This list of Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni includes students who studied as undergraduates or graduate students at MIT's School of Engineering; School of Science; MIT Sloan School of Management; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; School of Architecture and Planning; or Whitaker College of Health Sciences. Since there are more than 120,000 alumni (living and deceased), this listing cannot be comprehensive. Instead, this article summarizes some of the more notable MIT alumni, with some indication of the reasons they are notable in the world at large. All MIT degrees are earned through academic achievement, in that MIT has never awarded honorary degrees in any form.[1]
The MIT Alumni Association defines eligibility for membership as follows:[2]
The following persons are Alumni/ae Members of the Association: All persons who have received a degree from the Institute; and All persons who have been registered as students in a degree-granting program at the Institute for (i) at least one full term in any undergraduate class which has already graduated; or (ii) for at least two full terms as graduate students.
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| Name | Degree | Degree Year | Notability | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Les Aspin | Ph.D. – Economics | 1966 | US Congressman from Wisconsin, Clinton's first Secretary of Defense | |
| Ben Bernanke | Ph.D. – Economics | 1979 | Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank | [3] |
| Samuel Bodman | Sc. D. – Chemical Engineering | 1965 | Secretary of Energy (2005–2009) | |
| Arthur Young | Ph.D – Computer Sciences, Ph.D – Software Engineering | 1997, 1998 | Senior Software Engineer of Google | |
| Jun Choi | S.B. – Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering | 1994 | Mayor of Edison, New Jersey | |
| Henry Cohen (civil servant) | S.M. – Urban Planning | 1949 | Director of Föhrenwald Displaced Persons camp in the American sector of post-World War II Germany | |
| Leighton I. Davis | S.M. – Aeronautical Engineering | 1941 | U.S. Air Force general | |
| Jimmy Doolittle | S.M., Sc. D. – Aeronautical Engineering | 1924, 1925 | U.S. Air Force general | |
| Herbert W. Ehrgott | S.B. – Mechanical Engineering | 1930 | U.S. Air Force general | |
| Luis A. Ferré | S.B., S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1924, 1925 | Governor of Puerto Rico | |
| Julius A. Furer | S.M. | 1905 | U.S. Navy admiral | |
| J. Michael Gilmore | S.B. – Physics | Director of the Operational Test and Evaluation Directorate | ||
| Sandra A. Gregory | 2006 | U.S. Air Force general | ||
| Frank Kowalski | S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1937 | United States Representative from Connecticut | |
| Herbert B. Loper | B.S. – Civil Engineering | 1922 | U.S. Army general | |
| N. Gregory Mankiw | Ph.D. – Economics | 1984 | Chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors | |
| Mark McClellan | Ph.D. – Economics | 1993 | head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration | |
| Katharine Dexter McCormick | S.B. – Biology | 1904 | suffragette, funded research for The Pill | |
| David Nolan | S.B. – Political Science | 1965 | Founder of United States Libertarian Party | |
| John Olver | Ph.D. – Chemistry | 1961 | US House of Representatives for Massachusetts | |
| John Birdsell Oren | M.D. – Marine Engineering | U.S. Coast Guard admiral | ||
| Joseph J. Romm | S.B. – Physics, Ph.D. – Physics | 1982, 1987 | Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Department of Energy | |
| Francis Sargent | Dropped out – studied architecture | 1939 | Governor of Massachusetts | |
| George Schultz | Ph.D. – Economics | 1949 | Secretary of State | |
| Phillips Waller Smith | S.M. – Ordnance Engineering | 1935 | U.S. Air Force general | |
| Pete Stark | S.B. – General Engineering | 1956 | US House of Representatives for California | |
| Zdenek "John" J. Stekly | Sc.D – Mechanical and Electrical Engineering | 1955, 1959 | US Department of Defense from Massachusetts | |
| John E. Sununu | S.B., S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1987, 1987 | United States Senator from New Hampshire | |
| John H. Sununu | S.B., S.M., Ph.D. – Mechanical Engineering | 1961, 1963, 1966 | White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush, Governor of New Hampshire, host of Crossfire |
| Name | Degree | Degree Year | Notability | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tamila Ahmadov | S.M Management | Senior advisor to Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan 1999–2002 | |||
| Tadatoshi Akiba | Ph.D. – Mathematics | 1970 | Mayor of Hiroshima; Recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award | ||
| Kofi Annan | S.M. – Management | 1972 | Former Secretary-General of the United Nations | ||
| Pedro Aspe Armella | Ph.D. – Economics | 1978 | Mexican Secretary of Finance | ||
| Youssef Boutros Ghali | Ph.D. – Economics | 1981 | Former Egyptian Minister of Finance | ||
| Virgilio Barco | S.B. – Civil Engineering | 1943 | Colombian president | ||
| Ahmed Chalabi | S.B. – Mathematics | 1965 | controversial Iraqi politician, now currently deputy prime minister of Iraq | ||
| Harold Demuren | Ph. D. – Aeronautical Engineering | 1975 | Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority; 1st African elected as President of ICAO General Assembly | ||
| Mario Draghi | Ph. D. – Economics | 1977 | President of the European Central Bank | ||
| José Figueres Ferrer | 1926 | President of Costa Rica | |||
| Pervez Hoodbhoy | M.S. – Solid-State Physics, Ph.D. – Nuclear Physics | 1973, 1978 | A faculty member at the Quaid-e-Azam University since 1973 and a renowned Nuclear research scientist of Pakistan. | ||
| C.D. Howe | 1907 | Canadian politician and cabinet minister | |||
| Mao Chi-kuo | Ph.D. | 1982 | Minister of Transport & Communications of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (2008–) | [4] | |
| Rigoberto Omar Romero Martínez | S.M. – Civil Engineering | Honduran Sub-secretary of Planning (1984) and Sub-secretary of Transportation and Public Works (1985) | |||
| David Miliband | S.M. Political Science | 1990 | British politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | ||
| Mohammad Ali Najafi | S.M. – Mathematics | 1979 | former Vice President of Iran | [5] | |
| Benjamin Netanyahu | S.B. – Architecture, S.M. – Management | 1975, 1976 | Prime Minister of Israel | ||
| Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | M.C.P. – City Planning, Ph.D. – Urban Studies & Planning | 1978, 1981 | Finance Minister of Nigeria (2003–2006), Foreign Minister of Nigeria, (2006) | ||
| Rachid Mohamed Rachid | Ph.D. – Management | 1993 | Former Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry | ||
| Khaled Touqan | Ph.D. – Nuclear Engineering | 1982 | Minister of Education of Jordan (2000–2007), Head of Jordanian Nuclear Energy Commission (2007–) | ||
| Milen Velchev | S.M. – Management | 1995 | Bulgarian financial minister (2001–2005) | ||
| Robert Winters | Canadian politician | ||||
| Tony Tan Keng Yam | S.M. – Operations Research | 1964 | President of the Republic of Singapore, who held various cabinet positions over the years. | ||
| Lucas Papademos | S.B. - Physics, S.M. - Electrical Engineering, Ph.D. - Economics | 1970, 1972, 1978 | Vice President of the European Central Bank (2002-2010) and Prime Minister of Greece |
As of April 2011, the MIT Office of the Provost says that 76 Nobel awardees had or currently have a formal connection to MIT.[19] Of this group, 29 have earned MIT degrees (MIT has never awarded honorary degrees in any form).[1]
| Name | Degree | Degree Year | Award Year | Award | Citation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Akerlof | Ph.D. | 1966 | 2001 | Economics | "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information" | [20] |
| Sid Altman | S.B. | 1960 | 1989 | Chemistry | "for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA" | [21] |
| Kofi Annan | S.M. | 1972 | 2001 | Peace | "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world" | [22] |
| Robert Aumann | S.M. | 1952 | 2005 | Economics | "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis" | [23] |
| Elias James Corey | S.B., Ph.D. | 1948, 1951 | 1990 | Chemistry | "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis" | [24] |
| Eric Cornell | Ph.D. | 1990 | 2001 | Physics | "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates" | [25] |
| Peter Diamond | Ph.D. | 1963 | 2010 | Economics | "for [the] analysis of markets with search frictions" | [26] |
| Richard Feynman | S.B. | 1939 | 1965 | Physics | "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" | [27] |
| Andrew Z. Fire | Ph.D. | 1983 | 2006 | Medicine/Physiology | "for their discovery of RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA" | [28] |
| Murray Gell-Mann | Ph.D. | 1951 | 1969 | Physics | "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions" | [29] |
| Leland H. Hartwell | Ph.D. | 1964 | 2001 | Medicine/Physiology | "for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle" | [30] |
| H. Robert Horvitz | S.B. | 1968 | 2002 | Medicine/Physiology | "for their discoveries concerning 'genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death'" | [31] |
| Henry W. Kendall | S.B., Ph.D. | 1948, 1951 | 1990 | Physics | "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics" | [32] |
| Lawrence Klein | Ph.D. | 1944 | 1980 | Economics | "for the creation of econometric models and the application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies" | [33] |
| Paul Krugman | Ph.D. | 1977 | 2009 | Economics | "for developing new trade theory and" | [26] |
| Robert B. Laughlin | Ph.D. | 1979 | 1998 | Physics | "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" | [34] |
| Robert C. Merton | Ph.D. | 1970 | 1997 | Economics | "for a new method to determine the value of derivatives" | [35] |
| Robert S. Mulliken | S.B. | 1917 | 1966 | Chemistry | "for his fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules by the molecular orbital method" | [36] |
| Robert Mundell | Ph.D. | 1956 | 1999 | Economics | "for his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas" | [37] |
| Charles Pedersen | S.M. | 1927 | 1987 | Chemistry | "for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity" | [38] |
| William D. Phillips | Ph.D. | 1976 | 1997 | Physics | "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light" | [39] |
| Burton Richter | S.B., Ph.D. | 1952, 1956 | 1976 | Physics | "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind" | [40] |
| John Robert Schrieffer | S.B. | 1953 | 1972 | Physics | "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory" | [41] |
| William Shockley | Ph.D. | 1936 | 1956 | Physics | "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect" | [42] |
| George F. Smoot | S.B., Ph.D. | 1966, 1970 | 2006 | Physics | "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation" | [43] |
| Joseph Stiglitz | Ph.D. | 1966 | 2001 | Economics | "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information" | [20] |
| Carl E. Wieman | S.B. | 1973 | 2001 | Physics | "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates" | [25] |
| Robert Burns Woodward | S.B. | 1936 | 1965 | Chemistry | "for his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis" | [44] |
| Name | Degree | Year | Mission | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Alan Abrahamson | S.B. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1955 | Manned Orbital Laboratory (selected but program canceled) | |
| Buzz Aldrin | Sc. D- Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1963 | Gemini 12, Apollo 11 | |
| Dominic Antonelli | S.B. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1989 | STS-119 | |
| Jerome Apt | Ph. D – Physics | 1976 | STS-37, STS-47, STS-59, STS-79 | |
| Kenneth Cameron | S.B., S.M. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1978, 1979 | STS-37, STS-56, STS-74 | |
| Gregory Chamitoff | Ph.D. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1992 | STS-124, Expedition 17, Expedition 18, STS-126 | |
| Franklin Chang-Diaz | Sc. D. – Nuclear Engineering | 1977 | STS-61-C, STS-34, STS-46, STS-60, STS-75, STS-91, STS-111 | |
| Philip K. Chapman | S.M., Ph.D. | 1964, 1967 | 1967 | |
| Catherine "Cady" Coleman | S.B. – Chemistry | 1983 | STS-73, STS-93 | |
| Timothy Creamer | S.M. | 1992 | ||
| Charles Duke | S.M. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1964 | Apollo 16 | |
| Anthony England | S.B., S.M., Ph.D. – Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences | 1965, 1965, 1970 | STS-51-F | |
| Mike Fincke | S.B. – Aeronautics/Astronautics; S.B. Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences | 1989 | Soyuz TMA-4, Expedition 9, Soyuz TMA-13, Expedition 18, STS-134 | |
| John Grunsfeld | S.B. – Physics | 1980 | STS-67, STS-81, STS-103, STS-109, STS-125 | |
| Terry Hart | S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1969 | STS-41-C | |
| Frederick Hauck | S.M. – Nuclear Engineering | 1966 | STS-7, STS-51-A, STS-26 | |
| Wendy Lawrence | S.M. – Ocean Engineering | 1988 | STS-67, STS-86, STS-91, STS-114 | |
| Mark C. Lee | S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1980 | STS-30, STS-47, STS-64, STS-81 | |
| William B. Lenoir | S.B., S.M., Ph.D. – Electrical Engineering | 1961, 1962, 1965 | STS-5 | |
| Michael Massimino | S.M., S.M., Mechanical Engineer, Ph.D. – Mechanical Engineering | 1988, 1988, 1990, 1992 | STS-109, STS-125 | |
| Ronald McNair | Ph.D. – Physics | 1976 | STS-41-B, STS-51-L | |
| Pamela Ann Melroy | S.M. – Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences | 1984 | STS-92, STS-112, STS-120 | |
| Edgar Mitchell | Sc. D. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1964 | Apollo 14 | |
| Nicholas Patrick | S.M., Ph.D. – Mechanical Engineering | 1990, 1996 | STS-116 | |
| Albert Sacco | Ph.D – Chemical Engineering | 1977 | STS-73 | |
| Russell Schweickart | S.B., S.M. – Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1956, 1963 | Apollo 9 | |
| David Scott | S.M., Engineer in Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1962, 1962 | Gemini 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 15 | |
| William Shepherd | S.M., Ocean Engineer | 1978, 1978 | STS-27, STS-41, STS-52, Soyuz TM-31, Expedition 1, STS-102 | |
| Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper | S.B., S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1984, 1985 | STS-115, STS-126 | |
| Daniel Tani | S.B., S.M. – Mechanical Engineering | 1984, 1985 | STS-108, STS-120, Expedition 16, STS-122 | |
| Robert Thirsk | S.M., M.S. – Mechanical Engineering, Management | 1978, 1998 | STS-78, Soyuz TMA-14, Expedition 19, STS-127 | |
| Janice Voss | S.M., Ph.D. – Electrical Engineering, Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1977, 1978 | STS-57, STS-63, STS-83, STS-94, STS-99 | |
| Stephen Robinson | Post Doc at Man-Vehicle Lab, Aeronautics/Astronautics | 1993 | STS-85, STS-95, STS-114 | |
| Neil Woodward | S.B. | 1984 |