This list of the notable alumni of the University of Cape Town is divided into the six faculties of the university: Commerce, Humanities, Sciences, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Law.
Commerce
- Raymond Ackerman, businessman, who purchased the Pick n Pay supermarket group from its founder; philanthropist
- Roelof Botha, grandson of Pik Botha; began his career as an actuary and became a venture capitalist
- Polly Courtice, founder Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and member of the supervisory board of Mercedes-Benz Group
- Alide Dasnois, journalist and newspaper editor
- Chelsy Davy, ex-girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry
- Sir Bradley Fried, ex-chief executive of Investec bank; current chairman of Goldman Sachs International
- Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor of Cape Town (2021â )
- Nick Mallett, played for and later coached the Springboks, South Africa's national rugby union team
- Tshediso Matona, CEO of Eskom
- Kimeshan Naidoo, entrepreneur and engineer, founder of Unibuddy.
- Harold Pupkewitz (1915âÂÂ2012), Namibian entrepreneur
- Mark Shuttleworth, billionaire entrepreneur; founder of Canonical Ltd; sponsor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution operating system; second space tourist
Humanities
- Lauren Beukes, international best-selling author of The Shining Girls, winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award
- Peter Busse, AIDS activist and educator
- J. M. Coetzee, professor emeritus, Literature, 2003
- Jean Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
- John Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
- Harold Cressy, head teacher and first coloured person to gain a degree in South Africa
- Janette Deacon, archaeologist specialising in heritage management and rock art conservation
- Roger Ebert, film critic, graduated with an English degree as part of a Rotary International program
- David Fanning, Emmy Award-winning producer of Frontline
- Damon Galgut, novelist and playwright
- Bobby Godsell, Masters of Arts, later CEO of AngloGold Ashanti and Chairman of Eskom
- Johannes de Villiers Graaff, professor of welfare economics; economist
- Adrian Guelke, Professor of Comparative Politics at Queen's University Belfast
- Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, deputy prime minister of South Africa, obtained an M.A. at the age of 17
- Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, New Testament scholar, Professor at Westminster Theological Seminary
- Edward Neville Isdell, former CEO of the Coca-Cola Company
- Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac; 8th most influential woman in the world, according to Forbes magazine
- Loren Kruger, academic and author
- David Lewis-Williams, professor emeritus of Cognitive Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand specialising in Upper-Palaeolithic and Bushmen rock art
- Gwen Lister, South African-born Namibian journalist; anti-apartheid activist; founder of The Namibian
- Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw, Afrikaans-language poet, playwright and scholar
- Archie Mafeje, anthropologist and activist who significantly contributed to the decolonization of African identity and its historical past, criticising anthropology's typically Eurocentric techniques and beliefs; also known for the "Mafeje affair"
- Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town, PhD from the University of Cape Town
- Steven Markovitz, award-winning film and television producer
- Ebrahim Patel, held positions as South African Minister of Trade and Industry and as the Minister of Economic Development, on the University Council of UCT; former staffer in the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit in the School of Economics
- André du Pisani, political scientist and professor at University of Namibia
- Nik Rabinowitz, comedian, actor and author
- Mamphela Ramphele, managing director of the World Bank; former Vice-Chancellor of UCT
- Isaac Schapera, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics; leading expert in the anthropology of South African tribesmen
- Nora Schimming-Chase, Namibia's first ambassador to Germany, obtained a teaching diploma from UCT in 1961
- Carmel Schrire, Professor of Archaeology, Rutgers University
- Robert Carl-Heinz Shell, South African author and professor of African Studies
- Lady Skollie, feminist artist and activist
- Lady Kitty Spencer (born 1990), English model
- Andries Treurnicht, founder and the leader of the Conservative Party in South Africa
- Elizabeth Anne Voigt, archaeologist and director of the McGregor Museum
- Mary Watson, 2006 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing
- Bronwyn Nielsen, South African broadcaster and media executive
Music
- Richard Cock, conductor
- Cromwell Everson, classical music composer and composer of the first Afrikaans opera
- Ernest Fleischmann, impresario best known for his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic
- Malcolm Forsyth, musician; composer; Canadian Composer of the Year; Juno Award winner; member of Order of Canada
- Hendrik Hofmeyr, composer and music theorist; winner of the 1997 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Composition Prize; Professor of Music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
- Galt MacDermot, composer of the musical Hair
- Melanie Scholtz, vocalist, operas, jazz, pop, r&b, and classical music; graduated from the School of Opera
- Barry Smith, organist, conductor, musicologist, former associate professor of music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
- Désirée Talbot, operatic soprano and one of the founding members of the UCT Opera Company
- Pretty Yende, operatic soprano
Fine art
- Anne Bean, British installation and performance artist
- Alex Binaris, fashion model
- Breyten Breytenbach, author
- Roger Ebert, Pulitzer Award-winning American film critic and writer
- Kai Lossgott, interdisciplinary artist
- Simphiwe Ndzube, visual artist
- Claudette Schreuders, South African sculptor and painter
- Jonathan Shapiro, South African political cartoonist known as "Zapiro"
- Marjorie van Heerden, South African writer and illustrator of children's books
- Pauline Vogelpoel, arts administrator at the Contemporary Art Society and Tate Gallery
Drama
- Jodi Balfour, actress
- Katlego Danke, actress
- Nadia Davids, playwright, novelist, and author of short stories, and screenplays
- Vincent Ebrahim, known for his role on The Kumars at No. 42
- Richard E. Grant, actor
- Kagiso Lediga, stand-up comedian, actor and director
- Zolani Mahola, lead singer of the South African band Freshlyground
- Zandile Msutwana, actress
- Koleka Putuma, poet and theatre-maker
Sciences
- Allan McLeod Cormack, Medicine, 1979
- Hilary Deacon (1936âÂÂ2010), archaeologist and professor at the University of Stellenbosch
- Emanuel Derman, Goldman Sachs financial engineer and author of My Life As A Quant
- Jonathan M. Dorfan, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
- Mulalo Doyoyo, South African engineer and inventor; known for inventing cenocell, a cementless concrete
- George Ellis, cosmologist; collaborator with Stephen Hawking; winner of the 2004 Templeton Prize
- Tim Hawarden, astrophysicist
- Michael David Kirchmann, architect and developer, founder of GDSNY
- Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982 (MSc)
- Paul Maritz, former Microsoft executive; VMware CEO
- Magdalena Sauer, first woman to qualify as an architect in South Africa
- Sydney Harold Skaife, South African entomologist and naturalist
- Stanley Skewes, number theorist most famous in popular mathematics for his bound for the point of changeover in magnitude between the number of primes up to a certain number and an important approximation of this, which was for many years the largest finite number ever legitimately used in a research paper
- Edith Layard Stephens, South African botanist
- Frank Talbot (1930âÂÂ2024), ichthyologist; PhD. 1959; former director of the Australian Museum
- Willem Van Biljon, former co-founder of Mosaic Software, acquired by S1 Corporation; founder of Nimbula, a startup funded by Sequoia Capital
- Richard van der Riet Woolley, British astronomer who became Astronomer Royal
Health sciences
- Neil Aggett, South African trade union leader and labour activist who died in custody after 70 days' detention without trial
- Frances Ames, first woman to receive an MD degree from UCT; first female professor at UCT
- Christiaan Barnard, professor, performed the world's first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital
- Enid Charles, statistician and demographer
- Alan Christoffels, bioinformatics scientist, academic, and an author
- David Cooper, theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement
- Adrian Gelb, anesthesiologist and academic
- Tamaryn Green, medical doctor, Miss South Africa 2018 and 1st runner-up at Miss Universe 2018
- Cecil Helman, physician, medical anthropologist and author
- Jessie Rose Innes (1860âÂÂ1943), nurse and suffragist
- Margaret Keay (1911âÂÂ1998), plant pathologist
- Bongani Mayosi, cardiologist and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
- Mervyn Maze, anaesthesiologist, medical researcher and academic
- Riaad Moosa, comedian, actor and doctor
- Jean Nachega, physician, infectious diseases doctor and academic
- Jessie Rose-Innes, nurse, social campaigner and suffragist
- Gisela Sole, professor of physiotherapy at University of Otago in New Zealand
- Max Theiler, virologist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever
- Louis Vogelpoel, cardiologist and one of the founding members of the Cardiac Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital as well as a highly regarded horticultural scholar and researcher
- Carolyn Williamson, virologist and microbiologist, professor of medical virology
- Heather Zar, paediatric pulmonologist and Chair Department of Paediatrics
Social sciences
Law
- Morris Alexander (1877âÂÂ1946), member of parliament
- David Bloomberg, former Mayor of Cape Town (1973âÂÂ1975) and defence attorney for Dimitri Tsafendas, who fatally stabbed the Prime Minister, Dr H.F. Verwoerd, in Parliament in 1966
- Sheila Camerer, South African politician; former Deputy Minister of Justice; long-serving Member of Parliament of the main opposition the Democratic Alliance; ambassador to Bulgaria; completed a Bachelor of Law degree at UCT in 1964
- Ryan Coetzee, South African politician; former CEO of the Democratic Alliance and Shadow Minister of Economic Development; chief strategist for Western Cape premier Helen Zille; graduated from UCT in 1994
- Beric John Croome, Advocate of the High Court of South Africa; Chartered Accountant CA (SA); taxpayers' rights pioneer; completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree (1980), Certificate in the Theory of Accountancy (1981) and a PhD (Commercial Law) (2008) at UCT
- Zainunnisa "Cissie" Gool, anti-apartheid political and civil rights leader
- Zuleikha Hassan, Kenyan politician; Kwale County Woman Representative and Member of Parliament
- Stephen Jolly, Australian activist and politician
- Fana Mokoena, South African politician and actor, member of the National Assembly of South Africa and a delegate to the National Council of Provinces
- Clotilde Mukamurera, president of the High Court of Commerce of Rwanda
- Ian Neilson, Executive Deputy Mayor of Cape Town
- Dullah Omar, South African anti-apartheid activist; lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; minister in the South African cabinet from 1994 until his death
- Kate O'Regan, former Constitutional Court of South Africa judge
- Albie Sachs, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
- James Selfe, long-serving Member of Parliament with the Democratic Alliance; chairperson of the party's federal council; holds a master's degree from UCT
- Donald Woods, South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist
- Percy Yutar, South Africa's first Jewish attorney-general and prosecutor of Nelson Mandela in the 1963 Rivonia Treason Trial.
- As of 2023, Corey Mbonge was the first and only African American to graduate from UCT's LLB program in its 160 year history.
References