This is a list of notable individuals associated with Case Western Reserve University, including students, alumni, and faculty.

Arts, journalism and entertainment

Barbara Allyne Bennet – actress and member of Screen Actors Guild (SAG) national board of directors (2005–2007) James Card – longtime film curator at George Eastman House Mary Carruthers – among the world's foremost scholars on medieval religious literature Janis Carter – film actress of 1940s and '50s Gordon Cobbledick – recipient of J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest award given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America Brenda Miller Cooper – operatic soprano Franklin Cover – actor, Tom Willis in The Jeffersons Jasmine Cresswell – best-selling author of over 50 romance novels William Eleroy Curtis – journalist, diplomat, and advocate of Pan-Americanism Anu Garg – author and speaker Susie Gharib – co-anchor of Nightly Business Report Gregg Gillis – musician; performs as Girl Talk Dorothy Hart – film actress of 1940s and '50s Jan Hopkins – journalist (CNN financial news show Street Sweep) John Howard – actor, known for The Philadelphia Story and Bulldog Drummond films Hal Lebovitz – recipient of J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest award given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America Marc Parnell – second-most published ornithologist in the world, author of 41 bird-identification guides M. Scott Peck – author of The Road Less Traveled and other self-help books Harvey Pekar – comic book writer, creator of American Splendor Jack Perkins – dubbed "America's most literate correspondent" by Associated Press; reporter, commentator, war correspondent, anchorman; seen on NBC's Nightly News and The Today Show, and on A&E as host of Biography Alan Rosenberg – actor; played Ira Woodbine on TV series Cybill; Emmy-nominated for guest appearance on ER; elected president of Screen Actors Guild in 2005 Joe Russo and Anthony Russo – brothers, co-alumni, and directors of films Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Welcome to Collinwood, and TV series Arrested Development; producers of NBC's Community Alix Kates Shulman – author of Memoir of an Ex-Prom Queen and To Love What Is Rich Sommer – MFA theater alumnus; appeared in The Devil Wears Prada, Mad Men, and with Upright Citizens Brigade Emma Rood Tuttle – writer Thrity Umrigar – journalist; author of Bombay Time Andrew Vachss – lawyer and child protection consultant; author of the Burke series Roger Zelazny – science fiction and fantasy author; three-time Nebula Award winner and six-time Hugo Award winner; works include Lord of Light, Eye of Cat, and The Dream Master

Business and philanthropy

William F. Baker – president and CEO of public television's flagship station Thirteen/WNET in New York Ou Chin-der – former deputy mayor of Taipei, Taiwan; current chairman and CEO of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation William Daroff – chief executive officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad Bob Herbold – executive vice president at Microsoft Pete Koomen – co-founder and CTO of Optimizely Tshilidzi Marwala – academic, businessman and community leader Barry Meyer – chairman and former CEO of Warner Bros Allen J. Mistysyn – CFO of Sherwin-Williams John Neff – value investor who led Vanguard's Windsor Fund, the largest and highest returning mutual fund of the 1980s Craig Newmark – founder of Craigslist, tech billionaire, philanthropist Philip Orbanes – former VP with Parker Brothers; founding partner and President of Winning Moves Arthur L. Parker – founder of Parker Hannifin Richard Thaler (BA '67) – Nobel laureate, father of behavioral finance, and behavioral economics pioneer Peter Tippett – inventor of Norton (Symantec) Anti-Virus and CTO of CyberTrust Tom Tribone – founder and CEO of Guggenheim Global Infrastructure Company Donald E. Washkewicz – former CEO of Parker Hannifin Mark Weinberger (JD/MBA '87) – CEO and chairman of Ernst & Young Edward Porter Williams – co-founder of Sherwin-Williams Nadya Zhexembayeva – founder of Reinvention Academy

Education Edna Allyn – first librarian of the Hawaii State Library Clara Breed – librarian, known for her "Dear Miss Breed" correspondence with children in Japanese American internment camps during World War II Emile B. De Sauzé – language educator known for developing the conversational method of learning a language Betty Fairfax – educator, counselor, and philanthropist Susan Helper – Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics at the Weatherhead School of Management Josephine Irwin – suffragist and educator Lena Beatrice Morton – literary scholar, head of the humanities division at Texas College; earned her PhD from Case Western in 1947 Regenia A. Perry – one of the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. in art history, alumni with MA (1962) and PhD (1966) Vivian Blanche Small – president, Lake Erie College

Government and military

John V. Azzariti (CWRU 1988) – physician; state legislator; member, New Jersey General Assembly (2024–present) John E. Barnes Jr. – member of Ohio House of Representatives Janet Bewley – member of the Wisconsin Legislature Justin Bibb – 58th and current mayor of Cleveland Zdravka Bušić – member of the European Parliament John Cairncross – Soviet spy and member of the Cambridge Five Gilbert S. Carpenter (1836–1904) – US Army brigadier general Thomas J. Carran (1841–1894) – Ohio state senator François-Philippe Champagne – Canadian member of Parliament for Saint-Maurice—Champlain Schive Chi – governor of Fujian Province and Minister without Portfolio, Republic of China (Taiwan) Victor Ciorbea – prime minister of Romania (1996–1998) Bruce Cole – 8th chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities John Charles Cutler – acting chief of the venereal disease program in the United States Public Health Service and head of the Guatemala and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments William Daroff – chief executive officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad Benjamin O. Davis Jr. – first African-American to receive star in US Air Force; awarded Distinguished Flying Cross in 1943; assistant secretary of transportation under Richard Nixon Lincoln Díaz-Balart – U.S. representative Alene B. Duerk – first female rear admiral in the United States Navy James A. Garfield – served on the University Board of Trustees T. Keith Glennan – Case Institute of Technology president, first NASA administrator Subir Gokarn (Ph.D.) – deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India Paul Hackett – Iraq War veteran and former Congressional candidate Rutherford B. Hayes – 19th president of the United States, served on the University Board of Trustees John Hutchins – former U.S. representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones – former U.S. representative Ron Klein – U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich – former U.S. representative Clarence Lam – Maryland state senator James Thomas Lynn – United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Richard Nixon; Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Gerald Ford Josh Mandel (J.D.) – Ohio State Treasurer Nicole Nason (J.D.) – administrator of the Federal Highway Administration Ogiame Atuwatse III – 21st Olu of Warri Kingdom Salvatore Pais – inventor and aerospace engineer, U.S. Navy and Air Force Alfredo Palacio – president of Ecuador, completed medical residency at Case Raymond Stanton Patton (Ph.B.) – rear admiral and first flag officer of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps Trista Piccola – former director of the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families Paul A. Russo – ambassador of the United States to Barbados, Dominica, St Lucia, Antigua, St. Vincent, and St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla David Satcher – 16th Surgeon General of the United States Milton Shapp – governor of Pennsylvania and 1976 Democratic presidential candidate Louis Stokes – former U.S. representative Don Thomas – former NASA astronaut Elioda Tumwesigye – member of Parliament Sheema North and Cabinet Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Republic of Uganda Michael R. Turner – U.S. representative William H. Upson – former U.S. representative Andrew R. Wheeler – deputy administrator (and acting administrator) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Milton A. Wolf – former U.S. ambassador to Austria

History Robert C. Binkley – chair of history at Flora Stone Mather College, 1930–1940 Melvin Kranzberg – professor of history (1952–1971) James Alexander Robertson – academic historian, archivist, and bibliographer (Ph.D., 1896) Ted Steinberg – professor of history (1996–present)

Law

See Notable Graduates section

William Bentley Ball – prominent constitutional lawyer known for his defense of religious liberty John Hessin Clarke – undergraduate class of 1877, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Robin Ficker – attorney and NBA heckler Fred Gray – attorney to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, later president of the National Bar Association and first African-American president of the Alabama State Bar Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Haitian-American activist and attorney for women's and immigrant rights Edmund A. Sargus Jr. – U.S. District Court judge James Sokolove – undergraduate class of 1966, pioneer in legal television advertising; philanthropist

Science, technology, and medicine

Peter B. Armentrout – distinguished chemistry professor, University of Utah Roger Bacon – inventor of carbon fiber Hans Baumann – inventor and engineer Paul Berg – winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for biochemical characterization of recombinant DNA John Blangero – human geneticist; highly cited scientist in the field of complex disease genetics Murielle Bochud – Swiss physician, co-chief of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Systems at the Unisanté in Lausanne Francois Boller – Swiss neurologist Paul Buchheit – 23rd employee of Google and creator of Gmail Clemens Burda - inventor of nanotechnology and Case Western professor Neil W. Chamberlain – economist and industrial relations scholar (A.B., 1937; M.A., 1939) Philippe G. Ciarlet – mathematician known for work on finite element method; received his Ph.D. from the Case Institute of Technology 1966 and was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1999 Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez – biomedical engineer who works on scaffolds for tissue regeneration M. Jamal Deen, CM – Order of Canada and Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology at McMaster University Conor P. Delaney – colorectal surgeon known for laparoscopy and developing enhanced recovery pathways Herbert Henry Dow – founder of Dow Chemical Slayton A. Evans Jr. – research chemist and professor Xyla Foxlin – engineer, entrepreneur and YouTuber Richard L. Garwin – physicist, designer of first hydrogen bomb, presidential advisor and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom H. Jack Geiger – founding member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights Julie Gerberding – first woman director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Alfred G. Gilman – co-winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for co-discovery of G proteins Donald A. Glaser – winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics, for invention of the bubble chamber Millicent Goldschmidt – microbiologist, worked on NASA Lunar Receiving Laboratory and University of Texas Siegfried S. Hecker – director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1986–1997) Joseph A. Helpern – emeritus professor at Medical University of South Carolina