List of Stuyvesant High School people

This article lists notable people associated with Stuyvesant High School in New York City, organized into rough professional areas and listed in order by their graduating class.

Significant awards

Alumni who have won significant awards in their fields of endeavor include:

• James Cagney (1918) – 1942 Academy Award for Best Actor for Yankee Doodle Dandy
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1924) – 1949, 1950 Academy Award for Best Director for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve
• Joshua Lederberg (1941) – 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Peter Lax (1943) – 1987 Wolf Prize in Mathematics, 2005 Abel Prize
• Robert Fogel (1944) – 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
• Elias Stein (1949) – 1999 Wolf Prize in Mathematics
• Paul Cohen (1950) – 1966 Fields Medal
• Roald Hoffmann (1954) – 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Richard Axel (1963) – 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Tim Robbins (1976) – 2003 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Mystic River
• Eric S. Lander (1974) – 2013 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Mathematics

• Peter Lax (1943) – fluid dynamics, differential equations; elected 1970 to the United States National Academy of Sciences, 1987 Wolf Prize, 1992 Steele Prize, 2005 Abel Prize (New York University, emeritus)
• Bertram Kostant (1945) – lie groups and representation theory; elected in 1978 to the United States National Academy of Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• D. J. Newman (1947) – analytic number theory, long-time editor of problems section in the American Mathematical Monthly (Temple University, emeritus)
• Harold Widom (1949) – integral equations, symplectic geometry (University of California, Santa Cruz), 2007 Wiener Prize
• Elias Stein (1949) – harmonic analysis; 1974 elected to United States National Academy of Sciences, 1993 Schock Prize, 1999 Wolf Prize, 2002 Steele Prize (Princeton University)
• Paul Cohen (1950) – logic, Banach algebras, 1964 Bôcher Prize, 1966 Fields Medal, elected 1967 to the United States National Academy of Sciences (Stanford University)
• Neil R. Grabois (1953) – commutative algebra (president, Colgate University)
• Jeff Rubens (1957) – probability and statistics, co-editor of The Bridge World (Pace University)
• Melvin Hochster (1960) – commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, invariant theory; 1980 Cole Prize, elected in 1992 to the United States National Academy of Sciences (University of Michigan)
• James Lepowsky (1961) – lie theory (Rutgers University)
• Peter Shalen (1962) – low-dimensional topology, Kleinian groups, hyperbolic geometry (University of Illinois at Chicago)
• Robert Zimmer (1964) – ergodic theory, dynamical cocycles (president of University of Chicago)
• Richard Arratia (1968) – probability, combinatorics (USC)
• David Harbater (1970) – algebraic geometry; NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, in 1994 Invited Lecturer to the International Congress of Mathematicians, 1995 Cole Prize (University of Pennsylvania)
• Paul Zeitz (1975) – ergodic theory (University of California, San Francisco)
• Jon Lee (1977) – mathematical optimization (G. Lawton and Louise G. Johnson Professor of Engineering, University of Michigan)
• Noam Elkies (1982) – elliptic curves; youngest person ever to win tenure at Harvard; his musical compositions have been performed by major symphony orchestras (Harvard University)
• Dana Randall (1984) – discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science (Georgia Tech)
• Elizabeth Wilmer (1987) – Markov chains (Oberlin College)
• Michael Hutchings (1989) – topology, geometry (University of California, Berkeley)
• Aleksandr Khazanov (1995) – Math Olympiad; Regeneron Science Talent Search Finalist; Curry Fellowship; skipped college and became a PhD student at Pennsylvania State University
• Michael Develin (1996) – combinatorics, geometry; American Institute of Mathematics Fellow (University of California, Berkeley)

Physics

• Marshall Rosenbluth (1942) – theory of liquids, fusion; Fermi Award, United States National Academy of Sciences (University of California, San Diego, emeritus)
• Rolf Landauer (1943) – physics of computation; elected in 1988 to the United States National Academy of Sciences, IBM Fellow (Thomas J. Watson Research Center) (d. 1998)
• Paul Chaikin (1962) – condensed matter physics, elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003) and National Academy of Sciences (2004), Oliver Buckley Prize (2018), (New York University)
• Brian Greene (1980) – string theory, mirror symmetry, author of The Elegant Universe; Rhodes Scholar (Columbia University)
• Lisa Randall (1980) – high energy physics, Randall–Sundrum model, 2004 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Harvard University)

Chemistry

• Sheldon Datz (c. 1943) – 2000 Fermi Award
• Benjamin Widom (1945) – phase transitions, stat. mechanics, elected in 1974 to the United States National Academy of Sciences (Cornell University)
• Andrew Streitwieser, Jr. (1945) – organic chemistry, textbook author; elected in 1969 to the United States National Academy of Sciences, Sloan Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow (University of California, Berkeley)
• Edward Kosower (1945) – biophysics, 1996 Rothschild Prize in Chemistry (Tel Aviv University)
• Roald Hoffmann (1955) – geometric structure and reactivity of molecules, elected in 1972 to the United States National Academy of Sciences, 1973 Cope Award, 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Cornell University)

Life sciences and medicine

• Paul S. Appelbaum (1968) – psychiatrist and a leading expert on legal and ethical issues in medicine and psychiatry
• Hyman Biegeleisen (c. 1922) – physician and vein expert, pioneer of phlebology
• Philip H. Sechzer (1930) – anesthesiologist, pioneer in pain management; inventor of patient-controlled analgesia
• Joshua Lederberg (1940) – genetics; 1957 United States National Academy of Sciences, 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1989 National Medal of Science, former president of Rockefeller University, 2006 Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Alvin Poussaint (1952) – clinical psychiatry (Judge Baker Children's Center, Harvard University)
• Robert Ira Lewy (1960) – hematology, Baylor College of Medicine; developed early application of aspirin in heart disease; donated to the creation of the Stuyvesant High School library in 2006, the Dr Robert Ira Lewy Multimedia Center
• Richard Axel (1963) – biochemistry, 2004 Nobel Prize
• Robert Lustig (1973) – pediatric endocrinologist, professor at the University of California, San Francisco
• Eric Lander (1974) – computational biology; Westinghouse scholarship, Rhodes Scholar, MacArthur Fellow, co-director of Human Genome Project, 1997 United States National Academy of Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Lee Dugatkin (1980) – evolutionary biologist, animal behaviorist and historian of science; author of How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog
• Oni Blackstock (1995) – primary care and HIV physician and researcher
• Uché Blackstock (1995) – emergency physician and equity advocate

Social sciences

• Lewis Mumford (1912) – historian of technology and science
• Igor Ansoff (1937) – business theorist, coined term "strategic management"
• Tobias Schneebaum (1939) – anthropologist, artist, and activist
• Robert Fogel (1944) – economist, winner of 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics
• Samuel P. Huntington (c. 1945) – political theorist, author
• Bruce Bueno De Mesquita (c. 1963) – political scientist and professor at New York University
• Thomas Sowell (1947) – economist
• Edward Von der Porten (1951) – early nautical archaeologist, expert in early Chinese export porcelains
• Gerald M. Pomper (c. 1951) – expert on American politics and elections at Rutgers University
• John F. Banzhaf III (c. 1955) – professor and practitioner of public interest law at George Washington University
• Michael Levin (1960) – philosopher, author of Why Race Matters

Technology

• Philip Birnbaum – architect notable for designing numerous apartment towers in New York City; designed or contributed to the design of approximately 300 buildings
• Hans Mark (1947) – aerospace engineering; served as Deputy Administrator of NASA, and Secretary of the United States Air Force
• Ronald J. Grabe (1962) – astronaut (NASA)
• Richard Lary (1965) – computer architecture; co-designer of VAX architecture (DEC)
• Bob Frankston (1966) – software; author of the spreadsheet VisiCalc
• Daniel Hirschberg (1967) – design of algorithms (University of California, Irvine)
• Steven M. Bellovin (1968) – leading authority on firewalls and Internet security; elected to National Academy of Engineering in 2001 (Columbia University)
• Henk Rogers (1972) – entrepreneur and video game designer, creator of Blue Planet Software and The Tetris Company, best known for Tetris
• Omar Wasow (1988) – creator of BlackPlanet, Oprah's "tech guy", MSNBC Internet analyst
• Naval Ravikant (1991) – entrepreneur, investor; co-founder and former CEO of AngelList
• Bram Cohen (1993) – author of BitTorrent
• Vishal Garg (1995) – founder of Better.com

Writers

Staff

• Frank McCourt – memoirist and author; teacher of English and creative writing from 1972 until the late 1980s

Alumni

• Samuel Spewack (c. 1917) – screenwriter, playwright, and double Tony Award-winner for Kiss Me, Kate and Academy Award nominee for My Favorite Wife
• Louis Zukofsky (c. 1918–1920) – poet
• Henry Roth (c. 1920) – author of Call It Sleep
• Nick Meglin (1953) – longtime MAD Magazine editor, and playwright
• Andrew Kaplan (1958) – writer, author of Hour of the Assassins, Scorpion, Dragonfire, War of the Raven
• Marv Goldberg (1960) – music critic and writer
• Alexander Rosenberg (1963) – novelist and non-fiction writer
• Eric Van Lustbader (1964) – writer, author of The Bourne Legacy and The Ninja
• David Lehman (1966) – writer, editor, critic, and professor of creative writing; series editor of The Best American Poetry; author of The Morning Line, Sinatra's Century, When a Woman Loves a Man, and Signs of the Times
• Hans Mark (1929–2021), (1947) U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, Chancellor of the UT System; physicist; engineer; Dean of Engineering, UT Austin
• M. G. Sheftall (1980) – writer, author of Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze
• David Lipsky (1983) – novelist (Absolutely American)
• Matt Ruff (1983) – writer (Set This House in Order)
• Laurie Gwen Shapiro (1984) – author (The Stowaway) and documentary director
• Jordan Sonnenblick (1987) – writer of young adult novels Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie, Notes from the Midnight Driver, Zen and the Art of Faking It, and Dodger and Me; student of Frank McCourt
• Arthur M. Jolly (1987)' – Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, playwright of Past Curfew and A Gulag Mouse; student of Frank McCourt
• Alissa Quart (1989) – critic, journalist, poet, and editor; author of Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers and Rebels, Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and Monetized
• Gary Shteyngart (1991) – author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Absurdistan
• Rebecca Pawel (1995) – writer
• Daniel Genis (1996) – writer, journalist, and ex-convict; columnist at Vice; author of The Last Beat: 1046 Books Behind the Wall
• Jessica Valenti (1996) – writer, online journalist, blogger, columnist and staff writer at The Guardian
• Ned Vizzini (1999) – writer

Music

• Kai Winding (1935) – jazz trombonist and composer
• Thelonious Monk (1936) – jazz pianist and composer
• Julius Hegyi (1941) – conductor and violinist
• Tom Dowd (1942) – pioneer recording engineer, 1992 Grammy Award
• Bobby Colomby (1962) – drummer and record producer
• Walter Becker (1967) – co-founder of Steely Dan
• Richard Lloyd (1969) – guitarist for punk band Television and Matthew Sweet
• Kate Schellenbach (1983) – musician with the Beastie Boys and Luscious Jackson
• Heems (2003) – rapper, member of Das Racist and Swet Shop Boys
• Alex Weiser (2006) – composer, finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music

Film

• James Cagney (1918) – actor, dancer, won Academy Award for Yankee Doodle Dandy
• J. Edward Bromberg (c. 1920) – actor
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1924) – four-time Academy Award winning producer
• Sheldon Leonard (1925) – Emmy-winning actor, producer, and director
• Robert Alda (1930) – Tony-winning stage and film actor, producer
• William Greaves (1944) – Emmy-winning filmmaker
• Ben Gazzara (1946) – Emmy Award-winning actor
• Simon Kornblit (1951) – former executive vice president of worldwide marketing for Universal Pictures; actor
• Ron Silver (1963) – actor, director
• Martin Brest (1969) – director, screenwriter, and producer
• Paul Reiser (1973) – actor and producer
• Tim Robbins (1976) – actor, screenwriter, director, producer; won Academy Award for Mystic River
• Lucy Liu (1986) – actress
• James Bohanek (1987) – Broadway and television actor
• Heather Juergensen (1987) – actress and writer (Kissing Jessica Stein)
• Lucy Deakins (1988) – attorney and former actress best known for starring as Milly in The Boy Who Could Fly and originating the role of Lily Walsh on As the World Turns
• Louis Ozawa Changchien (1993) – actor
• Angela Goethals (1995) – former actress, narrator and all around dramatist
• Billy Eichner (1996) – actor and comedian (Billy on the Street, Difficult People, Parks and Recreation)
• Kelly Karbacz (1996) – actress (Rent, Sesame English, Regular Joe)
• Malcolm Barrett (1998) – actor (Better off Ted, The Hurt Locker, Dear White People, and Timeless)
• Telly Leung (1998) – Broadway and television actor
• Emily Carmichael (2000) – director, screenwriter, and animator
• Wolé Parks (2000) – actor (As the World Turns, Premium Rush, The Vampire Diaries, Superman & Lois)
• Jeff Orlowski (2002) – Emmy-winning director and cinematographer (Chasing Ice)
• Jonah Meyerson (2009) – actor (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Matador)

Journalism, radio, and television

• Julius Edelman (1941) – photojournalist, especially his jazz photos, known as Skippy Adelman
• Jan Merlin (Wasylewski) (1942) – film, television, and Broadway actor; Emmy Award (1975)
• Vladimir Posner (1948) – self-proclaimed independent journalist, author, Soviet propaganda and television personality; hosts his own show on Channel One, a state-owned TV network in Russia
• Bernie Brillstein (1948) – producer and manager, Emmy winner
• Barry Schweid (1949) – longtime politics and international affairs reporter for the Associated Press
• Robert Siegel (1964) – radio journalist, All Things Considered
• Len Berman (1964) – Emmy Award-winning NBC sportscaster
• Sam Rosen (1965) – NHL announcer and play-by-play announcer for the NHL team, New York Rangers
• Sam Marchiano (1985) – MLB.com sportcaster and host; daughter of longtime sports news anchor, Sal Marchiano
• Mike Greenberg (1985) – ESPN sportscaster; co-host of the Mike and Mike show on ESPN Radio
• Hanna Rosin (1987) – journalist
• Jon Caramanica (1993) – pop music critic for The New York Times
• Billy Eichner (1996) – Emmy-nominated host of Billy on the Street, actor
• Harry Siegel (1996) – author, political consultant and journalist
• Jessica Valenti (1996) – feminist blogger and writer
• Reihan Salam (1997) – conservative writer at The Atlantic and Forbes.com, and blogger for The American Scene
• Adriana Diaz (2002) – 2006 Miss New York USA
• Ashok Kondabolu (2003) – co-creator and host of Chillin Island on HBO

Educators

• Albert Shanker (1946) – served as president of the United and American Federations of Teachers; 1998 Presidential Medal of Freedom
• John Tietjen (1946) – served as president of Concordia Seminary and Christ Seminary-Seminex

Business

• Jack Nash (1946) – chairman of Oppenheimer & Company
• Saul Katz (1956) – president of the New York Mets
• Jeffrey Loria (1957) – former owner of Florida Marlins; former owner of Montreal Expos
• Arthur Blank (1960) – founder of The Home Depot; owner of the Atlanta Falcons
• Paul Levitz (1973) – president of DC Comics
• Drew Nieporent (1973) – restaurateur
• David Coleman (1987) – CEO of the College Board
• Boaz Weinstein (1991) – hedge fund manager
• Ronn Torossian (1992) – CEO of 5W Public relations
• Amol Sarva (1994) – on founding team of Virgin Mobile; founder of Wireless Founders Coalition for Innovation; founder and CEO of Peek

Politics

• Moe Fishman (1933) – co-founder and executive secretary/treasurer of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
• George Silides (1938) – served in the Alaska Senate; businessman
• Sy Schulman (ca. 1944) – civil engineer and urban planner, mayor of White Plains, New York
• Howard Golden (1945) – served as Brooklyn borough president
• Serphin R. Maltese (c. 1950) – longstanding New York State Senator
• Roy Innis (1952) – served as national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality; member of the National Rifle Association's governing board
• Bob Moses (1952) – organizer of 1964 Freedom Summer; MacArthur Fellow
• Bernard W. Nussbaum (1954) – law; served on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate impeachment inquiry, served as counsel to President Bill Clinton
• Richard Ben-Veniste (1960) – law; assistant prosecutor on the Watergate Task Force, served on the 9/11 Commission
• Harvey Pitt (1961) – chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission
• Ted Gold (1964) – political activist and Weathermen member
• Dick Morris (1964) – political consultant
• Jerry Nadler (1965) – U.S. congressman
• Eric Holder (1969) – United States attorney general in President Barack Obama's administration
• John Tsang Chun-wah (1969) – Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
• David Axelrod (c. 1972) – senior advisor to Barack Obama's campaign
• Alan Jay Gerson (1975) – served on New York City Council
• Dick Gottfried (????) – New York state assemblyman
• Eva Moskowitz (1982) – served on New York City Council and founded the Success Academy Charter Schools
• Dianne Morales (1985) – non-profit executive and political candidate
• Kathryn Garcia (1988) – commissioner of the New York City Sanitation Department and political candidate
• Jessica Lappin (1993) – served on New York City Council
• Grace Meng (1993) – U.S. congresswoman

Sports

• Herbert Vollmer (1914) – 1924 Olympic bronze medalist in water polo
• Ray Arcel (1917) – member of International Boxing Hall of Fame
• Frank Hussey (1924) – sprinter; 1924 Olympic gold medalist in the 4×100m relay
• Albert Axelrod (1938) – 1960 Olympic bronze medalist in foil fencing, 5x Olympian, member of the USFA Hall of Fame
• Nat Militzok (ca. 1941) – NBA basketball player
• Harold Goldsmith – Olympic foil and épée fencer; 3x Olympian; member of the USFA Hall of Fame
• Herbert Cohen (c. 1958) – 2x Olympic foil fencer; coached the fencing team
• Jack Molinas (1949) – former NBA All-Star player and key figure in the 1961 NCAA University Division men's basketball gambling scandal
• Charlie Scott (1966) – former NBA player and Olympic gold medalist in 1968
• Robert Hess (2009) – chess Grandmaster
• Nzingha Prescod (2010) – 2x Olympic foil fencer, member of the USFA Hall of Fame
• Krystal Lara (2016) – Olympic swimmer for the Dominican Republic

Other

• Otto Soglow (1913–1915) – Reuben Award-winning New Yorker cartoonist and creator of The Little King comic strip; dropped out of Stuyvesant to support his family
• George Kisevalter (c. 1925) – Central Intelligence Agency operations officer; handled Major Pyotr Popov, the first Soviet GRU agent run by the CIA, and Colonel Oleg Penkovsky
• Morton Sobell (c. 1935) – convicted spy
• Max Elitcher (c. 1935) – witness at the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
• Charles Dryden (c. 1937) – member of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II
• George Segal (1941) – sculptor
• Edwin Torres (c. 1949) – judge and author (Carlito's Way)
• John Schoenherr (c. 1953) – mammologist and illustrator
• Randolph Jackson (1960) – judge and author
• Denny Chin (1971) – judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Karin Immergut (1978) – United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon
• Victoria Kolakowski (1978) – judge on the Alameda County Superior Court; transgender activist
• Batsheva Hay – fashion designer
• Arvind Mahankali (2017) – winner of 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee

References

External links

• Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association
• The Campaign for Stuyvesant's
• Stuyvesant HS official site