# List of Pomona College people

Pomona College (/pəˈmoʊnə/ pə-MOH-nə) is an elite private liberal arts college in Claremont, California, and the founding member of the Claremont Colleges consortium. Many notable individuals have been affiliated with the college as graduates, non-graduating attendees, faculty, staff, or administrators.
Since its founding in 1887, Pomona has graduated 131 classes of students. The college enrolls approximately 1,690 students as of the spring 2025 semester and has roughly 25,000 living alumni. The top industries for graduates include technology; education; consulting and professional services; finance; government, law, and politics; arts, entertainment, and media; healthcare and social services; nonprofits; and research.
Pomona employs 276 faculty members as of the fall 2024 semester. The college has had 10 presidents, the first four of whom were Congregational ministers. The current president, G. Gabrielle Starr, took office in July 2017.

## Notable alumni
### Arts and letters
#### Visual art

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Milford Zornes | 1934 | California Scene Painting watercolor artist |
| Roger Edward Kuntz | 1948 | Landscape painter |
| Marcia Hafif | 1951 | Artist, known for minimalist and process art works |
| Barbara T. Smith | 1953 | Performance artist |
| Helen Pashgian | 1956 | Light and Space artist |
| James Strombotne | 1956 | Painter |
| Mary GrandPré | 1960s | Illustrator, best known for her work on the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books |
| James Turrell | 1965 | Light and Space artist, known for skyspaces and Roden Crater land art project |
| Judy Fiskin | 1966 | Photographer and video artist |
| Chris Burden | 1969 | Performance, sculpture, and installation artist |
| Peter Shelton | 1973 | Sculptor |
| Miko Lim | 2002 | Director and photographer |

#### Film and television

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Joel McCrea | 1928 | Film actor (Sullivan's Travels, Foreign Correspondent) |
| John Whitney | 1930s | Early computer animation filmmaker |
| Robert Taylor | 1933 | Film actor (Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe) |
| Art Clokey | Attended 1939–1943 | Stop-motion clay animator and creator of Gumby |
| Amanda Blake | Attended c. 1950 | Actress (Gunsmoke) |
| Richard Chamberlain | 1956 | Film and theatre actor (Dr. Kildare, Shōgun, The Thorn Birds), three-time Golden Globe winner |
| Robert Towne | 1956 | Academy Award–winning screenwriter (Chinatown; nominated for The Last Detail and Shampoo) |
| Anthony Zerbe | 1958 | Emmy-winning character actor (Will Penny, The Omega Man, Licence to Kill) |
| David S. Ward | 1967 | Film director (Major League) and Academy Award–winning screenwriter (The Sting) |
| Robert Blalack | 1970 | Visual effects artist (won Academy Award for Star Wars and an Emmy for The Day After) |
| Scott Paulin | 1971 | Actor (The Right Stuff), husband of actress Wendy Phillips |
| Lynda Obst | 1972 | Film and television producer |
| George C. Wolfe | 1976 | Two-time Tony Award–winning play director, playwright and film director (Nights in Rodanthe) |
| Allison Jones | 1977 | Emmy Award–winning casting director |
| Rosalind Chao | 1978 | Actress (The Joy Luck Club, Star Trek: The Next Generation) |
| Ted Field | 1979 | Media mogul and film producer |
| Paul Guay | 1979 | Screenwriter (Liar Liar, Heartbreakers, The Little Rascals) |
| Joe Menosky | 1979 | Television writer (Star Trek franchise) |
| Melissa Jo Peltier | 1983 | Television writer and producer (Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan) |
| Jim Taylor | 1984 | Academy Award–winning screenwriter (Sideways); frequent writing partner of Alexander Payne |
| Viveca Paulin | 1991 | Actor, wife of comedian Will Ferrell |
| Kelly Perine | 1991 | Television actor |
| Alison Rosen | 1997 | Podcaster, writer, and television personality |
| Aditya Sood | 1997 | Film producer (The Martian, Deadpool, Deadpool 2) |
| Sylvain White | 1998 | Film director (Stomp the Yard) |
| Nava Mau | 2014 | Emmy-nominated actress (Baby Reindeer) |

#### Music

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| John Cage | Attended 1928–1930 | Avant-garde composer, musician, and poet |
| Vladimir Ussachevsky | 1935 | Composer of electronic music |
| Robert Shaw | 1938 | Fourteen-time Grammy-winning conductor |
| Chris Strachwitz | Transferred 1952 | Grammy-winning record label executive and producer |
| Kris Kristofferson | 1958 | Writer, singer-songwriter, actor, and musician |
| Douglas Leedy | 1959 | Composer and music scholar |
| Frank Zappa | Auditor, c. 1959 | Prolific musician, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame |
| Lucy Shelton | 1965 | Soprano |
| David Noon | 1968 | Composer |
| David Murray | 1977 | Jazz musician |
| Frank Albinder | 1980 | Conductor, former director of Chanticleer |
| Eric Friedl | 1988 | Musician, The Oblivians; owner of Goner Records |
| Christine Fan | Attended 1990s | American-born Taiwanese singer and actress |
| Chris Cain | 1999 | Musician, We Are Scientists |
| Keith Murray | 2000 | Musician, We Are Scientists |
| Tunji Balogun | 2004 | Record label executive, CEO of Def Jam Recordings and co-founder of Keep Cool Records |

#### Journalism and non-fiction writing

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Relman Morin | 1929 | Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the Associated Press |
| Mark Gayn | 1933 | Foreign affairs correspondent for the Toronto Star |
| Paul Fussell | 1947 | Cultural and literary historian, known for criticism of the romanticization of war |
| H. Arnold Barton | 1953 | Historian of Scandinavian history |
| Terry Drinkwater | 1958 | CBS News correspondent |
| Doug McConnell | 1967 | Television journalist |
| Bill Keller | 1970 | Executive editor of The New York Times and winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting |
| Verlyn Klinkenborg | 1974 | Author, editor, and academic, known for his writings on rural America |
| Joe Palca | 1974 | NPR science correspondent |
| Mary Schmich | 1975 | Columnist for the Chicago Tribune and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary |
| Lynn Walford | 1979 | Automotive technology writer |
| Richard Pérez‑Peña | 1984 | Reporter for The New York Times |
| Zafar Sobhan | 1992 | Bangladeshi journalist and editor of the Dhaka Tribune |
| Judd Legum | 2000 | Journalist, lawyer, and political staffer; founder of ThinkProgress |
| Ashlee Vance | 2000 | Technology and business journalist, author |
| Conor Friedersdorf | 2002 | Staff writer for The Atlantic, known for civil libertarian perspectives |

#### Writing

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Richard Armour | 1927 | Author, humorist, professor |
| Ved Mehta | 1956 | Indian writer |
| William Irwin Thompson | 1962 | Poet, cultural historian, cultural critic |
| Ray Young Bear | Attended 1969–1972 | Poet and novelist, known for work on contemporary Native American identity |
| Garrett Hongo | 1973 | Japanese-American poet |
| Louis Menand | 1973 | Writer, The Metaphysical Club (which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History) |
| Richard Preston | 1976 | Writer for The New Yorker and bestselling author of The Hot Zone |
| Douglas Preston | 1978 | Writer for The New Yorker and Smithsonian, bestselling thriller author |
| Vikram Chandra | 1984 | Indian-American writer |
| Aaron Becker | 1996 | Children's book writer and illustrator, Caldecott Honor recipient |
| Mac Barnett | 2004 | National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Caldecott Honor recipient |
| Liz Fosslien | 2009 | Author, illustrator, and expert in workplace culture and emotions |
| Julius Taranto | 2012 | Writer and lawyer |
| Tom Lin | 2018 | Carnegie Medal–winning author |

#### Other

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Fong Foo Sec | Preparatory school, transferred 1901 | Chinese educator and publicist, Pomona's first Asian student, English department editor of The Commercial Press |
| Essae Martha Culver | 1905 | First state librarian of Louisiana and president of the American Library Association |
| Clara Breed | 1927 | Librarian who opposed Japanese internment during World War II and supported children sent to camps |
| Edwin B. Crittenden | 1938 | Alaskan architect |
| David Ossman | Transferred in 1956 | Writer and comedian best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre |
| Twyla Tharp | Transferred in 1960 | Emmy and Tony award-winning dancer and choreographer |
| Marianne Williamson | Attended 1970–1972 | Author, spiritual leader, activist, and 2020 presidential candidate |
| Don Daglow | 1974 | Video game designer and producer |
| Eddie Dombrower | 1980 | Video game designer and producer |
| Alex Linder | 1988 | Owner and operator of the Vanguard News Network, an antisemitic, white supremacist website |

### Government and law
#### U.S. Senators and Congresspeople

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Alan Cranston | Transferred 1933 | Democratic U.S. Senator for California (1969–1993) |
| Frank Evans | Attended 1941–1943 | Democratic U.S. Representative for Colorado's 3rd district (1965–1979) |
| Chip Pashayan | 1963 | Republican U.S. Representative for California's 17th district (1979–1991) |
| Brian Schatz | 1994 | Democratic U.S. Senator for Hawaii (2012–present) |

#### Federal officials

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Leslie A. Wheeler | 1921 | U.S. government official and diplomat who helped liberalize international agricultural trade |
| William B. Bader | 1953 | United States Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs |
| Esther Brimmer | 1983 | U.S. foreign policy expert and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs |
| David Holmes | 1997 | Diplomat and counselor for political affairs at the U.S Embassy in Ukraine |

#### State and city officials

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Silsby Spalding | Preparatory school, c. 1904 | First mayor of Beverly Hills, California |
| Mark Wyland | 1968 | Republican California Senator |
| Ellen Bard | 1971 | Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives |
| Tick Segerblom | 1971 | Democratic Nevada Senator |
| Cristina Garcia | 1999 | Democratic California Assemblyperson |

#### Judges

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| James Marshall Carter | 1924 | Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
| Harry L. Hupp | Attended 1947–1950 | Judge, United States District Court for the Central District of California, known for reforming treatment of alcoholism |
| Stephen Reinhardt | 1951 | Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
| Cruz Reynoso | 1953 | First Latino on the California Supreme Court, advocate for civil rights of farm workers; awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 |
| George H. Wu | 1969 | Judge, United States District Court for the Central District of California |
| Christina A. Snyder | 1972 | Judge, United States District Court for the Central District of California |
| Richard G. Taranto | 1977 | Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit |
| Kimberly J. Mueller | 1981 | Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of California |
| Halim Dhanidina | 1994 | Judge, California Court of Appeal for the Second District; first Muslim judge in the state of California |

#### Diplomats

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Hugh S. Gibson | Attended c. 1900 | U.S. interwar diplomat, ambassador, proponent of the professionalization of the Foreign Service |
| Julian Nava | 1951 | First Mexican-American to become the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico |
| Kenneth L. Brown | 1959 | U.S. ambassador to Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, and Congo-Brazzaville |
| Esther Brimmer | 1983 | U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, foreign policy expert |

#### Activists

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Virginia Prince | 1935 | Transgender rights activist and founder of Transvestia magazine |
| Myrlie Evers‑Williams | 1968 | Activist, first full-time chairperson of the NAACP |
| John Payton | 1973 | Civil rights attorney and president of NAACP Legal Defense Fund (co-founded Black Student Union at Pomona) |
| Martina Vandenberg | 1990 | Activist, Rhodes Scholar, Truman Scholar, founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center |
| Kafi D. Blumenfield | 1993 | Nonprofit executive, activist, and civic leader |

#### Military

| Name | Class year | Notability | Ref. |
| James H. Howard | 1937 | Brigadier general, member of the Flying Tigers during World War II and Medal of Honor recipient | |
| Verne Orr | 1937 | U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, 1981–1985 | |

### Business

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Russell K. Pitzer | 1900 | Citrus farmer, founder of Pitzer College |
| Frank R. Seaver | 1905 | Lawyer, naval officer, oil drilling executive, and philanthropist; first president of the Associated Students of Pomona College |
| Donald McKenna | 1929 | Businessperson and philanthropist, known for donations to Claremont McKenna College |
| R. Stanton Avery | 1932 | Inventor of modern stickers, founder of Avery Adhesives |
| Elmer P. Wheaton | 1933 | Aerospace and marine engineer and executive at the Douglas Aircraft Company and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company |
| Charles Scripps | 1943 | Chair of the board of the E. W. Scripps Company |
| Richard C. Seaver | 1946 | Oil drilling executive and philanthropist |
| Roy E. Disney | 1951 | Executive at The Walt Disney Company; nephew of Walt Disney |
| Frank Wells | 1952 | President of The Walt Disney Company and mountaineer |
| Burton Smith | Transferred 1959 | Computer architect, co-founder of Cray, and Microsoft Fellow |
| Kent Brownridge | 1962 | General manager of Rolling Stone and CEO of Dennis Publishing and Alpha Media |
| Linda G. Alvarado | 1973 | CEO of Alvarado Construction; co-owner of the Colorado Rockies |
| Cathy Corison | 1975 | Winemaker |
| Hashim Djojohadikusumo | 1976 | Indonesian entrepreneur and brother of former Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto |
| Lynn Forester de Rothschild | 1976 | CEO of E.L. Rothschild |
| Bryan White | 1984 | Co-founder of BlackRock's multi-billion dollar hedge fund investments business and Sahsen Ventures |
| Libby Armintrout | 1986 | Philanthropist and sister of Bill Gates |
| Bernard C. Chan | 1988 | Convenor of the Hong Kong Executive Council and President of Asia Financial Holdings |
| Osman Kibar | 1992 | Billionaire founder of biotech firm Samumed |
| Laszlo Bock | 1993 | Former Senior Vice President, People Operations, Google, and co-founder and CEO of Humu |
| Adam Bowen | 1998 | Billionaire co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Juul |
| Nick Friedman | 2005 | President and co-founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk |
| Maya Horgan Famodu | 2012 | Founder of Ingressive and named in Forbes Africa's "30 Under 30" list in 2018 |

### Science

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Edmund Jaeger | Attended 1900s | Desert ecologist |
| Wilson Popenoe | Attended 1910–1911 | Agricultural explorer, influential in bringing the avocado to North America |
| Hugo Benioff | 1921 | Seismologist, known for work charting deep ocean earthquakes |
| M. Stanley Livingston | 1926 | Physicist, co-inventor of the cyclotron |
| Norris Bradbury | 1929 | Physicist, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1945 to 1970 |
| Roger Revelle | 1929 | Oceanographer, one of the first scientists to study global warming, and primary founder of the University of California, San Diego |
| Xiao Guangyan | 1942 | Chinese petrochemist who researched catalysts used in petroleum processing |
| Robert Gomer | 1944 | Physical chemist, known for work in surface science and nuclear non-proliferation advocacy |
| Jean Mill | 1948 | Conservationist and creator of the Bengal cat breed |
| M. Frederick Hawthorne | 1949 | Inorganic chemist, known for work on clusters of boron hydrides; National Medal of Science recipient |
| Edward A. Knapp | 1954 | Physicist, director of the National Science Foundation |
| Ann Hardy | 1955 | Computer scientist, known for pioneering work on time-sharing |
| Ed Krupp | 1961 | Archeoastronomer, science educator, and director of the Griffith Observatory |
| Thomas D. Pollard | 1964 | Cell biologist and biophysicist |
| Sarah Elgin | 1967 | Biochemist, geneticist, and science educator |
| J. Andrew McCammon | 1969 | Physical chemist |
| Steven Clarke | 1970 | Biochemist |
| Sharon K. Inouye | 1977 | Geriatrician, known for work on delirium |
| Anna María Nápoles | 1980 | Behavioral epidemiologist and science administrator |
| Emil Kakkis | 1982 | Medical geneticist; founder and CEO of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. |
| Jennifer Doudna | 1985 | Biochemist, known for pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing; won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry |
| Thomas McDade | 1991 | Biological anthropologist |
| Amalie Frischknecht | 1992 | Polymer physicist |

### Religion

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Charles E. Fuller | 1910 | Clergyman and radio evangelist who founded the Fuller Theological Seminary |
| Gladwyn M. Childs | 1919 | Minister, missionary, and anthropologist |
| Seraphim (Eugene) Rose | 1956 | Russian Orthodox hieromonk |
| Nancy Raabe | 1977 | Lutheran pastor and composer |
| Megan Traquair | 1985 | Eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California |

### Academia
#### College presidents

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| David Prescott Barrows | 1894 | Ninth president of the University of California, anthropologist, major general in the California National Guard, and first editor of The Student Life |
| David Outcalt | 1956 | Chancellor, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay and University of Alaska Anchorage |
| John V. Lombardi | 1963 | Fifth president of the Louisiana State University System |
| R. Stanton Hales | 1964 | 10th president of the College of Wooster and two-time U.S. badminton men's singles champion |
| Eileen Wilson‑Oyelaran | 1969 | 17th president of Kalamazoo College |
| Anne M. Houtman | 1983 | 20th president of Earlham College |
| Thomas J. Minar | 1985 | 16th president of Franklin College in Indiana |
| Erika H. James | 1991 | Dean of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania |

#### Professors and academics

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Carl Irving Wheat | 1915 | Lawyer, historian, and cartographer of the American West |
| Chen Hansheng | 1920 | Chinese sociologist considered a father of Chinese modern social science |
| David Keirsey | 1947 | Psychologist who developed the Keirsey Temperament Sorter personality questionnaire |
| Ellis Batten Page | 1947 | Professor and scientist, widely acknowledged as the father of automated essay scoring |
| John K. Roth | 1962 | Holocaust studies scholar, Claremont McKenna College |
| Michael Starbird | 1970 | Mathematics professor, University of Texas at Austin |
| Ingrid D. Rowland | 1974 | Historian of European architecture at the University of Notre Dame |
| Robyn R. Warhol | 1977 | Chair of the Department of English at Ohio State University and literary critic who helped develop feminist narrative theory |
| Marla Stone | 1982 | Historian of Fascism at Occidental College, Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Professor at the American Academy in Rome |
| Matthew K. Franklin | 1983 | Cryptographer and professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis |
| Joanne B. Freeman | 1984 | Historian of early American history at Yale University |
| Caroline Winterer | 1988 | Historian of pre-20th-century American history at Stanford University |
| Vijay Prashad | 1989 | History professor at Trinity College in Connecticut |
| Tamily Weissman‑Unni | 1992 | Neurobiology professor at Lewis & Clark College |
| Amy Lyford | 1993 | Art Historian at Occidental College |
| Cynthia Wyels | 1996 | Mathematician, co-director of the Alliance for Minority Participation |
| Omayra Ortega | 2001 | Mathematician, President of the National Association of Mathematicians |

### Athletics

| Name | Class year | Notability |
| Harry Kingman | 1913 | Pitcher for the New York Yankees |
| Charles Daggs | 1923 | Olympic track and field athlete |
| Robert Maxwell | 1925 | Olympic hurdler and two-time national champion |
| Earl J. Merritt | 1925 | Head football coach of the Sagehens from 1935 to 1958 |
| David G. Freeman | 1942 | Seven-time U.S. national badminton champion |
| Betty Hicks | 1947 | Golfer, 1941 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year |
| Darlene Hard | 1961 | Grand Slam–winning tennis player |
| Marilyn Ramenofsky | 1969 | Olympic silver medalist swimmer, and former women's 400-meter freestyle world record holder |
| Penny Lee Dean | 1977 | Long-distance swimmer and world record-holder for the fastest swim across the English Channel in 1978; later coached the Pomona women's swimming and diving team for more than 25 years |
| Mike Budenholzer | 1992 | Head coach of the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Bucks, and Phoenix Suns |
| Will Leer | 2007 | Professional track and field athlete specializing in the 1500 meters |
| Daniel Rosenbaum | 2019 | Professional basketball player in the Israeli National League |

## Notable faculty

| Name | Active tenure | Notability |
| Edwin C. Norton | 1888–1926 | First dean of Pomona |
| Frank Brackett | 1888–1933 | Mathematics and astronomy professor |
| Phebe Estelle Spalding | 1889–1927 | English professor, author, first female Pomona faculty member |
| Albert John Cook | 1894–1911 | Entomologist |
| Alice Mary Dowd | 1904–1905 | Educator, author |
| Hannah Tempest Jenkins | 1905–1926 | Painter, helped establish Pomona's art department and founded the Rembrandt Club |
| Fannie Charles Dillon$^†$ | 1910–1913 | Composer |
| Alfred Woodford$^†$ | 1915–1955 | Founder of Pomona's geology department |
| Philip A. Munz | 1917–1944 | Botanist who began the Pomona College Herbarium and was director of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden |
| Ralph Lyman | 1917–1948 | Longtime head of Pomona's music department |
| Jerry Voorhis | 1930–1935 | Democratic U.S. Representative for California's 12th district (1937–1947) |
| John H. Kemble | 1936–1977 | Maritime historian |
| Henry Cord Meyer | 1945 c. 1945–1964 | Historian of central Europe |
| W. Conway Pierce | 1945–1953 | Chemist |
| Corwin Hansch | 1946–1988 | Chemist |
| Jean Walton | 1949–1979 | Dean of women who reformed Pomona's residential life and co-founded its women's studies program |
| James Grant | 1950–1959 | Painter, sculptor |
| Karl Kohn | 1950–1994 | Composer |
| Frederick Sontag | 1952–2009 | Philosopher and theologian |
| Leonard Pronko | 1957–2014 | Leading Western expert on Japanese dance-drama kabuki, awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1986 |
| Lewis Baltz | 1960 c. 1960s | Photographer |
| Michael Armacost | 1960s | Diplomat, ambassador to Japan and the Philippines, and president of the Brookings Institution |
| Stanley Crouch | 1969 c. 1969–c. 1975 | Cultural critic known for coverage of jazz, novelist, and English professor |
| Gerald M. Ackerman | 1971–1989 | Art history professor |
| George Gorse | 1980–present | Art history professor |
| Steven Koblik | 1972–1992 | President of Reed College, President of the Huntington Library |
| Martha Andresen Wilder | 1972–2006 | Scholar of Renaissance literature |
| Bobby Bradford | 1974–2021 | Jazz musician |
| Robert Mezey | 1976–2000 | Poet and translator |
| Frank Gibney | 1979 c. 1979–c. 2006 | Journalist known for humane postwar portraits of Japan and founder of the Pacific Basin Institute; awarded the Order of the Rising Sun in 1976 |
| Gregg Popovich | 1979–1988 | Head basketball coach of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs |
| Karl Benjamin | 1979–1994 | Abstract painter |
| Everett L. Bull$^†$ | 1981–2020 c. 2020 | Computer scientist |
| Thomas Leabhart | 1982–present | Corporeal mime |
| Samuel H. Yamashita | 1983–present | Historian and Asian studies scholar |
| Kenneth B. Wolf | 1985–present | Scholar of medieval studies |
| Eleanor P. Brown$^†$ | 1986-present | Economist, co-editor for the Review of Economics of the Household |
| Susana Chavez‑Silverman | 1989–present | Creative nonfiction writer on Latin American culture |
| Shahriar Shahriari | 1989–present | Mathematician |
| Larissa Rudova | 1991-present | Yale B. and Lucille D. Griffith Professor of Modern Languages |
| Katherine Hagedorn | 1993–2013 | Ethnomusicologist and Santería priestess |
| Ami Radunskaya | 1994–present | Mathematician, president of the Association for Women in Mathematics |
| Cecilia Conrad | 1995–2012 | Economist, managing director of the MacArthur Fellows Program |
| David Foster Wallace | 2002–2008 | Essayist and novelist, author of Infinite Jest |
| Jo Hardin$^†$ | 2002-present | Statistician and Fellow of the American Statistical Association |
| Robert R. Gaines | 2003–present | Geologist, acting president, dean of the college |
| Kim Bruce$^†$ | 2005–2021 | Computer scientist |
| Claudia Rankine | 2006–2015 | Poet |
| Susan McWilliams Barndt | 2006 | Political Theorist, co-editor of American Political Thought |
| Meredith Landman | 2010 c. 2010–2018 | Linguist |
| Jonathan Lethem | 2011–present | Novelist, author of Fortress of Solitude |
| Amanda Hollis-Brusky | 2011-present | Constitutional Law Scholar, editor for The Monkey Cage |
| Cameron Munter | 2013–2015 | Diplomat, ambassador to Serbia and Pakistan |
| Lise Abrams | 2018–present | Cognitive psychologist |
| $^†$ Also an alumnus of the college ||||

## Presidents of Pomona College

From 1888 to 1890, trustee Charles B. Sumner was the college's "financial agent with supervisory authority", and assumed many of the duties of a president. The subsequent presidents are:
| # | Name | Tenure | Academic expertise |
| 1 | Cyrus G. Baldwin | 1890–1897 | Congregational minister |
| 2 | Franklin La Du Ferguson | 1897–1901 | Congregational minister |
| 3 | George A. Gates | 1902–1909 | Congregational minister |
| 4 | James A. Blaisdell | 1910–1927 | Congregational minister |
| 5 | Charles K. Edmunds | 1928–1941 | Physics |
| 6 | E. Wilson Lyon | 1941–1969 | History |
| 7 | David Alexander | 1969–1991 | Theology |
| 8 | Peter W. Stanley | 1991–2003 | History |
| 9 | David W. Oxtoby | 2003–2017 | Chemistry |
| 10 | G. Gabrielle Starr | 2017–present | Literature, neuroscience |