
  • Steve Cloobeck ’83, CEO, Diamond Resorts International
  • Jeri Finard ’81, senior vice president and global brand president, Avon Products
  • Ellen Gordon ’56, chief operating officer, Tootsie Roll Industries
  • Lou Perlmutter ’56, retired senior partner, Lazard; senior advisor, Corporate Partners private equity fund
  • Robert F.X. Sillerman ’69, businessman and media entrepreneur
  • Sam Sisakhti, M.A. ’07, CEO, UsTrendy
  • Perry Traquina ’78, CEO, Wellington Management investment firm

Education

  • Arthur Caplan ’71, Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Martha Kanter ’70, undersecretary, U.S. Department of Education
  • Angela Davis ’65, former director, feminist studies department, University of California, Santa Cruz; political and social activist
  • Ted Gup ’72, chair, journalism department, Emerson University; investigative journalist
  • David Oshinsky, Ph.D. ’71, Jack S. Blanton Chair in History, University of Texas-Austin (Pulitzer Prize winner)
  • Jehuda Reinharz, Ph.D. ’72, president emeritus, Brandeis University; Jewish historian; president, Mandel Foundation
  • Michael Sandel ’75, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, Harvard University
  • Michael Walzer ’56, political theorist; professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study
  • David Yoffie ’76, Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration; senior associate dean; chair, executive education at Harvard Business School
  • Robert Zimmer ’68, president, University of Chicago

Government and Politics

  • Alex Goldstein ’06, executive director of the Deval Patrick Committee (DPC) and the TogetherPAC (TPAC); former press secretary for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
  • Geir Haarde ’73, former prime minister, Iceland
  • Otis Johnson, Ph.D. ’80, mayor, Savannah, Ga.
  • Olubanke King-Akerele ’67, former foreign minister, Liberia
  • Lisa Kubiske ’75, U.S. ambassador to Honduras
  • Haile Menkerios ’70, United Nations secretary-general’s special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan
  • Dimitrij Rupel, Ph.D. ’76, minister of foreign affairs, Slovenia
  • Daniel Shapiro ’91, U.S. ambassador to Israel
  • Nikolai Vassiliev, M.A. ’97, deputy prime minister, Bulgaria

Journalism and Media

  • Paula Apsell ’69, senior executive producer, "Nova," and director of WGBH-TV science unit (Emmy Award winner)
  • Joe Conason ’75, editor-in-chief, The National Memo
  • Thomas Friedman ’75, foreign affairs columnist, The New York Times (Pulitzer Prize winner)
  • Margo Jefferson ’68, critic-at-large, The New York Times (Pulitzer Prize winner)
  • Walt Mossberg ’69, technology columnist, The Wall Street Journal (Loeb award winner)
  • Peter Osnos ’64, founder and editor-at-large, Public Affairs Books
  • Martin Peretz ’59, former editor-in-chief, The New Republic
  • Guy Raz ’96, weekend host, "All Things Considered," National Public Radio
  • Bill Schneider ’66, senior political analyst, CNN
  • Bob Simon ’62, correspondent, CBS News (Emmy Award winner)
  • Ellis Verdi ’77, co-founder and CEO, DeVito/Verdi advertising agency

Science and Mathematics

  • Paul Anastas, M.A. ’87, Ph.D. ’90, assistant administrator for Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, known as "Father of Green Chemistry"
  • Susan Band Horowitz, Ph.D. ’63, Rose C. Falkenstein Professor of Cancer Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; inventor of cancer-fighting drug Taxol
  • Roderick MacKinnon ’78, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor, The Rockefeller University (Nobel laureate, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator)
  • Karen Uhlenbeck, M.A. ’67, Ph.D. ’68, Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Mathematics, University of Texas-Austin (MacArthur Fellow)
  • Edward Witten ’71, Charles Simonyi Professor of Mathematical Physics, Institute for Advanced Study (Fields Medal winner)

Sports

  • Nelson Figueroa ’98, pitcher, Arizona Diamondbacks
  • Michael Gliedman ’85, senior vice president and chief information officer, National Basketball Association
  • Jeffrey Lurie, Ph.D. ’87, owner, Philadelphia Eagles
  • Tim Morehouse ’00, Olympic fencer