# List of City College of New York people

The following is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the City College of New York.

## Nobel laureates

* Julius Axelrod 1933 – Nobel laureate in Medicine, 1970
* Kenneth Arrow 1940 – Nobel laureate in Economics, 1972
* Robert J. Aumann 1950 – Nobel laureate in Economics, 2005
* Herbert Hauptman 1937 – Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1985
* Robert Hofstadter 1935 – Nobel laureate in Physics, 1961
* Jerome Karle 1937 – Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1985
* Henry Kissinger 1923 (did not graduate) – winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 1973
* Arthur Kornberg 1937 – Nobel laureate in Medicine, 1959
* Leon M. Lederman 1943 – Nobel laureate in Physics, 1988
* John O'Keefe 1963 – Nobel laureate in Medicine, 2014
* Arno Penzias 1954 – Nobel laureate in Physics, 1978
* Julian Schwinger (transferred to Columbia University) – Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965

## Graduates of Business School (which became Baruch College in 1968)

* William F. Aldinger III 1969 – chairman and CEO, HSBC North America Holdings
* Abraham Beame 1928 – Mayor of New York City
* Akis Cleanthous – former Minister of Education and Culture, Cyprus
* Monte Conner 1986 – senior vice president of Roadrunner Records, A&R Department
* Michael Grimm – member of United States House of Representatives for New York's 13th congressional district
* Sidney Harman 1939 – founder and executive chairman of Harman Kardon; owner of Newsweek
* Ralph Lauren (dropped out) – fashion designer, Polo
* Carlos D. Ramirez – publisher of El Diario La Prensa
* Carl Spielvogel BBA 1957 – former U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia
* Craig A. Stanley – member of New Jersey General Assembly, 1996-2008
* George Weissman BBA 1939 – former CEO, Philip Morris International
* Larry Zicklin 1957 – former chairman, Neuberger Berman

## Politics, history, government, sociology, philosophy, and religion

* Herman Badillo 1951 – Congressman and chairman of CUNY's board of trustees
* Bernard M. Baruch 1889 – Wall Street financier and adviser to American Presidents; author of the Baruch Plan
* Max Beauvoir 1958 – Haitian Vodou priest and Supreme Chief
* Daniel Bell 1939 – sociologist, professor at Harvard University
* Abraham D. Beame 1928 – mayor of New York City, 1974 to 1977
* Stephen Bronner – political theorist, Marxist, professor at Rutgers University
* Frank Caplan – educator, founder of children's educational toy company Creative Playthings
* Upendra J. Chivukula – first Asian American elected to the New Jersey General Assembly
* Henry Cohen 1943 – director, Föhrenwald DP Camp; Founding Dean of the Milano School for Management and Urban Policy at The New School
* Morris Raphael Cohen – graduate of CCNY and professor at CCNY; philosopher, lawyer, and legal scholar; namesake of the Cohen Library at CCNY
* Marty Dolin – former Manitoba NDP MLA for Kildonan
* Philip Elman – Justice Department attorney and Federal Trade Commission member, wrote government's brief in Brown v. Board of Education
* Benjamin B. Ferencz – international jurist and criminal justice pioneer; co-winner of the 2009 Erasmus Prize
* Louis Finkelstein – Conservative Jewish theologian
* Abraham Foxman – national director of the Anti-Defamation League
* Felix Frankfurter 1902 – justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
* George Friedman – founder of Stratfor, author, professor of political science, security and defense analyst
* Nathan Glazer – sociologist, professor at Harvard University; author of Beyond the Melting Pot with Daniel Patrick Moynihan
* Steven Goldberg – president of the sociology department of CCNY
* Paul Goodman – writer, social critic, public intellectual; author of The Empire City, Growing Up Absurd, and Communitas
* Edmund W. Gordon – founding director of the Institute for Research on African Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean (IRADAC) at CCNY
* Stanley Graze – economist and former lecturer at CCNY; worked in the United Nations, State Department, US Army and the Brookings Institution; MA from Columbia University
* Anthony J. Griffin - Congressman and State Senator
* Leon Harrison – rabbi
* Carl G. Hempel, philosopher of science and professor of philosophy at CCNY
* Sidney Hook 1923 – writer and philosopher
* Benjamin Kaplan 1929 – helped write the indictments of Nazi war criminals who were tried at Nuremberg; served as Nuremberg prosecutor; distinguished Harvard law professor
* Charles E. H. Kauvar 1900 – rabbi in Denver, Colorado
* Henry Kissinger – Secretary of State under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
* Ed Koch 1945 – mayor of New York City, 1978 to 1989
* Irving Kristol 1940 – neoconservative intellectual, professor at New York University
* Diana Lachatanere 1969 - archivist
* David Landes 1942 – historian, professor at Harvard University
* Melvin J. Lasky 1938 – anti-communist, editor of Encounter 1958 to 1991
* Milton Leitenberg – American arms control expert
* Felix A. Levy 1904 – rabbi
* Albert L. Lewis – conservative rabbi, president of international Rabbinical Assembly
* Samuel A. Lewis – politician and philanthropist in the late 19th century; a trustee of the college
* Guillermo Linares 1975 – the first Dominican-American New York City Council Member
* Seymour Martin Lipset – political sociology, trade unions
* Deborah Lipstadt 1969 – historian; combatted Holocaust denial
* Rachel Lloyd – applied urban anthropology graduate; founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York
* Joseph Lookstein – rabbi and president of Bar-Ilan University
* Jay Lovestone 1918 – radical political leader and trade union functionary
* Richard Lowitt (B.A.) – historian, Guggenheim Fellow.
* Sister Jean M. Marshall (M.A.) – who received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Bill Clinton in 1999.
* Sidney Morgenbesser – philosopher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, known to have witheringly applied Jewish humor to issues in metaphysics and epistemology
* Henry Morgenthau, Sr. – financier and diplomat; as ambassador to Ottoman Empire attempted to warn the world about the Armenian genocide
* Daniel Patrick Moynihan – spent a year at CCNY before he was drafted; author of Beyond the Melting Pot with Nathan Glazer; ambassador to the U.N.; senator representing New York
* Massimo Pigliucci – scientist and philosopher
* Colin L. Powell 1961– U.S. Secretary of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army General, National Security Advisor
* Jacob S. Raisin – rabbi
* Simon H. Rifkind 1922 – Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
* Donald A. Ritchie 1967 – historian, currently historian of the United States Senate
* Alexander Rosenberg – Lakatos Award-winning philosopher at Duke University
* Julius Rosenberg – executed for espionage during the Cold War
* Bertrand Russell – invited by the philosophy department in 1940 to become a professor but his appointment was blocked by a suit and timidity on the part of the Board of Higher Education; see the Bertrand Russell Case
* Bayard Rustin - (did not graduate) African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights (an (adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. and main organizer of the March on Washington in 1963).
* Bernice Sandler (M.A. 1950), the 'Godmother of Title IX'
* Oscar Schachter 1936 – law professor and United Nations aide
* George D. Schwab 1954 – political scientist, editor and academic, president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy
* Henry Schwarzschild – founder of NCADP, LCDC, and head of ACLU's Capital Punishment project in America
* Allen G. Schwartz – U.S. federal judge
* Morrie Schwartz – sociologist, author, and subject of Tuesdays with Morrie
* Philip Selznick 1938 - sociologist, organizational theorist
* Assata Shakur – civil rights activist; involved in May 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in which a state trooper was killed
* Moses J. Stroock 1886 – lawyer
* Myron Sulzberger – American lawyer, politician, and judge
* Stanley S. Surrey 1929 – tax law scholar, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy from 1961 to 1969
* Samuel Turk – rabbi, religious leader, columnist
* Friedrich Ulfers 1959 – Deconstructionist writer, Dean of Media and Communications at European Graduate School, and NYU professor
* Robert F. Wagner, Sr. – U.S. Senator from New York, 1927 to 1949; introduced the National Labor Relations Act
* Michele Wallace 1975 – major figure in African-American studies, feminist studies and cultural studies
* General Alexander S. Webb – second president of the college; winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg
* Melvyn Weiss (1935–2018, class of 1956), attorney who co-founded the plaintiff class action law firm Milberg Weiss.
* Stephen Samuel Wise 1891 – Reform rabbi, early Zionist and social justice activist
* Bertram D. Wolfe 1916 – political activist and historian

## Psychology

* Milton Diamond 1955 - Known for following up the case of David Reimer
* Solomon Asch 1928 – psychologist, known for the Asch conformity experiments
* Morton Bard – psychologist, trailblazer in crisis intervention and author of The Crime Victim's Book
* Isidor Chein 1932 – minority group identification, co-wrote amicus curiae brief in Brown v. Board of Education
* Kenneth Clark – CCNY professor who studied attitudes toward race and testified at Brown v. Board of Education
* Jacob Cohen – psychologist and statistician, developed the coefficient kappa to assess the reliability of ratings of discrete categories of behavior (e.g., diagnoses of mental disorder); expert on factor analysis and regression analysis
* Morton Deutsch – social psychology, conflict resolution
* Leonard Eron – expert on the development of aggression
* Leon Festinger 1939 – social psychologist; pioneered experimental social psychology, the theory of cognitive dissonance
* Robert Glaser – educational psychology
* Henry Gleitman – cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics
* Arno Gruen – psychologist and psychoanalyst
* Samuel Guze - psychiatrist; pioneered the emergence of psychiatry's ability to validly diagnose disorders
* Richard Herrnstein – quantitative analysis of behavior; co-author of The Bell Curve; Harvard professor
* Frederick Irving Herzberg – two-factor theory of job satisfaction
* Richard Lazarus – emotion, stress, and coping
* Abraham Maslow – psychologist, known of Maslow's hierarchy of needs
* Barry Mehler - psychologist, MA from CCNY, 1972
* Walter Mischel – social and personality psychology
* Gardner Murphy – professor of psychology at City College
* Charles Nemeroff – chair of psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
* Vera S. Paster – clinical psychologist known for her contributions to ethnic minority issues and mental health
* Margaret Rosario – clinical psychologist known for her research on human sexuality
* Irvin Rock 1947; MA 1948 – professor of psychology at Berkeley. Leading researcher on perception
* Hans Strupp (did not graduate) – expert in psychotherapy research

## The arts

* Woody Allen (briefly attended)
* Maurice Ashley 1993 – first African American International Chess Grandmaster
* Jeff Barry – singer/songwriter; wrote with his wife Ellie Greenwich many hit songs, including "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You"
* Deborah Berke – architect
* Chakaia Booker – sculptor
* Seymour Boardman – New York abstract expressionist
* Joshua Brand – Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer
* Eddie Carmel, born Oded Ha-Carmeili (1936–1972) – Israeli-born entertainer with gigantism and acromegaly, popularly known as "The Jewish Giant"
* Paddy Chayefsky 1943 – playwright and screenwriter; wrote Marty, The Hospital, Network, and Altered States
* Shirley Clarke – independent filmmaker
* Madeleine Cosman – author of medieval cookbook
* Julie Dash – filmmaker best known for Daughters of the Dust
* Edward Eliscu – songwriter; screenwriter; actor; wrote lyrics for "Carioca" (nominated for Best Song Oscar in 1935), inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
* Victor Ganz – collector of contemporary art in the 20th century
* Davidson Garrett – poet; actor; New York City yellow taxi cab driver; known for his book King Lear of the Taxi: Musings of a New York City Actor/Taxi Driver
* Sergio George 1961 – producer, musician
* Ira Gershwin 1918 – lyricist; collaborator with his brother George Gershwin, and with Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, and Harold Arlen
* William Gibson 1938 – playwright, The Miracle Worker
* Marv Goldberg 1964 – music historian in the field of rhythm & blues
* Hazelle Goodman 1986 – stage, screen and TV actress
* Eydie Gormé – singer
* Bill Graham – music promoter
* Allen J. Grubman – entertainment lawyer
* Arthur Guiterman – humorous poet
* Luis Guzmán – actor
* E.Y. "Yip" Harburg 1918 – lyricist, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?," The Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow
* Caroline Hirsch – founder of the comedy club Caroline's
* Judd Hirsch 1960 – actor
* Sam Jaffe 1912 – actor, teacher, musician, and engineer
* Sondra James - actress
* Dayal Kaur Khalsa 1963 (as Marcia Schonfeld) – author of children's books
* Arthur Knight 1940 – movie critic, historian, teacher and TV host
* Stanley Kubrick 1946 – film director
* Mordecai Lawner – actor
* Ernest Lehman BS 1937 – screenwriter
* David Maurice Levett – composer and music teacher
* Leonard Liebling 1897 – composer, music critic, and long time editor-in-chief of the Musical Courier
* Hal Linden – actor, musician
* Frank Loesser (did not graduate) – songwriter; Tin Pan Alley, stage and films; wrote music and lyrics of "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and the music of Guys and Dolls, etc.
* Darko Lungulov 1996 – film director
* Donald Madden – stage, television, and screen actor
* Roma Maffia – actress
* David Margulies – actor
* Ernest Martin – theatre director and manager
* Jackie Mason – comedian and actor
* Jerry Masucci – founder of Fania Records
* Butterfly McQueen 1975 - actress
* Radley Metzger – filmmaker and film distributor
* Andy Mineo – rapper, singer, producer, director, actor and minister
* Sterling Morrison 1970 – musician, co-founder of The Velvet Underground
* Zero Mostel 1935 – actor
* Thom Michael Mulligan – actor and film festival director
* Stanley Nelson 1976 – documentary filmmaker
* John Patitucci, jazz bassist, City College
* Brock Peters, actor, known for his role in as Tom Robinson in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird
* Abraham Polonsky 1932 – screenwriter, director of Force of Evil
* George Ranalli 1946 – architect and dean, Spitzer School of Architecture of The City College of New York
* Adrienne Rich – feminist poet and essayist; taught at CCNY from 1968 to 1979
* Faith Ringgold – artist known for her painted story quilts
* Edward G. Robinson 1914 – actor
* Walter Rosenblum, photographer; documented US forces in Europe during World War II
* Judith Rossner – novelist; author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar and August; attended 1952–1955.
* Mickey Rourke – actor; never officially attended, but began auditing Sandra Seacat's acting class in 1975, making what is generally referred to as his stage debut at CCNY in May of that year
* Chris Rush 1968 – stand-up comedian
* Robert Russin – sculptor
* Richard Schiff 1983 – Emmy Award-winning actor; star of The West Wing (played Toby Ziegler; see "Fictional" below)
* Sandra Seacat 1970s – actor, director and acting coach, taught acting at City College
* Ben Shahn – artist
* Dan Shor – actor
* Gabourey Sidibe – actress, majored in psychology
* Russell Simmons (did not graduate) – hip hop mogul
* Hrvoje Slovenc – photographer
* Erik Sommer – contemporary artist
* Alfred Stieglitz 1884 – photographer
* Ed Summerlin – tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger; directed CCNY's jazz program 1971-1989
* Jean Toomer - novelist; associated with the Harlem renaissance; did not graduate
* Roy Turk – songwriter; member of the Songwriters' Hall of Fame; wrote lyrics of standards including "Mean To Me," "I'll Get By," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," and others
* Vagabon – multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer; graduated from Grove School of Engineering
* J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner – forensic psychologist; television personality
* Eli Wallach MA 1938 – actor
* Dirk Weiler – singer and actor
* Cornel Wilde 1935 – actor

## Literature and journalism

* Keith Sweat 1984 – R&B singer, and radio show host personality
* Alan Abelson 1942 – columnist, former editor, Barron's
* Marc D. Angel MA – rabbinic leader, published author
* Maurice Ashley 1988 – chess grandmaster, chess promoter, and author
* Toni Cade Bambara
* Helen Boyd 1995 – writer, speaker, and educator on gender and transgender theory
* Lawrence Bush – author and editor of Jewish Currents
* Barbara Christian
* Dan Daniel 1910 – dean of American sportswriters
* Dayal Kaur Khalsa (née Marcia Schonfeld) 1963 - award-winning author of children's books
* Reuben Fine 1932 – chess grandmaster, psychologist, and author
* Davidson Garrett 1988 – American poet
* Floriana Garo 1987 – Albanian television presenter and model
* Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – novelist, philosopher, MacArthur Fellow
* Vivian Gornick – writer, memoirist, feminist, professor; author of Fierce Attachments (1987)
* Clyde Haberman 1966 – New York Times reporter and columnist
* Safiya Henderson-Holmes MFA – Poet, winner of the 1990 William Carlos Williams Award
* Oscar Hijuelos 1975 – won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
* Hy Hollinger – entertainment trade journalist, reporter and editor for Variety, international editor of The Hollywood Reporter (1992–2008)
* Irving Howe 1940 – author of World of Our Fathers, literary critic, coined the phrase "New York Jewish Intellectual"
* John Johnson BA 1961, MA 1963 – journalist and television news correspondent/anchor
* June Jordan
* Bernard Kalb 1951 – journalist and television news correspondent
* Marvin Kalb 1951 – journalist and television news correspondent
* Kwame Karikari – Ghanaian journalist and academic
* David Karp 1948 – novelist and television writer
* Alfred Kazin – author of A Walker in the City, literary critic
* Marvin Kitman 1953 – television critic, humorist, and author
* Jack Kroll 1937 – culture editor, Newsweek
* Joseph P. Lash 1931 – Pulitzer Prize for Biography winner, author of Eleanor and Franklin
* Harvey Leonard (Moskowitz) 1970 – meteorologist, broadcast journalist, and TV personality
* Paul Levinson – author of The Plot to Save Socrates and The Silk Code (winner, Locus Award, 1999)
* Oscar Lewis 1936 – anthropologist, author, and professor
* Douglas Light 2003 – novelist, screenwriter, short story writer (O. Henry Prize winner 2003, Grace Paley Prize 2010)
* Audre Lorde
* Bernard Malamud BA 1936 – author (won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award); author of The Assistant
* Henry Miller Attended one semester. Author of Tropic of Cancer.
* Ralph Morse – career photographer for LIFE magazine; youngest war correspondent in World War II; recipient of the 1995 Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, the highest honor in photojournalism
* Montrose Jonas Moses 1899 – author
* Walter Mosley 1991 (MA) – best-selling author whose novels about private eye Easy Rawlins have received Edgar and Golden Dagger Awards
* Larry Neal
* Michael Oreskes 1975 – former senior vice president for news at NPR
* Arthur Pine – author, literary agent
* Mario Puzo – best-selling novelist; screenwriter, The Godfather
* Ernesto Quiñonez BA, MA 1996 – national bestselling author of Bodega Dreams
* Robert Rosen BA 1974, MA 1977 – author of the best-selling biography Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon
* A.M. Rosenthal 1949 – former executive editor of The New York Times
* Henry Roth 1928 – novelist, author of Call It Sleep
* Miriam Roth – Israeli writer and scholar of children's books; kindergarten teacher; educator
* Robert Scheer – journalist
* Daniel Schorr 1939 – journalist, newscaster, and commentator for CBS, CNN, and NPR
* Stephen Shepard 1961 – editor-in-chief, Business Week
* Anatole Shub – editor and journalist specializing in Eastern European matters
* Upton Sinclair BA 1897 – author of The Jungle
* Robert Sobel BSS 1951, MA 1952 – best-selling author of business histories
* Stephen Somerstein BA 1966 – took iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement
* Julius Thompson BA Arts – Teacher and novelist (Andy Michael Pilgrim trilogy)
* Earl Ubell 1948 – print, TV and radio journalist specializing in science and health reporting
* Al Wasserman 1941 – documentary film-maker
* Elsie B. Washington – author (using the pseudonym Rosalind Welles) of the 1980 book Entwined Destinies, considered the first romance novel featuring African American characters written by an African American author
* Gary Weiss 1975 – investigative journalist, author
* Edward Wellen 1955 – mystery and science fiction writer
* Rajzel Żychlińsky – Yiddish-language poet

## Science, technology, and mathematics

* Edward I. Altman 1963 – Max L. Heine Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Academic leader in the study of High-Yield Bond and Distressed Debt Markets and Credit Risk Management
* Solomon A. Berson 1938 – medical scientist at Mt. Sinai Hospital who would probably have won a Nobel with his colleague Rosalyn Yalow had he not died prematurely
* Joseph Berkson 1920 - physician and biostatistician known for Berkson's fallacy/Berkson's paradox.
* Julius Blank – engineer, member of the "Traitorous Eight" who founded Silicon Valley
* Eli Brookner - BEE 1953 - Radar authority, author, Raytheon Co.
* Burrill Bernard Crohn 1902 – gastroenterologist; known for disease named after him
* Charles DeLisi BA 1963 – scientist, "Father of the Human Genome Project"
* Milton Diamond 1955 – sexologist and professor of anatomy and reproductive biology
* Jesse Douglas 1916 – mathematician; one of two winners of the first Fields Medal awarded in 1936
* Joel S. Engel 1957 – scientist and electrical engineer instrumental in mobile phone technology
* Adin Falkoff – engineer, computer scientist, co-inventor of the APL language interactive system
* Mitchell Feigenbaum 1964 – mathematical physicist
* Richard Felder 1962 – engineering professor, co-author of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes
* Jeffrey Scott Flier 1969 – Dean of Harvard Medical School
* Michael Freeman BS 1969 – inventor
* Alfred Gessow 1943 – Pioneering helicopter aerodynamicist at NACA/NASA, and professor at University of Maryland
* Wolcott Gibbs – distinguished chemistry professor at the Free Academy
* Seymour Ginsburg 1948 – distinguished computer science professor
* Richard D. Gitlin 1964 – engineer, co-invention of DSL Bell Labs
* George Washington Goethals 1887 – civil engineer, supervised the construction and opening of the Panama Canal
* Joseph Goldberger – started in engineering; transferred to Bellevue Hospital Medical School; discovered that B vitamin deficiency was cause of pellagra; paved way for Elvehjem to narrow cause to vitamin B$_3$
* Dan Goldin – 9th and longest-tenured administrator of NASA
* Andrew S. Grove ChE. 1960 – founder and former chairman of Intel Corp; donated $26 million, the largest gift ever received by the college
* Gary Gruber 1962 – physicist, testing expert, educator, author
* Alan Hantman – served as 10th Architect of the Capitol
* Herman Hollerith – early computer pioneer, invented Key punch
* Girardin Jean-Louis 1997 – professor in the Department of Population Health and Psychiatry at New York University
* Robert E. Kahn – Internet pioneer, co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, co-recipient of the Turing Award in 2004
* Michio Kaku – CCNY professor; theoretical physicist and co-founder of string field theory
* Gary A. Klein 1964 – research psychologist, known for pioneering the field of naturalistic decision making
* Leonard Kleinrock 1957 – Internet pioneer
* Edward Kravitz 1954 – neurobiologist
* Solomon Kullback – mathematician; NSA cryptology pioneer
* Arthur J. Levenson – Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army; National Security Agency official; cryptographer; mathematician
* Emanuel Libman – physician
* Valentino Mazzia – forensic anesthesiologist
* Albert Medwin BSEE 1949 – engineer and inventor, developed CMOS integrated circuit technology
* David Michaels 1976 – epidemiologist and Occupational Safety and Health Administration administrator
* Irving Millman 1948 – microbiologist and virologist
* Lewis Mumford – historian of technology; author of The City in History
* Karl J. Niklas – professor of plant biology at Cornell University
* John O'Keefe – neuroscientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine
* Paul Pimsleur – professor, applied linguist, inventor of the Pimsleur language learning system
* Charles Lane Poor – astronomer
* Martin Pope 1939 – physical chemist; 2006 Davy Medal winner; known for pioneering work in electronic process in organic crystals and polymers, particularly discoveries in area of ohmic contacts
* Emil Leon Post – distinguished mathematician and professor of mathematics at CCNY
* George Edward Post – BA in 1854, MA in 1857, and later MD in 1860, professor of surgery at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut, now the American University of Beirut (AUB).
* Jacob Rabinow – engineer; inventor; held 230 U.S. patents on a variety of mechanical, optical and electrical devices
* Maurice M. Rapport 1940 – biochemist; identified the neurotransmitter serotonin
* Saul Rosen 1941 BS Mathematics – early computer pioneer, mathematician, engineer, and professor
* Jack Ruina 1944 BSEE – former director of ARPA
* Mario Runco Jr. 1974 – astronaut
* Jonas Salk 1934 – inventor of the Salk vaccine (see polio vaccine)
* Harold Scheraga 1941 - pioneering scientist in physical biochemistry
* Philip H. Sechzer 1934 – anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management; inventor of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA)
* Henry Semat – Atomic and nuclear physicist; over 45 years with CCNY; Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor
* Abraham Sinkov – mathematician; National Security Agency cryptology pioneer
* David L. Spector – biology; professor and director of research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
* David B. Steinman 1906 – engineer; bridge designer; designed the Mackinac Bridge; founded the National Society of Professional Engineers; namesake of the CCNY engineering building
* Leonard Susskind 1962 – physicist, string theory
* John P. Turner, c. 1906 – physician, surgeon, hospital administrator, and educator
* Joseph F. Traub 1954 – computer scientist, mathematician
* Edgar Villchur BA, MS 1940 – inventor, educator, writer, founder of Acoustic Research
* Mark Zemansky 1921 – physicist; textbook author; professor of physics at City College of New York from 1925 until he became an Emeritus Professor of Physics in 1967

## Business

* Sheldon Adelson – businessman and Republican donor. Attended City College but dropped out before graduating
* Frank Avellino 1958 – accountant involved in the Madoff investment scandal
* Miles Cahn – co-founder of Coach, Inc.
* Millard Drexler – chairman and CEO of J.Crew Group; former CEO of Gap Inc
* Jerald G. Fishman – chief executive officer and president of Analog Devices since November 1996
* Andrew Grove 1960 – 4th employee of Intel, and eventually its president, CEO, and chairman, and Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997, who donated $26,000,000 to CCNY's Grove School of Engineering in 2005.
* Joseph Gurwin – philanthropist who dropped out after becoming a partner in a textile firm; "realized I was making more money than my professors"
* Stanley H. Kaplan 1939 – founded Kaplan Educational Services
* Nat Lefkowitz – co-chairman of the William Morris Agency
* Jean Nidetch – founded Weight Watchers
* Lin Peng (professor) – David Krell Chair in Finance
* Jack Rudin 1941 – real estate developer
* Herbert Simon B.B.A. – real estate developer, co-founder of Simon Property Group, owner of the Indiana Pacers NBA basketball team
* Melvin Simon 1949 – real estate developer, co-founder of Simon Property Group
* Bernard Spitzer 1943 – real estate developer
* Linda Kaplan Thaler 1972 – CEO of ad agency in New York; brought us the Aflac Duck

## Sports

* Albert Axelrod (1921–2004), Olympic medalist foil fencer
* Daniel Bukantz (1917–2008), Olympic fencer
* Abram Cohen (1924–2016), Olympic fencer
* Irwin Dambrot – basketball player involved in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal
* Phil Farbman (1924–1996) – basketball player
* Nat Fleischer – founder and editor of Ring magazine. Authority on boxing.
* Heather Foster – Jamaican-born American professional bodybuilder
* Benny Friedman (1905–1982) – University of Michigan and College and NFL Hall of Fame football quarterback, coached the CCNY football team from 1935 to 1941
* Harold Goldsmith 1952 – foil and épée fencer, won the 1952 NCAA foil championship, competed in three Olympiads for the US, won two Pan American Games gold medals and two silver medals
* Sidney Hertzberg (1922–2005) – former NY Knicks basketball player
* Nat Holman (1896–1995) – Hall of Fame basketball player and CCNY coach
* Red Holzman 1942 – All-American guard at CCNY; two-time All-Star NBA guard; basketball coach for the New York Knicks; Hall of Famer
* Jane Katz (born 1943) – Olympic swimmer
* Floyd Layne – basketball player involved in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal; later coached the CCNY men's basketball team
* Bennet Nathaniel "Nate" Lubell (1916–2006) -- Olympic fencer
* Nat Militzok (1923–2009) – basketball player for the New York Knicks
* Tubby Raskin (1902–1981) - basketball player and coach
* Saul Rogovin (1922–1995) – Major League Baseball pitcher; 1951 AL ERA leader
* Hank Rosenstein (1920–2010) – basketball player for the New York Knicks
* Barney Sedran (1891–1964) – Member of the Basketball Hall of Fame
* Moe Spahn – basketball player
* James Strauch (1921–1998) – Olympic fencer
* Fred Thompson (1933–2019) Hall of Fame Track and Field Coach
* Henry Wittenberg (1918–2010) – Olympic wrestler; won gold medal at 1948 Olympics and silver medal in 1952

## Other

* Leon M. Goldstein (died 1999), president of Kingsborough Community College, and acting chancellor of the City University of New York
* Charles F. Hummel (born 1932), curator and deputy director at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library
* Raymond Lisle (1910–1994), attorney, officer in the US Foreign Service, and Dean of Brooklyn Law School
* Selma Wassermann (born 1929), Canadian-American author, teacher

## Fictional

* Lennie Briscoe – character from the TV show Law & Order
* Brian Flanagan – character from the 1988 film Cocktail
* Gordon Gekko – character from the 1987 film Wall Street
* Nancy – character from the 1971 film Bananas
* Sam Posner – character from the 1988 film Crossing Delancey
* Don Draper – character from the TV show Mad Men
* Toby Ziegler – character from the TV show The West Wing