Wikipedia

List of American University people

This is a sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to the American University in Washington, D.C.

Notable alumni

This is a list of notable alumni of AU. Some particularly notable individuals are also listed in the main University article. Individuals are sorted by category and alphabetized within each category. The degree, school and year of graduation is noted when available.

Government, politics, society, royalty

Foreign heads of state, deputy heads of state, and ministers

Ambassadors, diplomats, foreign ministers

  • Morton I. Abramowitz – United States Ambassador to Turkey and Thailand; Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
  • Liliana Ayalde – United States Ambassador to Brazil
  • Herman Jay Cohen – United States Ambassador to Gambia and Senegal, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, SIS/MA '62
  • John B. Craig – United States Ambassador to Oman; Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the United States Department of State, SIS/BA
  • Arturo Cruz, Jr. – Ambassador of Nicaragua to the United States
  • David B. Dunn – United States Ambassador to Togo and Zambia, MA
  • Murat Salim Esenli – Ambassador of Turkey to China, SPA/BA '84
  • Marc Ginsberg – United States Ambassador to Morocco, BA
  • Reno L. Harnish – United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan, SIS/MA
  • Cameron R. Hume – United States Ambassador to Indonesia
  • Abdul Ilah Khatib – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan; United Nations Special Envoy to Libya during the 2011 Libyan civil war, SIS/MA
  • Carol Laise – United States Ambassador to Nepal, director general of the United States Foreign Service and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, SPA/BA '38
  • Nizar Bin Obaid Madani – Deputy Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, SIS/MA '71, SIS/PhD '77
  • Francis E. Meloy, Jr. – United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Lebanon; assassinated in Beirut in 1976
  • Connie Morella – United States Ambassador to the OECD, former US Representative from Maryland, MA '67
  • Vincent Obsitnik – United States Ambassador to Slovakia; Business Executive at IBM, Unisys and Litton, KSB/MBA
  • Charles Pergler – Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to the United States and Japan, WCL/LLM
  • John Peurifoy – United States Ambassador to Greece, Thailand and Guatemala
  • Khadija al-Salami – Press and Cultural attaché and director of the Yemeni Information Centre at the Embassy of Yemen in Paris; first female Yemeni film producer, SOC '90
  • Omar Samad – Ambassador of Afghanistan to Canada, former CNN analyst
  • Saeed Mohammed Al Shamsi – Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Germany, Australia, India and New Zealand, SIS/PhD
  • Kantathi Suphamongkhon – Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, former Thai Member of Parliament, SIS/MA
  • Lawrence Palmer Taylor – United States Ambassador to Estonia, MA
  • Esteban Edward Torres – Ambassador to UNESCO; United States Representative from California, '66
  • Richard Verma – United States Ambassador to India
  • Richard Noyes Viets – United States Ambassador to Tanzania and Jordan
  • Marilyn Ware – United States Ambassador to Finland
  • Dessima Williams – Ambassador of Grenada to the United Nations, PhD
  • Curtin Winsor, Jr. – United States Ambassador to Costa Rica, SIS/MA '64, SIS/PhD'71

United States Senators and Representatives

United States government, military

US state, local governments

Business and economy

Sports, entertainment and media

Reporters and journalists

Cinema, television, radio

Sports

Law

Arts, sciences, academia and literature

Other

  • Maria Butina

Notable professors and staff

This is a list of notable AU professors and staff, past and present, listed in alphabetical order.

Politicians and public servants

Nobel laureates

Fulbright Scholars

  • Patricia Aufderheide – film, video and radio academic
  • Naomi Baron – author; president of the Semiotic Society of America; Professor of Linguistics
  • C. Stanley Lewis – artist and art professor
  • Stephen Silvia – professor, School of International Service; affiliate professor, Department of Economics

Guggenheim Fellows

  • Patricia Aufderheide – 1994 recipient; film, video and radio academic
  • Naomi Baron – author; president of the Semiotic Society of America; Professor of Linguistics
  • Robert Griffith – 1980 recipient; historian; author
  • Michael Kazin – historian and author
  • C. Stanley Lewis – artist and art professor
  • Richard McCann – fiction, nonfiction and poetry writer
  • Julian Simon – environmental economics academic and author

Pulitzer Prize recipients

Other

  • Alida Anderson – author and widely published researcher at American University School of Education
  • Kenneth Anderson – research fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, Professor of Law
  • George Ayittey – president of the Free Africa Foundation; political economics professor
  • Robert Bausch – fiction writer, novelist and 2009 Dos Passos Prize in Literature; author of Almighty Me, released in film as Bruce Almighty
  • Upendra Baxi – legal scholar; Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi, Honorary Director (Research) of the Indian Law Institute and President of the Indian Society of International Law
  • Betty T. Bennett – Dean, College of Arts and Sciences (1985–1997) and Professor of Literature
  • Michael Berenbaum – Holocaust scholar, writer and filmmaker; Deputy Director of the President's Commission on the Holocaust; Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Richard E. Berendzen – Department of Physics Professor, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
  • Barbara Bergmann – feminist economics academic; professor emerita of economics
  • Alan Berman – psychologist, psychotherapist, and suicidologist
  • Julian Bond – Chairman of NAACP; distinguished professor in residence, Department of Government, School of Public Affairs
  • David Bosco – journalist; author; assistant professor of international politics
  • Richard Breitman – Distinguished Professor of History, American University
  • Norma Broude – Art historian and feminist scholar, Professor Emerita
  • James B. Conant – President of Harvard University; chemist
  • Laura DeNardis – author and Internet governance scholar; School of Communications Professor
  • Elizabeth Eisenstein – author and historian on the French Revolution and early printing
  • Samih Farsoun – Founding Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Sharjah and the American University of Kuwait; professor emeritus of sociology
  • Charles B. Ferster – Department of Psychology, behavioral psychologist, co-author with B. F. Skinner of Schedules of Reinforcement (1957)
  • Lee Francis – Laguna Pueblo-Anishinaabe poet and educator; Professor and Interim Director of Native American Studies department and the American Studies program
  • Herbert Fuchs – former member of various communist cells during the 1930s and 1940s; Professor of Law
  • Mary Garrard – Art historian and feminist scholar, Professor Emerita
  • Walter Gautschi – mathematician and expert in numerical analysis
  • Edmund Ghareeb – author and expert on the Kurds, Iraq, and media issues; Professor of Middle East history and politics
  • Lesley Gill – Latin America researcher and author; Department of Anthropology
  • Louis W. Goodman – Dean Emeritus of the School of International Service
  • Ross Gunn – nuclear physicist; Principal in the Manhattan Project and the United States' nuclear submarine program
  • Jane Hall – former Los Angeles Times reporter, Fox News Watch panelist; School of Communications
  • Consuelo Hernández – Latin America scholar and poet; Professor of Latin American Studies
  • Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy - Dean, American University School of Education
  • Andrew Holleran – Author, Creative Writing Program
  • Louis C. Hunter – Professor of economic history; author of Steamboats on the Western Rivers, an Economic and Technological History
  • Victor Kamber – Labor union activist and political consultant
  • Mary King – political scientist and expert in peace and conflict resolution; Distinguished Scholar, Center of Global Peace
  • Ellis O. Knox – desegregation champion and Chairman of Education for the NAACP; Professor of Education
  • Iris Krasnow – School of Communications, Academic Director of Washington Journalism Semester
  • Stephen G. Kurtz – historian, principal of Phillips Exeter Academy
  • Jennifer L. Lawless – political scientist
  • William Leap – Department Chair for Anthropology, foremost academic in the field of lavender linguistics
  • William M. LeoGrande – Dean of the School of Public Affairs and professor in the Department of Government
  • Charles Lewis – former investigative producer for ABC News and CBS's 60 Minutes; founder of the Center for Public Integrity; School of Communications Professor and Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop
  • Andrew Lih – author and new media researcher; professor in the School of Communication
  • Michael Lindsay, 2nd Baron Lindsay of Birker – British Peer; academic; Professor of Far Eastern Studies
  • Eugene Lukacs – statistician and Director of Statistics in the Office of Naval Research
  • Charles F. Marsh – economist; academic; President of Wofford College
  • Colman McCarthy – journalist; peace activist; columnist for The Washington Post
  • Howard E. McCurdy – expert on space policy and NASA; Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History; Professor of Public Affairs
  • Pamela Nadell – former president of the Association for Jewish Studies (2015 - 2017); Scholar of Jewish-American Women's History; Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender History
  • Candice Nelson – political theorist, director of the Campaign Management Institute recipient (former professor)
  • Karen O'Connor – political scientist, Department of Government
  • Marshall Poe – historian and author on the Grand Duchy of Moscow
  • Arturo C. Porzecanski – Distinguished Economist-in-Residence; Professor and Program Director of the MA in International Economic Relations; wall street veteran
  • Jamin Raskin – professor, constitutional law; co-director, Program on Law and Government and Marshall-Brennan Fellows Program; author of The Supreme Court versus the American People; Maryland State Senator
  • John M. Richardson – director of the Center for Teaching Excellence; Department of International Development
  • Floyd M. Riddick – Department of Political Science
  • Aubrey Eugene Robinson, Jr. – United States federal judge
  • David H. Rosenbloom – distinguished professor, Department of Public Administration & Policy
  • Abdul Aziz Said – founder of the Mohammed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace; founder and Director of the Center for Global Peace; School of International Service, Department of International Peace and Conflict Resolution; author; professor
  • Stephen Silvia – expert on the German economy, labor markets and industrial relations; Professor and Director of MA in International Relations online degree
  • Sally Smith – author; special education activist; founder of the Lab School of Washington for students with learning disabilities; Education Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Special Education 1976–2007
  • Gregory H. Stanton – president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
  • Ben Stein – actor, writer, lawyer and commentator on political and economic issues
  • Leonard Steinhorn – author; specialist in American politics and culture; Professor of Communications
  • Charles C. Tansill (1890–1964) – Professor of History at American University from 1921 to 1937[8]
  • James A. Thurber – director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies; Professor of Government, School of Public Affairs
  • Michael Tigar – criminal defense attorney noted for representing high-profile clients; Professor of Law
  • Lloyd Ultan – composer of contemporary classical music; Professor and Chairman of the Department of Music
  • Sanford J. Ungar – president emeritus of Goucher College and director of Voice of America; Dean of the American University School of Communication
  • Franak Viacorka – Belarusian political activist, film maker, journalist.
  • Perry Wallace – trial attorney at the United States Department of Justice and Environmental Policy advisory council of the Environmental Protection Agency; professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers; first African-American varsity basketball player in the Southeastern Conference
  • Celeste A. Wallander – professor; specialist on military and energy in Russia/Eurasia region; member of the Council on Foreign Relations
  • Caroline F. Ware – cultural historian
  • Paul R. Williams – Executive Director of the Public International Law & Policy Group and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee; School of International Service and Washington College of Law
  • Vivian M. Vasquez, Ph. D - Multi-award-winning Professor of Education and author of a dozen books.
  • Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky (1919–1984) — Ukrainian-Canadian historian, political scientist, publicist

Past speakers

This is a list of AU honorary doctorate degree recipients (commencement speakers) and other notable speakers, sorted by category and alphabetically.

Nobel laureates

United States presidents

International figures

National figures

Scholars

Journalists

Performing artists

Visual artists

Chancellors/Presidents of American University

This is a listing of the Chancellors and presidents of American University, listed together with dates of life and service, as well as concurring notable AU events.

President Tenure Notable Events During Tenure
1. Bishop John Fletcher Hurst 1890–1902 Ground broken to establish American University
2. Bishop Charles Cardwell McCabe 1902–1906
3. Franklin E. Hamilton 1907–1916 First class admitted
4. Bishop John W. Hamilton 1916–1922 Campus turned into Camp Leach and Camp American University
5. Lucius C. Clark 1922–1933 First undergraduates graduate
6. Joseph M. M. Gray 1933–1941 AU becomes one of the first schools in a racially segregated city to admit African American students
7. Paul Douglass 1941–1952 Title changed to "President", Washington College of Law merges into AU
8. Hurst Robins Anderson 1952–1968 Kogod School of Business and School of International Service open
9. George H. Williams 1968–1976 Downtown location closed
10. Joseph J. Sisco 1976–1980 Bender Library opens and School of Communication established
11. Richard E. Berendzen 1980–1990 Major campus construction, resigned in disgrace, treated, rehired, Professor Emeritus in Physics Department
12. Joseph Duffey 1991–1994
13. Benjamin Ladner 1994–2005 Launches major capital campaign, resigned in disgrace
14. Neil Kerwin 2005–2017 Acting President during Ladner investigation. Announced as 14th President of American University on July 20, 2007 for the term beginning September 1, 2007
15. Sylvia Burwell 2017–present

Trustees

Notable trustees of American University, past and present:

  • William Jennings Bryan – United States Secretary of State to President Woodrow Wilson
  • Michael D. Capellas – president and CEO of MCI
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower – 34th president of the United States
  • Warren G. Harding – 29th president of the United States
  • Herbert Hoover – 31st president of the United States
  • Robert P. Kogod – president of the Charles E. Smith real estate corporation
  • William McKinley – 25th president of the United States
  • Theodore Roosevelt – 26th president of the United States
  • Wiley Rutledge – U.S. Supreme Court Justice (WCL)
  • Harry S. Truman – 33rd president of the United States

References

  1. ^ "The man behind Donald Trump's run". Politico. July 22, 2015. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
  2. ^ Bresnahan, John & Jake Sherman (July 27, 2011). "GOPers chant 'fire him' at RSC staffer". Politico. Retrieved July 27, 2011.
  3. ^ "Featured Alum: Paul Teller". Duke University. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  4. ^ "Donald Vaughan's Biography". Project Vote Smart. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  5. ^ "SOC Alumna Reports Breaking News for ABC", American University, April 90, 2015.
  6. ^ Langer, Emily (August 9, 2014). "Ruth Sacks Caplin, screenwriter of 'Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont,' dies at 93". Washington Post. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
  7. ^ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/article-elizabeth-chomko-came-to-realize-only-she-could-make-what-they-had/
  8. ^ "CHARLES TANSILL, HISTORIAN, IS DEAD". The New York Times. November 14, 1964. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
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