List of Reed College people. This page lists notable alumni of Reed College, an American institution of liberal arts and sciences, located in Portland, Oregon, along with their past and present positions. In addition to famous Reed College graduates, it also includes some famous Reedies who did not graduate.

Alumni

Academia

Economics

Philosophy

Psychology and Neuroscience

Biology and Chemistry

Science, Mathematics, Computing, and Engineering 
 John Backus, 1932 – Professor of Physics, University of Southern California
 Vivian Annabelle Johnson, 1932 – Professor of Physics, Purdue University
 Cleota Gage Fry, 1933 – mathematician and professor at Purdue University
 John Alexander Simpson, 1940 – Professor of Physics, University of Chicago, and atomic scientist on the Manhattan Project
 Clarence Allen, 1949 – Professor of Geology, California Institute of Technology
 Daniel Bump, 1974 - Professor of Mathematics, Stanford University
 Larry Shaw, 1961 – physicist and founder of Pi Day
 David B. Dusenbery, 1964 – father of sensory ecology
 David Flory, 1964 – physicist; Professor of Physics, Chairman of the Physics Department, and Director of the School of Natural Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University
 Jorge M. López, 1967 – mathematician and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
 Arthur Ogus, 1968 – Professor of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley
 Thomas William Ferguson, 1965 – physician
 Alan H. Borning, 1971 – Professor of Computer Science, University of Washington
 Jonathan Grudin, 1972 – computer scientist
 Marilyn Olmstead, 1965 - chemist, expert in small molecule crystallography
 Catherine Otto, 1975 – physician
 Daniel Kottke, 1976 – computer scientist
 Lawrence Philips, 1976 – software engineer; developer of the Metaphone family of phonetic encoding algorithms
 Norman Packard, 1977 – chaos theory physicist
 Steven McGeady, 1980 – technologist
 Theodore James Courant, 1982 – mathematician
 Susan Subak, 1982 – environmental and climate scientist
 Kelly Falkner, 1983 – oceanographer, Antarctic researcher
 Peter Shirley, 1985, computer scientist
 Keith Packard, 1986 – software developer; known for his work on the X Window System
 Shep Doeleman, 1986 – astrophysicist, director of the Event Horizon Telescope project
 Mark Galassi, 1987 – physicist and computer scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
 Irena Swanson, 1987, mathematician and professor at Reed College
 Craig DeForest, 1989 – astrophysicist, director of the PUNCH mission
 Edward Ramberg (did not graduate) – physicist

Arts and Entertainment
 Jacob Avshalomov, 1941 – composer
 Stella Baker, 2015 – actor
 Kip Berman, 2002 – songwriter and vocalist for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
 Jody Bleyle, 1992 – singer, songwriter, musician
 Xenia Cage, 1935 – artist and musician
 Jennifer Camper, 1979 – cartoonist
 Ry Cooder, 1971 – singer, songwriter; attended Reed for one semester
 Robert Cornthwaite, 1939 – actor
 Lamar Crowson, 1948 – pianist
 Dr. Demento, born Barret Hansen, 1963 – radio personality
 Pozzi Escot, 1956 – composer
 Johanna Fateman (did not graduate) – musician
 Simone Forti (did not graduate) – choreographer
 Rob Heinsoo, 1987 – game designer
 Matt Keeslar, 2014 - actor
 Hope Lange (did not graduate) – actress
Jayne Loader, 1973 – writer and director; produced and co-directed The Atomic Cafe
 Peter Mars, 1982 – artist
 Robert Morris, 1953 (attended two years) – sculptor
 Bill Morrison, 1985, filmmaker, Guggenheim fellow
 Charles Munch, 1968 – painter
 Daria O'Neill, 1993 – Portland radio and TV personality
 Eric Overmyer, 1973 – screenwriter, producer, playwright
 David Reed, 1968 – artist
 Lawrence Rinder, 1983 – Director of the Berkeley Art Museum
 Brian Rolland (did not graduate) – musician
 Leo Rubinfien, 1974 – photographer
 Susan Silas, 1975 – artist
 Pat Silver-Lasky 1949– screenwriter and actress
 Morgan Spector, 2002 - actor
 Kim Spencer, 1970 – television producer
 David Henry Sterry, 1978 – author, actor/comic
 Igor Vamos, 1990 – contemporary artist, member of The Yes Men
 David Velasco, 2000, editor-in-chief of Artforum
 Anne Washburn, 1991 – playwright (Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play)

Business 
 Emilio Pucci, 1937 – fashion designer; member of the Italian Parliament
 Bill Naito, 1949 – Portland businessman, developer, and civic leader
 Robert Friedland, 1974 – businessman and CEO of Ivanhoe Mines
 Suzan DelBene, 1983 – CEO of Nimble Technology and Vice President at Microsoft

Food and Drink 
 James Beard, expelled 1922/23; honorary degree 1976 – chef and cookbook author
 Mark Bitterman, 1995 – food writer and author
 Steven Raichlen, 1975 – television chef, author
 Kate Christensen, 1986 – food writer and author
 Susan Sokol Blosser, 1967 – founder of Sokol Blosser Winery
Sean Thackrey (did not graduate) – winemaker

Government

 Josiah H. Beeman V, 1958 – United States Ambassador to New Zealand
 Bud Clark (did not graduate) – Mayor of Portland
 Richard Danzig, 1965 – 71st Secretary of the Navy
 Suzan DelBene, 1983 – United States Representative from Washington state (D)
 Chris Garrett, 1996 – member of the Oregon Legislature
 Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, United States Representative from Washington state
 Richard L. Hanna, 1973 – United States Representative from New York (R)
 Cordelia Hood, 1936 – Office of Strategic Services and CIA agent
 Mingus Mapps, Portland, Oregon city council member
 Sheldon T. Mills, 1927 – Former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan
 J. Elizabeth Mitchell, 1991 – member of the Maine Legislature
 Norman Solomon (did not graduate) – candidate for the United States House of Representatives
 Howard Wolpe, 1960 – Congressman (D-Michigan)

Law
Hans A. Linde, 1947 – Justice, Oregon Supreme Court
Berkeley Lent, 1948 – Chief Justice, Oregon Supreme Court
George M. Joseph, 1951 – Chief Judge, Oregon Court of Appeals
Michael E. Levine, 1962 – Senior Lecturer at the New York University School of Law; Dean Emeritus of the Yale School of Management
Alex Martinez, 1973 – Chief Justice, Colorado Supreme Court
Jessica Litman, 1974 – Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, legal advisor
Katya Komisaruk, 1978 – civil rights lawyer
Alafair Burke, 1991 – Assistant District Attorney, Multnomah County, Oregon; Professor of Law, Hofstra University; crime and mystery writer
Chris Garrett, 1996 – Justice, Oregon Supreme Court
Gus J. Solomon (did not graduate) – US District Judge, District of Oregon
 Jacob Tanzer (did not graduate) – Justice, Oregon Supreme Court
Fay Stender (did not graduate) – lawyer and prisoners' rights advocate

Literature
 Tamim Ansary, 1970 – author of West of Kabul, East of New York
 Doon Arbus, 1967 – writer and journalist, daughter of Diane Arbus
 Alison Baker, 1975 – writer
 Mary Barnard, 1932 – modernist poet and translator of Greek poet Sappho
 Margaret Bechard, 1976 – science fiction writer
 Don Berry, 1931 – writer
 Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, 1969 – poet
 Lee Blessing, 1971 – playwright
 Hob Broun, 1972, author who became paralyzed and wrote two books by puffing air through a tube.
 Alafair Burke, 1991 – author
 Robert Chesley, 1965 – playwright, novelist, and composer
 Kate Christensen, 1986 – novelist, winner of 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
 Gordon Dahlquist, 1984 – playwright, novelist
 William Dickey, 1951 – poet
 Katherine Dunn, 1969 – journalist and author of Geek Love
 Elana Dykewomon, ca. 1971 – author
 Elyssa East, 1994 – novelist
 David Eddings, 1954 – writer
Nancy Farmer, 1963 – novelist, winner of National Book Award for Young People's Literature
 Elyse Fenton, 2003 – poet
 Janet Fitch, 1978 – novelist, White Oleander, Paint It Black, and The Revolution of Marina M
 Debra M. Ginsberg, 1984 – author
 Shadab Zeest Hashmi, 1995 – poet
 Ernest Haycox (did not graduate) – author
 Roger Hobbs, 2011 – author of Ghostman and Vanishing Games
 Laleh Khadivi, 1998 – author and writer
 Caroline B. Miller, 1959 – author
 Lisa Dale Norton, 1976 – author
 Steven Raichlen, 1975 – author and writer
 Howard Rheingold, 1968 – writer
 M. C. Richards, 1938 – poet
David Romtvedt, 1972 – poet
 Mary Rosenblum, 1975 – author
 Vern Rutsala, 1956 – poet and writer
 Tina Satter, 2004 – playwright
 Leslie Scalapino, 1966 – poet, publisher, and playwright
 Genny Smith, 1943 – naturalist, activist, publisher
 Gary Snyder, 1951 – Pulitzer Prize winner and poet
 Vanessa Veselka, 2010 – novelist
 Sally Watson, 1950 – writer
 Philip Whalen, 1951 – poet
 Lew Welch, 1950 – poet

Journalism and Media 
Ed Cony, 1948 – Editor of The Wall Street Journal, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961
Robert Richter, 1951 – documentary filmmaker and Academy Award winner
Barbara Ehrenreich, 1963 – journalist, political activist, author of Nickel and Dimed
Jim Compton, 1964 – journalist at PBS
Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, 2014 — journalist, host of NPR's Planet Money
Howard Rheingold, 1968 – writer, critic, and virtual media theorist
Sheila Rogers, 1980 – columnist and TV producer for The Late Show With David Letterman
Gary Wolf, 1983 – author and writer for Wired.
Anya Schiffrin, 1984 – business journalist and author of Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World
 Adam L. Penenberg, 1986 – writer, professor of journalism at New York University
 Peter S. Goodman, 1989 – reporter for the New York Times and author of Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy
 Robert Smith, 1989 — journalist, host of NPR's Planet Money.
 Arun Rath, 1994 – correspondent for NPR and WGBH, former weekend host of NPR's All Things Considered
 Michelle Nijhuis, 1996 – journalist
 Peter Zuckerman, 2003 – journalist and author
 Adrian Chen, 2009 – journalist and former staff writer at The New Yorker.

Inventors and Innovators 

 C. Howard Vollum, 1936 – founder of Tektronix; inventor of the edge-triggered oscilloscope
Ken Koe, 1945 – co-inventor of Zoloft.
 Bernard Smith, 1948 – sailboat designer
 John Sperling, 1948 – founder of the University of Phoenix
 James Russell, 1953 – inventor of the compact disc
 Peter Norton, 1965 – creator of Norton Utilities
 Richard Crandall, 1969 – computer scientist who developed the irrational base discrete weighted transform used in finding large prime numbers
 Steve Jobs, 1976 (attended as a freshman, did not graduate) – Apple co-founder and former CEO; Pixar co-founder and former CEO
 Pamela Ronald, 1982 – geneticist and developer of flood-tolerant rice
 Larry Sanger, 1991 – co-founder of Wikipedia
Luke Kanies, 1996 – created Puppet software system

Other
Greta Christina, 1983 – blogger
 Mike Davis (did not graduate) – activist and scholar
Randall Giles (did not graduate) – composer
Max Gordon, 1924 – owner of the Village Vanguard
 Mukunda Goswami, 1961 – Hare Krishna guru
 Christopher Langan – "America's smartest man;" won a scholarship to Reed after earning a perfect SAT score, but dropped out
 Murray Leaf, 1961 – anthropologist
 Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 2016 – human rights activist
Joann Osterud, 1968 – aviator and stunt pilot
Harry Wayland Randall, 1936 – member of international brigades in Spanish Civil War
 Aaron Rhodes, 1971 – human rights advocate
 Helen Sandoz – lesbian activist
 Douglas Spink – zoophilia advocate and drug smuggler
 Peter Stafford (did not graduate) – author and writer
Sumner Stone, 1967 – typeface designer
 Michael Teitelbaum, 1966 – program director and demographer at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Donald Niven Wheeler, 1936 – political activist

Fictional alumni
 Erlich Bachmann, from HBO's Silicon Valley
 John William Barry from David Guterson's 2008 novel The Other
 Bill McKay, portrayed by Robert Redford in the 1972 film The Candidate
 Donald "Don" Miller in his semi-autobiographical 2003 book Blue Like Jazz and (portrayed by Marshall Allman) in the 2012 Blue Like Jazz film
 Harald Petersen, Reed '27 from Mary McCarthy's 1963 novel The Group
 Japhy Ryder from Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums (based on Reed alum Gary Snyder)
 Hunter Scangarelo (did not graduate), friend of Meadow Soprano in the 1999–2007 television series The Sopranos
 Sierra from Charmed Thirds, Megan McCafferty's 2006 novel in the Jessica Darling series
 Lambert "Sharkey" Somers, from Judy Blume's 1998 novel Summer Sisters

Faculty
 Kimberly Clausing — economist, deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the United States Department of the Treasury
 William J. Connell – historian
 Paul Douglas – US Senator from Illinois
 David J. Griffiths – physicist
 Daniel Reisberg – psychology
 Darius Rejali — Iranian-American political scientist, specialist on the political uses of torture

Administration
 Paul Bragdon – college president from 1971 to 1988

References

 
Reed College alumni
Reed College people
Reed College people