List of Mount Holyoke College people

Notable alumnae

Academics and scientists

• Clara Harrison Stranahan, 1849 - author; founder and trustee of Barnard College
• Harriet Newell Haskell, 1855 - educator and administrator
• Cornelia Clapp, 1871 - zoologist and marine biologist
• Mary Cutler Fairchild, 1875 - pioneering librarian
• Alice Carter Cook, circa 1888 - botanist and later faculty, first female recipient of an American botany PhD
• Marian E. Hubbard, 1889 - zoology professor
• Alice Huntington Bushee, 1891 - Spanish literature professor at Wellesley College
• Martha Warren Beckwith, 1893 - anthropologist
• Abby Howe Turner, 1896 - founded Mount Holyoke's department of physiology
• Margaret Morse Nice, 1905 - ornithologist
• Alzada Comstock, 1910 - economics professor
• Mildred Sanderson, 1910 - mathematician
• Louise Freeland Jenkins, 1911 - astronomer
• Marion Elizabeth Blake, 1913 - classics professor
• Helen G. Fisk, 1917 - vocational services educator
• Rachel Fuller Brown, 1920 - chemist who discovered Nystatin
• Mildred Trotter, 1920 - forensic anthropologist
• Lucy Weston Pickett, 1925 - chemist
• Helen Sawyer Hogg, 1926 - astronomer
• Alice Standish Allen, 1929 - the first female engineering geologist in North America
• Janet Wilder Dakin, B.A. 1933, M.A. 1935 - zoologist who was the youngest sister of Thornton Wilder and Charlotte Wilder
• Sara Anderson Immerwahr, 1935 - Classical archaeologist
• Carolyn Shaw Bell, 1941 - economics professor
• Mary McHenry, 1954 - professor of English credited with introducing African American literature to Mount Holyoke
• Jane English, 1964 - physicist, translator, photographer
• Dolores Hayden, 1966 - professor of architecture, urbanism, and American studies
• Carolyn Collette, 1967 - professor of English
• Karen E. Rowe, 1967 - English professor at UCLA
• Susan Shirk, 1967 - professor of political science and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for North Asia during the Clinton administration
• Lila M. Gierasch, 1970 - professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology
• Victoria C. Yan, 2018 - cancer researcher known for pioneering and patenting treatment drugs. Also known writer on Covid-19 treatments.

  Activists

• Lucy Stone, - women's rights activist
• Olympia Brown, - women's rights activist
• Helen Pitts, 1859 - women's rights activist, second wife of Frederick Douglass, and founder of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association
• Hortense Parker, 1883 - daughter of African American abolitionist, John Parker and the first African American student to graduate from Mount Holyoke College
• Alice Bradford Wiles, 1873 - Chicago clubwoman
• Elizabeth Holloway Marston, 1915 - was the inspiration for Wonder Woman
• Ruth Muskrat Bronson, 1925 - Poet, educator, Indian rights activist
• Sybil Bailey Stockdale, 1946 - founded the National League of Families of American Prisoners and MIAs in S.E. Asia; Lecturer; widow of '92 U.S. Vice-Presidential nominee, Adm. James Stockdale
• Gloria Johnson-Powell, 1958 - child psychiatrist; an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the first African-American woman to attain tenure at Harvard Medical School
• Rose Dugdale- political activist and prominent member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
• Lynn Pasquerella, 1980 - Medical ethicist; president, Mount Holyoke College
• Mallika Dutt, 1983 - Executive Director of Breakthrough: bring human rights home, an international human rights organization
• Kavita Ramdas, 1985 - President and CEO, Global Fund for Women
• Marcia Hofmann, 2000 - digital rights attorney and activist

  Actors, musicians, dancers and performers

• Elizabeth Eaton Converse - later known as Connie Converse, 1946 - singer and songwriter
• Dianne Consoer Leech, 1952 - original member of the Joffrey Ballet Company touring with the company in 1956
• Caitlin Clarke, 1974 - actress
• Michelle Hurst, 1974 - actress, known for her role as Miss Claudette on the Netflix Series Orange Is the New Black
• Nancy Gustafson, 1978 - opera singer
• Melinda Mullins, 1979 - actress
• Donna Kane, 1984 - actress
• Martha Mason, 1988 - dancer, founder and artistic director of the Snappy Dance Theater
• Geneva Carr, 1988 - actress, Tony Award nominee, main cast member in CBS television series Bull
• Kimberly Hebert Gregory, 1994 - actress
• Zeb Bangash, 2004 - part of Pakistani music duo Zeb and Haniya
• Zoe Weizenbaum, 2014 - actress, known for her roles in Memoirs of a Geisha and 12 and Holding
• Sho Madjozi, 2015 - South African rapper

  Artists

• Esther Howland, 1847 - artist noted for her role in popularizing St. Valentine's Day cards
• Minerva J. Chapman, 1880 - painter
• Jane Hammond, 1972 - artist
• Susan Mohl Powers, 1966 - sculptor, painter

  Athletes

• Stacy Apfelbaum - rowing cox; gold medal winner at the 1984 World Rowing Championships
• Margaret Hoffman, 1934 - swimmer who participated in both the 1928 Summer Olympics and 1932 Summer Olympics
• Imogene Opton Fish, 1955 - alpine skier who was captain of the U.S. women's 1952 Winter Olympics ski team
• Michele Drolet, 1976 - blind cross-country skier who was the first American woman to ever earn a Paralympic cross-country skiing medal - bronze at the 1994 Winter Paralympics
• Harriet Metcalf, 1981 - Executive Director and founder of Row As One Institute who won a Gold medal in rowing at the 1984 Summer Olympics
• Mary Mazzio, 1983 - filmmaker and olympic athtlete who participated in rowing at the 1992 Summer Olympics
• Olga Maria Sacasa, 1984 - cyclist was the first woman ever to represent Nicaragua in cycling at the 1992 Summer Olympics
• Katheryn Curi, 1996 - cyclist who placed first at the National Road Race Championships in Park City, Utah in June 2005

  Businesswomen

• Jean Picker Firstenberg, 1958 - Director and CEO of the American Film Institute
• Mary Duffy, 1966 - feminist fashion expert, spokeswoman, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker, expanding concepts of beauty for the majority of women who do not fit ideal stereotypes popularized by fashion and media Big Beauties/Little Women, Ford Models
• Barbara J. Desoer, 1974 - CEO for Citibank N.A. and a member of its board of directors
• Audrey A. McNiff, 1980 - Managing Director and co-head of Currency Sales, Goldman Sachs
• Vicki Roberts, 1980 - attorney, on-air legal commentator, television and film personality
• Barbara Cassani, 1982 - first leader of London's successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics
• Beth Gibson, 1993 - Former CFO of NYC Blood Center retired 2019
• Sheila Lirio Marcelo, 1993 - Founder and CEO of Care.com
• Margaux Avedisian, 2006 - renowned bitcoin entrepreneur and radio personality.

  College presidents

• Susan Tolman Mills, 1845 - co-founder and first president of Mills College
• Ada Howard, 1853 - first president of Wellesley College
• Abbie Park Ferguson, 1856 - founder and president of Huguenot College
• Sarah Ann Dickey, 1869 - founder of Mount Hermon Female Seminary
• Florence M. Read, 1909 - former president, Spelman College
• Yau Tsit Law, 1916 - dean of women, Lingnan University
• Pauline Tompkins, 1941 - former president, Cedar Crest College
• Barbara M. White, 1941 - former president, Mills College
• Alice Stone Ilchman 1957 - former president, Sarah Lawrence College
• Elizabeth Topham Kennan, 1960 - former president, Mount Holyoke College
• Carol Geary Schneider, 1967 - president, Association of American Colleges and Universities
• Nancy J. Vickers, 1967 - President, Bryn Mawr College
• Elaine Tuttle Hansen, 1969 - president, Bates College
• Lynn Pasquerella, 1980 - president, Mount Holyoke College

  Computer scientists and graphic designers

• Jean E. Sammet, 1948 - computer scientist who developed the FORMAC programming language
• Susan Kare, 1975 - original designer of many of the interface elements for the original Apple Macintosh.

  Doctors, nurses, psychologists, and psychiatrists

• Nancy M. Hill, 1859 - Civil War nurse and one of the first female doctors in the U.S.
• Seraph Frissell, 1869 - physician, medical writer
• Mary Phylinda Dole, 1886, 1889 - became a doctor at a time when it was difficult for women to do so
• Dorothy Hansine Andersen, 1922 - doctor involved in cystic fibrosis research
• Virginia Apgar, 1929 - doctor who developed the Apgar score for evaluating newborns; anesthesiologist
• Florence Wald 1938 - nurse who was the leader of the U.S. hospice movement
• Ellen P. Reese, 1948 - psychologist
• Gloria Johnson-Powell, 1958 - child psychiatrist; an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the first African American woman to attain tenure at Harvard Medical School

  Filmmakers, broadcast presidents, and producers

• Dulcy Singer, 1955 - former Emmy Award-winning producer of Sesame Street
• Julia Phillips, 1965 - Hollywood producer and author
• Debra Martin Chase, 1977 - Hollywood producer
• Mary Mazzio, 1983 - filmmaker and olympic athlete who participated in rowing at the 1992 Summer Olympics
• Sonali Gulati, 1996 - filmmaker and director of the film Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night
• Chloé Zhao, 2005 - filmmaker

  Journalists

• Janet Huntington Brewster, 1933 - philanthropist, writer, and radio broadcaster; wife of Edward R. Murrow
• Beth Karas, 1979 - senior reporter, CourtTV
• Priscilla Painton, 1980 - editor in chief, Simon & Schuster; former deputy managing editor, Time Magazine
• Dari Alexander, ca. 1991 - co-anchor of WNYW's weeknight 6 p.m. newscast, and previously a reporter and part-time anchor for the Fox News Channel.

  Judges

• Maryanne Trump Barry, 1958 - Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; older sister of 45th president of the United States Donald Trump
• Janet Arterton, 1966 - Judge on the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut
• Janet C. Hall, 1970 - Judge on the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, Chief Judge of the District of Connecticut
• Glenda Hatchett, 1973 - judge on nationally syndicated television series, Judge Hatchett

  Politics

• Louisa "Louise" Maria Torrey Taft, 1845 - mother of president William Howard Taft
• Frances Perkins, 1902 - first woman cabinet member
• Marion West Higgins, 1936 - first female Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly
• Ella T. Grasso, 1940 - Governor of Connecticut; the first female Governor elected in her own right in United States history
• Joanne H. Alter, 1949 - American activist and politician
• Nancy Kissinger, 1955 - philanthropist; wife of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
• Nita Lowey, 1959 - United States House of Representatives member
• Judith Kurland, 1967 - former Regional Director, United States Department of Health and Human Services
• Susan Shirk, 1967 - professor of political science and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for North Asia during the Clinton administration
• Jane Garvey, 1969 - former head of Federal Aviation Administration
• Elaine Chao, 1975 - U.S. Secretary of Transportation, 2017 - present, U.S. Secretary of Labor, 2001–2009; Director of the Peace Corps, 1991–1992; former national director, United Way
• Susan Longley, 1978 - State Senator and Judge of Probate from Maine
• Karen Middleton, 1988 - legislator in the U.S. state of Colorado
• Mona Sutphen, 1989 - Deputy White House Chief of Staff in the Obama administration
• Mahua Moitra, 1998 - Member of Indian Parliament, Lok Sabha

  Writers

• Edna Dean Proctor, 1847, poet
• Emily Dickinson, - poet
• Emily Gilmore Alden, 1855 - author and educator
• Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, - novelist and short story writer
• Anne W. Armstrong, - novelist
• Caroline Henderson, 1901 - Dust Bowl author
• Alice Geer Kelsey, 1918 - writer, children's literature
• Charlotte Wilder, 1919 - poet
• Kathryn Irene Glascock, 1922 - poet
• Constance McLaughlin Green, 1925 - historian who won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878
• Roberta Teale Swartz, 1925 - poet
• Virginia Hamilton Adair, 1933 - poet
• Martha Whitmore Hickman, 1947 - non-fiction author
• Nancy McKenzie, 1948 - Arthurian legend author
• Jean Rikhoff, 1948 - author
• Martha Henissart, 1950 - mystery author writing under the pen-name of Emma Lathen with Mary Jane Latsis
• Nancy Bauer, 1956 - non-fiction author
• Elizabeth Topham Kennan, 1960 - author writing under the pen-name of Clare Munnings with Jill Ker Conway
• Nancy Bond, 1966 - writer, children's literature
• Olivia Mellan, 1968 - author of 6 books on money psychology
• Patricia Roth Schwartz, 1968 - poet
• Kathleen Eagle, 1970 - romance novelist
• Marisabina Russo, 1971 - writer, children's literature
• Wendy Wasserstein, 1971 - playwright who won the 1989 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Heidi Chronicles
• Lynne Barrett, 1972 - author
• Susan Shwartz, 1972 - science fiction and fantasy author
• Gjertrud Schnackenberg, 1975 - poet
• Kathleen Hirsch, 1975 - non-fiction author
• Judith Tarr, 1976 - science fiction and fantasy author
• Carol Higgins Clark, 1978 - mystery author
• Jacqueline Jones LaMon, 1978 - poet and novelist
• Lan Cao, 1983 - novelist
• Suzan-Lori Parks, 1985 - playwright who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Topdog/Underdog
• Deborah Harkness, 1986 - author of The New York Times best selling novel A Discovery of Witches
• Sehba Sarwar, 1986 - novelist
• C. Leigh Purtill, 1988 - young adult author
• Sabina Murray, 1989 - screenwriter; wrote screenplay for The Beautiful Country
• Sherri Browning Erwin, 1990 - author of "Thornbrook Park" and "Jane Slayre", member of Romance Writers of America
• Amy Glynn, 1992 - poet, author of "A Modern Herbal"
• Tahmima Anam, 1997 - author
• Susan J. Elliott, 2000 - non-fiction author
• Betsy James, writer
• Hanna Pylväinen, 2007 - author of We Sinners
• Hayeon Lim, 2017 - South Korean socialite and author

  Notable faculty, past and present

Artists

• Leonard DeLonga - professor of art
• Denoe Leedy - concert pianist and music journalist
• Harrison Potter - concert pianist and accompanist
• David Sanford - professor of music
• Emmett Williams - artist in residence 1975-6

  Athletics

• Mary Ellen Clark - former head diving coach; diver who won two Olympic bronze medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics and the 1996 Summer Olympics

  Authors, actors, poets, and playwrights

• Martha Ackmann - author and journalist
• Awam Amkpa - actor and playwright
• W.H. Auden - poet
• James Baldwin - Five Colleges faculty and American novelist
• Sven Birkerts - author, The Gutenberg Elegies
• Joseph Brodsky - winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature, and Poet Laureate of the United States for 1991–1992
• Luis Cernuda - poet
• Anita Desai - novelist
• Anthony Giardina - novelist
• John Irving - author of The Cider House Rules, and The World According to Garp
• Denis Johnston - playwright
• Brad Leithauser - author, poet
• Margaret Chai Maloney - author
• Jaime Manrique - author, poet
• Mary Olivia Nutting - librarian and historian
• Valerie Martin - novelist and short story writer
• Mary Jo Salter - poet and a coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry
• Bapsi Sidhwa - novelist
• Paul Smyth - poet
• Genevieve Taggard - poet
• Peter Viereck - 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Terror and Decorum and professor of Russian History
• Richard Weber - Irish poet; visiting lecturer from 1967 to 1970
• Douglas Whynott - author

  Education

• Robert Hess - President of Brooklyn College
• Mary Lyon - founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837
• Beverly Daniel Tatum - president of Spelman College

  Historians

• Michael Burns
• Joseph Ellis
• Robert Matteson Johnston
• Stephen F. Jones
• William S. McFeely
• Nellie Neilson
• Bertha Putnam
• Annah May Soule

  Humanities

• Christopher Benfey - professor of English
• Peter Berek - professor of English
• Marion Elizabeth Blake - classics professor
• F.W.Brownlow - professor of English
• Gordon Keith Chalmers - professor of English
• Carolyn Collette - professor of English
• Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze - philosopher
• Leah Blatt Glasser - Dean of First-Year Studies and Lecturer in English
• Mary McHenry - professor of English
• Indira Viswanathan Peterson - professor of Asian Studies
• William H. Quillian - professor of English
• Jean Wahl - philosopher
• Donald Weber - professor of English

  Journalists

• Todd Brewster - journalist, author, film producer, and current Senior Visiting Lecturer in Journalism

  Politics

• Shirley Chisholm - U.S. Representative, 1968–1983, founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and simultaneously the first woman and the first African-American to run for U.S. President
• Jean Grossholtz - professor emeritus of politics; bodybuilder who won a silver medal at the 1994 Gay Games
• W. Anthony Lake - U.S. National Security Advisor, 1993–1997
• Christopher Pyle - professor of politics, journalist and whistleblower
• Margaret Rotundo - Maine State Legislator
• Cyrus Vance - U.S. Secretary of State, 1977–1980

  Sciences and social sciences

• A. Elizabeth Adams - zoologist
• Mildred Allen - physicist
• Susan R. Barry - neurobiologist
• John Bissell Carroll - psychologist
• Cornelia Clapp - zoologist and marine biologist
• Janet Wilder Dakin - zoologist who was the youngest sister of Thornton Wilder and Charlotte Wilder
• Anna J. Harrison - professor of chemistry
• Olive Hazlett- mathematician
• Flora Belle Ludington - librarian
• Mark McMenamin - paleontologist and geologist, winner of the Presidential Young Investigator Award
• Ann Haven Morgan - zoologist
• Lucy Taxis Shoe Meritt, classical archaeologist and a scholar of Greek architectural ornamentation and mouldings
• Becky Wai-Ling Packard - winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
• Lucy Weston Pickett - chemist
• Caroline Louise Ransom, Egyptologist
• Ellen P. Reese, 1948 - psychologist
• Lydia White Shattuck - botanist
• Mignon Talbot - professor of Geology and Geography, who recovered the only fossils of the dinosaur Podokesaurus holyokensis
• Abby Howe Turner - founded Mount Holyoke's department of physiology
• Esther Boise Van Deman - archeologist
• Anne Sewell Young - astronomer, director of the John Payson Williston Observatory
• Antoni Zygmund - mathematician who exerted a major influence on 20th-century mathematics

  Actors

• Michael Burns - Moondoggie in Gidget Gets Married, 1972

  Accused Murderer

• Rie Hachiyanagi -- Former professor suspected of intent to murder a faculty member.

  Presidents

• 1837-1849: Mary Lyon, 1st President
• 1849-1850: Mary C. Whitman, 2nd President
• 1850-1865: Mary W. Chapin, 3rd President
• 1865-1867: Sophia D. Stoddard 4th President
• 1867-1872: Helen M. French, 5th President
• 1872-1883: Julia E. Ward, 6th President
• 1883-1889 Elizabeth Blanchard, 7th President
• 1889: Mary A. Brigham, 8th President
• 1889-1890: Louisa F. Cowles, 9th President
• 1890-1900: Elizabeth Storrs Mead, 10th President
• 1900-1937: Mary Emma Woolley, 11th President
• 1937-1957: Roswell G. Ham, 12th President
• 1954: Meribeth E. Cameron, served as Acting President for part of 1954 while President Ham was on leave
• 1957-1968: Richard Glenn Gettell, 13th President
• 1966: Meribeth E. Cameron, served as Acting President part of 1966 while President Gettell was on leave
• 1968-1969: Meribeth E. Cameron, 14th President
• 1969-1978: David Truman, 15th President
• 1978-1995: Elizabeth Topham Kennan '60, 16th President
• 1984: Joseph Ellis, served as Acting President for part of 1984 while President Kennan was on leave
• 1995: Peter Berek, served as interim president in Fall 1995
• 1996-2010: Joanne V. Creighton, 17th President
• 2002: Beverly Daniel Tatum, served as Acting President for part of 2002 while President Creighton was on leave
• 2010–2016: Lynn Pasquerella '80, 18th President
• 2016–present: Sonya Stephens, 19th President

  Commencement speakers