# List of people from Newton, Massachusetts

Newton, Massachusetts has been the home of many notable people.

## Academics

* Michael Rosbash, geneticist and chronobiologist at Brandeis University, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2017
* Daron Acemoglu, economist and professor of economics at MIT
* Frederick M. Ausubel, molecular biologist, professor at Harvard Medical School
* David Berson, neurobiologist, professor at Brown University
* Jean Briggs, anthropologist and expert on Inuit languages, raised in Newton
* J. Walter Fewkes, ethnologist and archaeologist
* Stanley Fischer, former governor of the Bank of Israel, former professor at the MIT Department of Economics
* Alexandra I. Forsythe, author of the first computer science textbook; helped found the Stanford University Department of Computer Science
* William Tudor Gardiner, 55th Governor of Maine, January 2, 1929 – January 4, 1933
* Caroline D. Gentile, associate professor emeritus of education, University of Maine at Presque Isle
* Michael Hammer, one of the founders of the management theory of business process reengineering
* H. Robert Horvitz, MIT professor of biology; won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2002 together with Sydney Brenner and John Sulston
* Steven Hyman, neuroscientist and Provost of Harvard University
* Ruth Langer, professor of theology at Boston College; expert on Jewish Liturgy and on Christian-Jewish relations
* Robert C. Lieberman, political scientist and provost of the Johns Hopkins University
* William Stetson Merrill, classifier at Newberry Library; expert on classification of library books, author of A Code for Classifiers
* Arnold A. Offner, historian, author, and former professor
* Rosalind Picard, director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab
* Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard professor, 1980–2002; current director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
* Ruggero Santilli, Center for Theoretical Physics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
* Jonathan Sarna, Joseph H. Braun and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University
* Andrei Shleifer, economist and professor of economics at Harvard
* Isadore Singer, mathematician, recipient of the Abel Prize (2004) and National Medal of Science (1983), and Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at MIT
* Lawrence Summers, former Harvard president, former secretary of the treasury, and nephew of the Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson
* Scott Sumner, economist and professor of economics at Bentley University
* Susumu Tonegawa, MIT professor; won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987
* Edward Wagenknecht, literary critic, prolific writer and Boston University professor, lived on Otis Street in West Newton
* Melvin M. Weiner, electrical engineer, author, inventor, he was the first to reduce pass-bands and stop-bands in photonic crystals to practice
* Victor Weisskopf, theoretical physicist; worked with Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Niels Bohr; group leader of the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos
* Howard Zinn, radical historian and author of A People's History of the United States

## Actors and actresses

* Peggy Bernier, actress and comedienne
* Virginia Bosler, actress
* Louis C.K., born Louis Szekely, stand-up comedian, Louie TV series, actor and writer
* Jessica Chaffin, actress, comedienne, and writer
* Priyanka Chopra, actress
* Matt Damon, actor, film producer, philanthropist and screenwriter
* Dimitri Diatchenko, actor and musician
* Anne Dudek, actress, played Dr. Amber Volakis in TV series House
* Kathryn Erbe, actress, star of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
* Marin Hinkle, actress, best known for playing Judith Harper on CBS's Two and a Half Men
* Josephine Hull, actress
* Jennifer Dundas, actress
* Alex Karpovsky, actor, best known for playing Ray Ploshansky on HBO's Girls
* Jonathan Katz, actor, best known for his starring role on the animated sitcom Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
* Karen Kondazian, actress and author
* John Krasinski, actor, best known for playing Jim Halpert on NBC's The Office
* Ben Kurland, actor
* Matt LeBlanc, actor, best known for playing Joey Tribbiani on Friends
* Jack Lemmon, Oscar-winning actor
* Christopher Lloyd, actor, best known for playing Rev. Jim in TV series Taxi and as "Doc" (Emmett Brown) in Back to the Future films
* Robert Morse, actor, star of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Mad Men
* Olga C. Nardone, actress, best known for playing three parts in The Wizard of Oz
* Hari Nef, actress, model, and writer
* B. J. Novak, comedian, writer, best known for playing Ryan Howard on The Office
* Rebecca Pidgeon, actress, singer and songwriter, wife of playwright David Mamet
* Amy Poehler, actress and comedian, Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation
* Robert Preston, actor, "Professor" Harold Hill in The Music Man
* James Remar, actor, known for many films and TV series Dexter
* Joe Rogan, actor and comedian
* Eli Roth, film director, producer, writer and actor
* John Slattery, actor, best known for playing Roger Sterling in Mad Men
* Arnold Stang, comic actor
* Brian J. White, actor, best known for his role in The Shield

## Artists

* David Bowes, painter
* Mickie Caspi, artist, calligrapher
* Tama Hochbaum, artist and photographer
* Plane Jane (Andrew Dunayevsky), drag performer and competitor on season 16 of RuPaul's Drag Race
* Roger Kellaway, Oscar-nominated and Grammy-winning composer, arranger, and pianist
* Bow Sim Mark, wushu practitioner; mother of actor Donnie Yen
* Florence Maynard, photographer
* Arthur Polonsky, draughtsman, painter and academic
* Nancy Schön, sculptor of the Make Way for Ducklings statues on Boston Common; also did statues of Winnie-the-Pooh and Eeyore at the Newton Free Library
* Sidewalk Sam (Robert Guillemin), folk artist
* Edwin Lord Weeks, painter
* Morgan Bassichis, American comedic performer, writer, and artist

## Authors, writers, journalists, poets

* Binyamin Appelbaum, journalist
* Tom Ashbrook, journalist and radio broadcaster
* Isaac Asimov, prolific science fiction and non-fiction writer
* Russell Banks, writer of fiction and poetry
* Alex Beam, columnist for the Boston Globe
* Thomas Bulfinch, author of Bulfinch's Mythology
* Ty Burr, film critic for the Boston Globe
* Virginia Lee Burton, illustrator and author of children's books
* Russell Gordon Carter, writer
* Anita Diamant, author of fiction and nonfiction books
* Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, poet, lecturer, philosopher
* Bill Everett, comic book writer, artist (creator of Sub-Mariner, co-creator of Daredevil)
* Isabella Gardner, poet
* Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist
* Ann Warren Griffith, writer
* Dan Harris, correspondent for ABC News; anchor for Nightline; co-anchor for the weekend edition of Good Morning America
* Nate Kenyon, author
* Dan Katz, Barstool Sports contributor
* Raymond Kurzweil, writer, futurist, inventor
* Don Lessem, author
* Barry Levy, screenwriter, best known for the 2008 film Vantage Point
* Bill Lichtenstein, Peabody Award-winning journalist and filmmaker
* Melissa Lozada-Oliva, poet and spoken word artist
* David Mamet, playwright, screenwriter and film director
* Adam Mansbach, novelist
* Elizabeth McCracken, author
* Tova Mirvis, novelist
* Diana Muir, writer and historian
* Charles J.V. Murphy, journalist and author
* Michael Novak, author
* William Novak, author
* Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States
* Caroline Mehitable Fisher Sawyer, writer, editor
* Anne Sexton, poet, writer
* Edward Sheehan, journalist and author
* Samuel Shem, playwright
* Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
* Andrew Szanton, collaborative memoirist
* Celia Thaxter, poet and writer
* Ben Ames Williams, novelist
* Jonathan Wilson, novelist and critic

## Business and industry

* Roger Berkowitz, owner of Legal Sea Foods
* Charles Bilezikian, co-founder of Christmas Tree Shops
* Elizabeth Boit, textile manufacturer
* Richard B. Carter, head of Carter's Ink Company 1905–1949
* Jim Davis, CEO of New Balance
* Semyon Dukach, professional gambler, entrepreneur, writer
* Leo Kahn, co-founder of Staples
* Jim Koch, co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company
* Louis K. Liggett, drug store magnate
* Eddie Lowery, golf caddy, auto dealer
* John Palmer Parker, early Hawaiian rancher, married into Hawaiian royal family
* Sumner Redstone, global media businessman
* Francis Edgar Stanley (1849–1918), co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer
* Freelan Oscar Stanley (1849–1940), co-inventor of the Stanley Steamer and builder of the Stanley Hotel
* Donald Valle, founder and owner of Valle's Steak House
* Richard Valle, restaurateur; son of Donald Valle; owner of Valle's Steak House
* Peter Lynch, mutual fund manager and philanthropist

## Colonial figures

* Waban, 17th-century American Indian tribal chief; lived in Nonantum
* Ephraim Williams, colonel in the colonial militia during the French and Indian War and benefactor of Williams College
* Thomas Wiswall (1601–1683), prominent early citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Cambridge Village, Massachusetts

## Environmentalists

* Francis P. Farquhar (1887–1974), former president of the Sierra Club

## Government, education and politics

* Benigno Aquino Jr. and Corazon Aquino, Filipino public intellectual and political figures; lived with their five children in Newton, 1980–1983; Corazon eventually became the first female president of the Philippines (1986–1992); their third child and only son, Benigno III or "Noynoy", was elected president in 2010
* Benigno Aquino III, 15th president of the Philippines (assumed office June 2010; term ended June 2016), lived in Newton 1980–1983
* Jake Auchincloss, member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district
* Thomas Cardozo, first African American State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi (1874–1876)
* Evan Falchuk, founder of the United Independent Party and candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2014
* Barney Frank, former U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district
* Joseph Healy, U.S. Representative from New Hampshire
* Joseph Kennedy III, son of Joseph P. Kennedy II and former U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district
* Richard Lakin, Freedom Rider, school principal, terrorism victim
* Horace Mann, public educator, college president (Antioch College) and U.S. Representative from Massachusetts
* Lisa Monaco, United States Deputy Attorney General and former Homeland Security Advisor
* Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran; exiled after Ayatollah Khomeini took power; lived for a short time in Newton
* Cyrus Peirce, public educator, college president of Framingham State College (once located in West Newton); namesake of the Peirce School in West Newton
* John Pigeon, representative of Newton to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and served as Massachusetts Commissary General while a resident
* Roger Sherman, only person to have signed all four basic documents of American sovereignty: the Continental Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution; born and spent his first two years in Newton
* Henry Lawrence Southwick, author, actor and 3rd President of Emerson College (1908–1932)
* Nguyen Van Thieu, exiled President of South Vietnam
* Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
* John W. Weeks, mayor of Newton; U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from Massachusetts; U.S. Secretary of War under Harding
* Sinclair Weeks, son of John W. Weeks; born in West Newton; like his father, served as mayor of Newton and U.S. Senator; U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Dwight Eisenhower
* Harry F. Stimpson Jr., lawyer who was the United States Ambassador to Paraguay

## Military

* James S. Gracey, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard

## Music

* Leonard Bernstein, composer, conductor, pedagogue, pianist.
* Robert Beaser, composer, professor, The Juilliard School
* Dai Buell, pianist, performed the first piano recital on radio in 1921, lived at the Aloha Bungalow
* Ralph Burns, songwriter, bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and bebop pianist
* Rob Chiarelli, multiple Grammy Award winner
* Catie Curtis, folk/pop singer
* Stephen Custer, cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, grew up in Newton
* Fat Mike, lead singer and bassist of punk rock band NOFX
* Alfred Genovese, principal oboist of Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra
* Osvaldo Golijov, Grammy award-winning composer of classical music
* Avi Jacob, singer-songwriter
* Mike Mangini, drummer for Dream Theater
* Vaughn Monroe, singer, trumpeter and big band leader
* Jane Morgan, popular singer, specializing in traditional pop music
* Jesse Novak, composer
* Aoife O'Donovan, singer-songwriter, lead singer of band Crooked Still
* Bijan Olia, film composer and songwriter
* Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Laureate
* Horatio Parker, composer, first Dean of Yale School of Music, born in Auburndale (a village of Newton)
* Rachel Platten, singer and songwriter
* Seth Putnam, singer and leader of grindcore band Anal Cunt
* Fritz Richmond, jug and washtub bass player
* Mark Sandman, lead singer of the alternative rock band Morphine
* Jason Solowsky, composer

## Philosophy, religion and spirituality

* Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert), author, philosophic and religious guru
* Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist; her last home has been preserved as the Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy Home
* Timothy Leary, author, psychologist, lecturer at Harvard, advocate of L.S.D.-25 (i.e., lysergic acid diethylamide) and other entheogens

## Physicians

* Donald Berwick, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; candidate for Massachusetts Governor in 2014
* Atul Gawande, general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital
* Kurt Julius Isselbacher, M.D., American physician and the former Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director Emeritus of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
* Sara Murray Jordan, gastroenterologist

## Political activists

* Charles Jacobs, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group and of The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership
* Andrea Levin, director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
* Leonard Zakim, prominent New England religious and civil rights leader

## Producers and directors

* Brad Falchuk, writer, director, and producer of Nip/Tuck and Glee
* Andrew Bujalski, film director, screenwriter, and actor
* Lyn Greene, writer, director and producer of Nip/Tuck, Boss and Masters of Sex
* Eli Roth, film director, producer, actor
* Bruce Sinofsky, director of documentary films, Brothers Keeper, The Paradise Lost Trilogy, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (TV series), Iconoclasts
* Julie Taymor, director of Broadway theatre and film

## Psychologists and psychiatrists

* Julian Jaynes, psychologist
* Kenneth Levin, psychiatrist and historian
* Kurt Lewin, "the father of social psychology"

## Radio, television personalities

* Paula S. Apsell, television producer
* Tom Ashbrook, host of the NPR radio show On Point
* Andy Katz, Big Ten Network and former ESPN College Basketball reporter
* Dan "Big Cat" Katz, Host of Pardon_My_Take and Barstool Sports Personality.
* Maria Lopez, former judge, TV personality
* Jade McCarthy, ESPN sportscaster
* Suzyn Waldman, color commentator for New York Yankees

## Science, medicine and technology

* Michael Rosbash, geneticist and chronobiologist at Brandeis University, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2017
* Dan Bricklin, with Bob Frankston, co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet
* Charles Stark Draper, inventor of the aircraft inertial guidance system; founder of MIT's Draper Labs
* Wes Hildreth, a USGS geologist born in Newton.
* Reginald Fessenden (1866–1932), inventor and radio pioneer; his house at 45 Waban Hill Road is listed in the National Register of Historic Places
* Bob Frankston, with Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet
* Atul Gawande, surgeon, writer for The New Yorker
* Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University School of Public Health and White House COVID-19 pandemic Response Coordinator
* Jonathan Mann, head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS project
* Charles Johnson Maynard, naturalist and ornithologist; lived in the Charles Maynard House
* Thomas C. Peebles, physician, responsible for first isolating the measles virus, setting the stage for the development of a vaccine
* Judy Smith, nurse who disappeared from Philadelphia in 1997; found murdered in North Carolina five months later
* Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital
* Frank E. Winsor, civil engineer and chief engineer of the Quabbin Reservoir project

## Songwriters

* Katharine Lee Bates, professor of English at Wellesley College and author of the lyrics to "America the Beautiful"
* Samuel Francis Smith, Baptist minister and author of the lyrics to My Country, 'Tis of Thee, also known as "America"

## Sports
### Auto racing

* Pete Hamilton, NASCAR racer, winner of the 1970 Daytona 500

### Baseball

* The following are current and former players of the Boston Red Sox:
** Matt Clement (former)
** Jim Corsi (former) (born in Newton)
** John Curtis (former) (born in Newton)
** Hal Deviney (former) (born in Newton)
** JD Drew (former)
** Bob Gallagher (former) (born in Newton)
** Gabe Kapler (former)
** Mark Loretta (former)
** Doug Mirabelli (former)
** Trot Nixon (former)
** David Ortiz (former)
** Wily Mo Peña (former)
** Jimmy Piersall (former)
** Jason Varitek (former)
** Ted Williams (former)
* The following also played Major League Baseball:
** Bob Barr (born in Newton)
** Sean DePaula (born in Newton)
** Bob Dresser (born in Newton)
** Jake Fishman (born in Newton)
* The following play for a national team:
** Jake Fishman, American-Israeli (born in Newton; plays for Team Israel)
** Ben Wanger, American-Israeli baseball pitcher (born in Newton; plays for Team Israel)

### Basketball

* Geoffrey Gray (born 1997), American player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
* Tom Heinsohn (1934–2020), NBA player
* Jayson Tatum, NBA player

### Boxing

* Joe DeNucci, middleweight boxer and MA State Auditor

### Fencing

* Paul Friedberg, Olympic fencer

### Figure skating

* Tenley Albright (born 1935 in Newton Centre), first American female skater to win an Olympic gold medal; other titles included 1952 Olympic silver medal, 1953 and 1955 World Champion, 1953 and 1955 North American champion, and 1952–1956 U.S. national champion
* Gracie Gold, 2014 and 2016 U.S. champion, Olympic team bronze medalist, born in Newton
* Jennifer Kirk, 2000 World Junior champion, born in Newton
* John Summers, 1978–80 national champion in ice dancing

### Football

* Kiko Alonso, (former) linebacker for the Miami Dolphins
* Patrick Sullivan, (former) general manager, New England Patriots
* Will Levis, (current) quarterback for the Tennessee Titans

### Soccer

* Ben Brewster, forward and coach
* Sam Brill, defender

### Skateboarding

* Andy MacDonald, eight-time X Games gold medalist and eight-time World Cup Skateboarding champion