# List of alumni of the University of Cape Town

This list of the notable alumni of the University of Cape Town is divided into the six faculties of the university: Commerce, Humanities, Sciences, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Law.

## Commerce

* Raymond Ackerman, businessman, who purchased the Pick 'n Pay supermarket group from its founder; philanthropist
* Roelof Botha, grandson of Pik Botha; began his career as an actuary and became a venture capitalist
* Polly Courtice, founder Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and member of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes Benz Group
* Chelsy Davy, ex-girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry
* Sir Bradley Fried, ex-chief executive of Investec Bank; current chairman of Goldman Sachs International
* Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor of Cape Town (2021– )
* Nick Mallett, played for and later coached the Springboks, South Africa's national rugby union team
* Tshediso Matona, CEO of Eskom
* Mark Nielsen, CEO of Talent
* Mark Shuttleworth, billionaire entrepreneur; founder of Canonical Ltd; sponsor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution; second space tourist
* Kimeshan Naidoo, entrepreneur and engineer, founder of Unibuddy.

## Humanities

* Lauren Beukes, international best-selling author of The Shining Girls, winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award
* J. M. Coetzee, Professor Emeritus, Literature, 2003
* Jean Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
* John Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
* Harold Cressy, head teacher and first coloured person to gain a degree in South Africa
* Janette Deacon, archaeologist specialising in heritage management and rock art conservation
* Roger Ebert, film critic, graduated with an English degree as part of a Rotary International program
* David Fanning, Emmy Award-winning producer of Frontline
* Damon Galgut, novelist and playwright
* Bobby Godsell, Masters of Arts, later CEO of AngloGold Ashanti and Chairman of Eskom
* Johannes de Villiers Graaff, professor of welfare economics; economist
* Adrian Guelke, Professor of Comparative Politics at Queen's University Belfast
* Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, deputy prime minister of South Africa, obtained an M.A. at the age of 17
* Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, New Testament scholar, Professor at Westminster Theological Seminary
* Edward Neville Isdell, former CEO of the Coca-Cola Company
* Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac; 8th most influential woman in the world, according to Forbes magazine
* David Lewis-Williams, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand specialising in Upper-Palaeolithic and Bushmen rock art
* Gwen Lister, South African-born Namibian journalist; anti-apartheid activist; founder of The Namibian
* Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw, Afrikaans-language poet, playwright and scholar
* Archie Mafeje, anthropologist and activist who significantly contributed to the decolonization of African identity and its historical past, criticising anthropology's typically Eurocentric techniques and beliefs; also known for the "Mafeje affair"
* Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town, PhD from the University of Cape Town
* Steven Markovitz, award-winning film and television producer
* Ebrahim Patel, held positions as South African Minister of Trade and Industry and as the Minister of Economic Development, on the University Council of UCT; former staffer in the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit in the School of Economics
* André du Pisani, political scientist and professor at University of Namibia
* Nik Rabinowitz, comedian, actor and author
* Mamphela Ramphele, managing director of the World Bank; former Vice-Chancellor of UCT
* Isaac Schapera, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics; leading expert in the anthropology of South African tribesmen
* Nora Schimming-Chase, Namibia's first ambassador to Germany, obtained a teaching diploma from UCT in 1961
* Carmel Schrire, Professor of Archaeology, Rutgers University
* Robert Carl-Heinz Shell, South African author and professor of African Studies
* Lady Skollie, feminist artist and activist
* Lady Kitty Spencer (born 1990), English model
* Andries Treurnicht, founder and the leader of the Conservative Party in South Africa
* Elizabeth Anne Voigt, archaeologist and director of the McGregor Museum
* Mary Watson, 2006 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing

### Music

* Richard Cock, conductor
* Cromwell Everson, classical music composer and composer of the first Afrikaans opera
* Ernest Fleischmann, impresario best known for his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic
* Malcolm Forsyth, musician; composer; Canadian Composer of the Year; Juno Award winner; member of Order of Canada
* Hendrik Hofmeyr, composer and music theorist; winner of the 1997 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Composition Prize; Professor of Music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
* Galt MacDermot, composer of the musical Hair
* Melanie Scholtz, vocalist, operas, jazz, pop, r&b, and classical music; graduated from the School of Opera
* Barry Smith, organist, conductor, musicologist, former Associate Professor of Music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
* Désirée Talbot, operatic soprano and one of the founding members of the UCT Opera Company
* Pretty Yende, operatic soprano

### Fine art

* Anne Bean, British installation and performance artist
* Alex Binaris, fashion model
* Breyten Breytenbach, author
* Roger Ebert, Pulitzer Award-winning American film critic and writer
* Kai Lossgott, interdisciplinary artist
* Simphiwe Ndzube, visual artist
* Claudette Schreuders, South African sculptor and painter
* Jonathan Shapiro, South African political cartoonist known as "Zapiro"
* Marjorie van Heerden, South African writer and illustrator of children's books
* Pauline Vogelpoel, arts administrator at the Contemporary Art Society and Tate Gallery

### Drama

* Jodi Balfour, actress
* Katlego Danke, actress
* Nadia Davids, playwright, novelist, and author of short stories, and screenplays
* Vincent Ebrahim, known for his role on The Kumars at No. 42
* Richard E. Grant, actor
* Kagiso Lediga, stand-up comedian, actor and director
* Zolani Mahola, lead singer of the South African band Freshlyground
* Zandile Msutwana, actress
* Koleka Putuma, poet and theatre-maker

## Sciences

* Allan McLeod Cormack, Medicine, 1979
* Hilary Deacon (1936-2010), archaeologist and professor at the University of Stellenbosch
* Emanuel Derman, Goldman Sachs financial engineer and author of My Life As A Quant
* Jonathan M. Dorfan, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
* Mulalo Doyoyo, South African engineer and inventor; known for inventing cenocell, a cementless concrete
* George Ellis, cosmologist; collaborator with Stephen Hawking; winner of the 2004 Templeton Prize
* Tim Hawarden, astrophysicist
* Michael David Kirchmann, architect and developer, founder of GDSNY
* Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982 (MSc)
* Paul Maritz, former Microsoft executive; VMware CEO
* Magdalena Sauer, first woman to qualify as an architect in South Africa
* Sydney Harold Skaife, South African entomologist and naturalist
* Stanley Skewes, number theorist most famous in popular mathematics for his bound for the point of changeover in magnitude between the number of primes up to a certain number and an important approximation of this, which was for many years the largest finite number ever legitimately used in a research paper
* Edith Layard Stephens, South African botanist
* Frank Talbot (1930–2024), ichthyologist; PhD. 1959; former director of the Australian Museum
* Willem Van Biljon, former co-founder of Mosaic Software, acquired by S1 Corporation; founder of Nimbula, a startup funded by Sequoia Capital
* Richard van der Riet Woolley, British astronomer who became Astronomer Royal

## Health sciences

* Neil Aggett, South African trade union leader and labour activist who died in custody after 70 days' detention without trial
* Frances Ames, first woman to receive an MD degree from UCT; first female professor at UCT
* Christiaan Barnard, professor, performed the world's first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital
* Enid Charles, statistician and demographer
* Alan Christoffels, bioinformatics scientist, academic, and an author
* David Cooper, theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement
* Tamaryn Green, medical doctor, Miss South Africa 2018 and 1st runner-up at Miss Universe 2018
* Cecil Helman, physician, medical anthropologist and author
* Margaret Keay (1911–1998), plant pathologist
* Bongani Mayosi, cardiologist and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
* Mervyn Maze, anaesthesiologist, medical researcher and academic
* Riaad Moosa, comedian, actor and doctor
* Jean Nachega, physician, infectious diseases doctor and academic
* Jessie Rose-Innes, nurse, social campaigner and suffragist
* Gisela Sole, professor of physiotherapy at University of Otago in New Zealand
* Max Theiler, virologist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever
* Louis Vogelpoel, cardiologist and one of the founding members of the Cardiac Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital as well as a highly regarded horticultural scholar and researcher
* Carolyn Williamson, virologist and microbiologist, professor of medical virology
* Heather Zar, paediatric pulmonologist and Chair Department of Paediatrics

## Social sciences

* John Karlin, industrial psychologist whose research led to the rectangular push-button telephone
* Debora Patta, broadcast journalist and television producer
* Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News
* Josina Z. Machel, women's rights activist
* Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, social policy researcher

## Law

* Morris Alexander (1877–1946), member of parliament
* David Bloomberg, former Mayor of Cape Town (1973–1975) and defence attorney for Dimitri Tsafendas, who fatally stabbed the Prime Minister, Dr H.F. Verwoerd, in Parliament in 1966
* Sheila Camerer, South African politician; former Deputy Minister of Justice; long-serving Member of Parliament of the main opposition the Democratic Alliance; ambassador to Bulgaria; completed a Bachelor of Law degree at UCT in 1964
* Ryan Coetzee, South African politician; former CEO of the Democratic Alliance and Shadow Minister of Economic Development; chief strategist for Western Cape premier Helen Zille; graduated from UCT in 1994
* Beric John Croome, Advocate of the High Court of South Africa; Chartered Accountant CA (SA); taxpayers' rights pioneer; completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree (1980), Certificate in the Theory of Accountancy (1981) and a PhD (Commercial Law) (2008) at UCT
* Zainunnisa "Cissie" Gool, anti-apartheid political and civil rights leader
* Zuleikha Hassan, Kenyan politician; Kwale County Woman Representative and Member of Parliament
* Stephen Jolly, Australian activist and politician
* Fana Mokoena, South African politician and actor, member of the National Assembly of South Africa and a delegate to the National Council of Provinces
* Ian Neilson, Executive Deputy Mayor of Cape Town
* Dullah Omar, South African anti-apartheid activist; lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; minister in the South African cabinet from 1994 until his death
* Kate O'Regan, former Constitutional Court of South Africa judge
* Albie Sachs, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
* James Selfe, long-serving Member of Parliament with the Democratic Alliance; chairperson of the party's federal council; holds a master's degree from UCT
* Donald Woods, South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist
* Percy Yutar, South Africa's first Jewish attorney-general and prosecutor of Nelson Mandela in the 1963 Rivonia Treason Trial.