List of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute people
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This is a list of people associated with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, including Presidents, Institute leaders, Trustees, Alumni, Professors and Researchers. For a list of the highest elected student leaders at RPI see List of RPI Grand Marshals.
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Presidents of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
| Name | Years | Previous Position |
|---|---|---|
| Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford | (1824–1828) | Pastor of the Lansingburgh and Waterford Church |
| John Chester | (1828–1829) | Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Albany |
| Eliphalet Nott | (1829–1845) | Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Albany |
| Nathan S.S. Beman | (1845–1865) | Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Troy |
| John F. Winslow | (1865–1868) | Businessman and iron manufacturer |
| Thomas C. Brinsmade | 1868 | Troy physician |
| James Forsyth | (1868–1886) | Attorney and banker |
| William Gurley, 1839 | (1886–1887) (acting) | Businessman, co-founder of Gurley Precision Instruments |
| Albert E. Powers | (1887–1888) (acting) | Banker |
| John H. Peck | (1888–1901) | Attorney and judge |
| Palmer C. Ricketts | (1901–1934) | Professor of rational and technical mechanics and academic director of RPI |
| William O. Hotchkiss | (1935–1943) | President of the Michigan Mining School |
| Livingston W. Houston, 1913 | (1943–1958) | President and board chairman of the Ludlow Valve Manufacturing Co. and treasurer of RPI |
| Richard G. Folsom | (1958–1971) | Director of the Engineering Research Institute at the University of Michigan |
| Richard J. Grosh | (1971–1976) | Dean of the Schools of Engineering at Purdue University |
| George M. Low, 1948 | (1976–1984) | Deputy administrator of NASA |
| Daniel Berg | (1984–1985)(acting) (1985–1987) | Vice-President and Provost of RPI |
| Stanley I. Landgraf, 1946 | (1988–1988)(acting) | Chairman of Mohasco Corporation |
| Roland W. Schmitt | (1988–1993) | Senior vice president for science and technology for General Electric Co. |
| R. Byron Pipes | (1993–1998) | Provost and professor of engineering at the University of Delaware |
| Cornelius J. Barton, 1958 | (1998–1999)(acting) | CEO of Dorr-Oliver Incorporated, a chemical engineering firm |
| Shirley Ann Jackson | (1999–) | Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission |
Notable alumni
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Business
- John J. Albright (1868), businessman and philanthropist
- Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.com
- Gary Burrell, founder of Garmin
- Nicholas M. Donofrio (1967), director of research at IBM, trustee
- Joseph Gerber (1947), founder of Gerber Scientific[1]
- William Gurley (1839), and Lewis E. Gurley, brothers and founders of Gurley Precision Instruments.
- J. Erik Jonsson (1922), co-founder and former president of Texas Instruments Incorporated, and mayor of Dallas
- John M. Lockhart (1887), industrialist, donated $5 million under the name "Builder" (for the Class of '87 Gym and four other buildings)[2]
- William Mow (1959), founded apparel maker Bugle Boy in 1977.
- Sean O’Sullivan (1985), along with three other RPI students (Laszlo Bardos, Andrew Dressel, and John Haller), founded MapInfo on the RPI campus
- Curtis Priem (1982), NVIDIA co-founder; architect of the first PC video processor and many that followed; trustee
- John Rigas, co-founder of Adelphia Communications
- Sheldon Roberts (1948), member of the "traitorous eight" who created Silicon Valley; co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Amelco
- Bert Sutherland, manager of Sun Microsystems laboratories
- William H. Wiley (1866), Civil War artillery commander, co-founder of publisher John Wiley and Sons, and US State Representative
- Edward Zander, former CEO of Motorola
Humanities, arts, and social sciences
- Charles Amos Cummings, architect and historian
- Bobby Farrelly, film director, writer and producer, Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, There's Something About Mary
- Fitzedward Hall (1901), Orientalist
- David Hayter, Canadian voice actor
- Ned Herrmann, creator of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument
- Erin Hoffman, game designer and author
- James Flaherty, actor and stand-up comedian
- Tyler Hinman (2006), multiple winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament[3]
- Joe Howard, Jr. (1857), reporter and war correspondent
- Jennifer & Kevin McCoy (1994), artists who both graduated from RPI[4]
- Meera Nanda, writer, philosopher of science, and faculty Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
- Mary Pride (1974), Christian author
- Samuel Wells Williams, 19th century linguist
Invention and engineering
- Truman H. Aldrich (1869), civil engineer, also briefly a US State Representative
- Garnet Baltimore (1881), engineer and Garnet D. Baltimore Lecture Series honoree
- Peter Bohlin 1958, architect of the famous 5th Avenue Apple Store
- Virgil Bogue (1868), chief engineer of Union Pacific Railroad and Western Maryland Railway constructions
- Leffert L. Buck (1968), civil engineer and a pioneer in the use of steel arch bridge structures, including the Williamsburg Bridge in NYC
- Alexander Cassatt (1859), civil engineer and railroad executive
- George Hammell Cook (1839), state geologist of New Jersey
- Dr. Allen B. Dumont (1924), perfected the cathode ray tube; the "father of modern TV"
- Theodore N. Ely (1896), railroad executive
- George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1881), inventor of the Ferris wheel
- Frederick Grinnell (1855), inventor of the modern fire sprinkler
- Walter Lincoln Hawkins (1931), African American inventor of plastic telephone wire
- Beatrice Hicks (1965), co-founder of Society of Women Engineers
- Marcian Hoff (1958), "father of the microprocessor"
- J. Christopher Jaffe (1949), leader in architectural acoustic design; taught acoustics at the Juilliard School, City University of New York, and Rensselaer
- Theodore Judah (1837), visionary of the transcontinental railroad
- Robert Loewy (1947), aeronautical engineer
- William Metcalf (1858), steel manufacturing pioneer
- Keith D. Millis (1938), metallurgical engineer and inventor of ductile iron
- Ralph Peck (1937), geotechnical engineer
- Emil H. Praeger (1915), designer of Shea and Dodger Stadiums, Tappan Zee Bridge, Arecibo Telescope and a renovation of the White House[5]
- George Brooke Roberts (1849), civil engineer, 5th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad
- Washington Roebling (1857), chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge
- James Salisbury (1844), physician and inventor of the Salisbury Steak
- Steven Sasson (1973), engineer and inventor of the digital camera
- Raymond Tomlinson (1963), inventor of the email system
- David L. Noble (1940), inventor of the floppy disk
- Alan M. Voorhees (1947), city planner and traffic forecaster; former Rensselaer trustee; principal supporter for the Voorhees Computing Center at Rensselaer
- John Alexander Low Waddell (1871), civil engineer and prolific bridge builder
- Robert H. Widmer (1938), aeronautical engineer and designer of the B-58 supersonic bomber[6][7]
- John F. Schenck (1961), physician and co-inventor of the first clinically viable high-field MRI scanner at General Electric[8]
Military
- Harold J. Greene (1980), major general, U.S. Army, highest ranking casualty of War in Afghanistan
- Arthur L. McCullough, US Air Force general
- Ario Pardee, Jr. (1858), commander during the civil war
- L. Scott Rice (1980), major general, U.S. Air Force; commander of Massachusetts Air National Guard
- Thomas R. Sargent III, vice admiral, U.S. Coast Guard; Vice Commandant 1970-1974
- Walter L. Sharp, General, US Army; Commander of United Nations Command, Commander of ROK-US Combined Forces Command and Commander of U.S. Forces Korea (2008-2011); former Director of the Joint Staff (2005-2008)
- Arthur E. Williams, lieutenant general, US Army Corps of Engineers; Chief of Engineers in 1992
- Ronald J. Zlatoper (1963), Chief of Naval Personnel; Battle Group Commander in Desert Storm and Desert Shield; former Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense; trustee
Politics and public service
- J. Frank Aldrich (1877), United States Representative from Illinois
- Truman H. Aldrich (1869), United States Representative from Alabama (1896–1897)
- Myles Brand (1964), president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
- George R. Dennis, United States Senator from Maryland
- Francis Collier Draper (1854), Toronto lawyer, Toronto Police Chief
- Thomas Farrell (1912), Deputy Commanding General of the Manhattan Project
- Nariman Farvardin (1983), Provost of the University of Maryland
- Lincoln D. Faurer (1964), director of the National Security Agency and chief, Central Security Service, 1981-1985
- Richard Franchot US Representative from New York (1861–1863)
- Arthur J. Gajarsa (1962), federal judge, trustee
- Naeem Gheriany, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Libya
- Thomas J. Haas (1983), current president of Grand Valley State University[9]
- John Hammond, US Representative from New York, iron manufacturer[10]
- Walter F. Lineberger, US State Representative of California, 1917-1921
- Richard Linn (1965), federal judge
- George Low, manager of NASA's Apollo 11 project; President of RPI (1976-1984); namesake of RPI's Low Center for Industrial Innovation
- Hani Al-Mulki (MA, PhD) Prime Minister of Jordan
- John Olver (1958), Massachusetts State Representative (D) since 1991
- Ely S. Parker, Civil War statesman, author of Appomattox Courthouse agreement
- Clarkson Nott Potter (1843), US Representative from New York, surveyor, lawyer, and President of the American Bar Association[11]
- G. Nagesh Rao (2002), Chief Technologist & Entrepreneur in Residence at US Small Business Administration & 2016 USA Eisenhower Fellow, 2013–Present
- Mark Shepard (1994), Vermont State Senator
- Clement Hall Sinnickson, US State Representative from New Jersey, 1875-1879
- Peter G. Ten Eyck, New York State Representative
- Tony Tether (1964), director of DARPA, 2001–2009
- W. Aubrey Thomas, US State Representative from Ohio, 1900-1911
- De Volson Wood (1857), first president of the American Society for Engineering Education[12]
Science and technology
- David Adler (1956), physicist
- Don L. Anderson (1955), geophysicist
- James Curtis Booth (1832), chemist
- Ronald Collé (1972), nuclear physicist at NIST
- George Hammell Cook (1839), state geologist of New Jersey
- Edgar Cortright (1949), former NASA official
- Mark Jason Dominus, Perl programmer, founder of Kibology (Kibo was also a graduate)
- Ebenezer Emmons (1826), geologist, author of Natural History of New York (1848) and American Geology
- Asa Fitch (1827), entomologist
- Alan Fowler (1951), physicist, NAS member
- Claire M. Fraser (1977), President and Director of The Institute for Genomic Research
- Jeffrey M. Friedman, discovered leptin, a key hormone in the area of human obesity
- Ivar Giaever (1964), shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries on tunneling phenomena in semiconductors; Institute Professor of Science
- Morton Gurtin (1955), mathematical physicist
- James Hall (1832), geologist and paleontologist
- Jon Hall (1977), Executive Director of Linux International
- Peter E. Hart, group senior vice president of the Ricoh company; artificial intelligence innovator
- Edward C. Harwood, economist
- Hermann A. Haus (1951), optical communications researcher, pioneer of quantum optics
- Eben Norton Horsford (1838), "father of food science" and author, discovered baking powder
- Douglass Houghton (1829), Michigan's first state geologist; namesake of a Michigan city, county, and lake
- Robert Kennicutt (1973), astronomer
- Richard Klein (1966), astronomer
- David Korn (1965), computer programmer who created the Korn Shell
- Richard Mastracchio (1987), NASA astronaut, flew on STS-106 Atlantis, 2000
- Mark T. Maybury, Chief Scientist of US Air Force
- Pat Munday (1981), environmentalist
- Heidi Jo Newberg (1987), professor of astrophysics at RPI
- James "Kibo" Parry, satirist, Usenet personality, and typeface designer
- Henry Augustus Rowland (1870), first president of the American Physical Society; Johns Hopkins University's first physics professor
- Mark Russinovich, Windows software engineer
- Peter Schwartz, futurist and writer
- Robert C. Seacord, computer security specialist and author
- Kip Siegel (1948), physicist, professor of physics at the University of Michigan
- Andrew Sears, computer science professor at UMBC
- Marlan Scully, physcist known for work in quantum optics
- George Soper (1895), managing director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, later the American Cancer Society
- Chauncey Starr (1935), pioneer in nuclear energy
- John L. Swigert Jr. (1965), astronaut, member of Apollo 13; recipient of 1970 Presidential Medal of Freedom; State Representative for Colorado, 1982
- Dennis Tito (1964), millionaire and the first space tourist to pay for his own ticket
- Michael Tuomey (1835), state geologist of South Carolina and Alabama
- Chris Welty (1995), computer scientist
- Gregory R. Wiseman, NASA astronaut
- Chris Wysopal, also known as Weld Pond (1987), member of the hacker think tank L0pht Heavy Industries, founder of Veracode
Sports
- John Carter (1986), NHL forward 1986–1993
- Kevin Constantine (1980), Head Coach of Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League; NHL Head Coach of the San Jose Sharks 1993–1995, the Pittsburgh Penguins 1997–2000, and the New Jersey Devils 2001–2002; recipient of USA Hockey's Distinguished Achievement Award
- Erin Crocker (2003), NASCAR driver
- Don Cutts (1974), NHL and International Hockey League (1945–2001) goaltender 1974–1984
- Andrew Franks (2014), NFL placekicker for the Miami Dolphins since 2015.
- Tim Friday (1985), NHL defenseman for the Detroit Red Wings 1985–1986
- Ken Hammond (1985), NHL defenseman 1985–1993
- Michael E. Herman (1962), President of the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball 1992–2000
- Joé Juneau (1991), NHL forward 1991–2004, selected to the 1993 NHL All-Rookie Team, top scorer at the 1992 Winter Olympics while playing for the Canadian Olympic hockey team
- Jason Kasdorf (2016), NHL goalie for the Buffalo Sabres since 2016.
- Neil Little (1994), NHL Scout for the Philadelphia Flyers organization; Goaltending Coach for the Philadelphia Phantoms of the American Hockey League 2007–2008; AHL goaltender 1994–2005; won the '97-98 and '04-05 Calder Cup with the Philadelphia Phantoms; inducted into the Philadelphia Phantoms Hall of Fame in 2006
- Andrew Lord (2008), professional ice hockey player
- Mike McPhee (1982), NHL forward 1983–1994; won the '85-86 Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens; played in the 1989 NHL All Star Game
- Matt Murley (2002), NHL forward 2003–2008
- Kraig Nienhuis (1985), NHL forward 1985–1988
- Adam Oates (1985), Co-Head Coach of the New Jersey Devils; Head Coach of the Washington Capitals 2012-2014; Assistant Coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning 2009–2010 and the New Jersey Devils 2010–2012; NHL forward 1985–2004; played in the 1991-1994 and 1997 NHL All Star Games; inducted into the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 2012
- Matt Patricia (1996), Defensive Coordinator for the New England Patriots
- Brian Pothier (2000), NHL defenseman 2000–2010
- Daren Puppa (1985), NHL goaltender 1985–2000, played in the 1990 NHL All Star Game
- Brad Tapper (2000), NHL forward for the Atlanta Thrashers 2000–2003
- Graeme Townshend (1989), Player Development Coordinator for the San Jose Sharks, NHL forward 1990–1994
Faculty
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Past
- Sharon Anderson-Gold : Science and Technology Studies
- Bimal Kumar Bose (1971–1976) : Electrical Engineering
- George Hammell Cook (1842–1846) : senior professor, Geology
- Amos Eaton (1824–1842) : first professor, Geology
- Michael James Gaffey (1984–2001) : planetary science
- Sorab K. Ghandhi (1963–1992), Electronic Materials, Microelectronics
- Benjamin Franklin Greene (1846–1859) : third senior professor and first director of RPI
- James Hall (1833–1850) : Geology and Chemistry
- Granville Hicks (1929–1935) : English
- Matthew A. Hunter : Metallurgy, first to isolate titanium metal
- Annette Kolodny : English
- Matthew Koss (1990–2000): Physics
- Edith Hirsch Luchins, : Mathematics
- James D. Meindl (1986–1993) : Microelectronics
- Henry Bradford Nason : Chemistry
- E. Bruce Nauman (1981–2009) : Chemical Engineering
- Robert Resnick (1956–1993): Physics
- George Rickey : Architecture
- Neil Rolnick : Music, founder of iEAR
- Henry Augustus Rowland (1870?-1876) : Physics
- Lee Segel (1960–1973) : Mathematics
- Stephen Van Rensselaer : founder of the institute
- Robert H. Wentorf, Jr. : Chemical Engineering
Current
- Robert A. Baron : Psychology
- Laura K. Boyer : Science and Technology Studies
- Curt M. Breneman: Cheminformatics & Materials Informatics, Dean of Science
- Selmer Bringsjord : Artificial Intelligence, Logic
- Linnda R. Caporael : Science and Technology Studies
- Jonathan Dordick : Biochemical Engineering
- Evan Douglis: Architecture
- Faye Duchin : Economics
- Ron Eglash : Science and Technology Studies
- Peter Fox : Earth and Environmental Science, Computer Science, Cognitive Science
- Ivar Giaever : Physics Professor Emeritus
- Wayne D. Gray : Cognitive Science
- James Hendler : Computer Science
- Nikhil Koratkar : Nanotechnology
- Robert J. Linhardt : Bioengineering
- Deborah McGuinness : Computer Science
- Don Millard : Electrical Engineering, Electronic Media
- David Musser : Computer Science
- Leik Myrabo : Spacecraft Propulsion
- Satish Nambisan : Management
- Heidi Jo Newberg : Astrophysics
- Gina O'Connor : Business
- Pauline Oliveros : Music
- Sal Restivo : Science and Technology Studies
- David Rosowsky : Civil Engineering
- Michael Shur : Semiconductor Electronics
- Ron Sun : Cognitive Science
- Boleslaw Szymanski : Computer Science
- Jeff Trinkle : Computer Science
- William A. Wallace : Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems
- Langdon Winner : Science and Technology Studies
- Houman Younessi : Systems Engineering (Hartford)
- George Xu : Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear
- Xi-Cheng Zhang : Physics and Terahertz Technology
Rreferences
- ↑ http://www.rpi.edu/about/hof/gerber.html
- ↑ "J.M. Lockhart Gave R.P.I. Millions Anonymously", New York Times, June 8, 1939
- ↑ http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1630&setappvar=page(1)
- ↑ http://www.postmastersart.com/archive/mccoy06/mccoy06_bio.pdf
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- ↑ http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/news/newsletter/ewp_fall06.pdf
- ↑ http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000129
- ↑ http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000461
- ↑ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9890%28189509%2F10%292%3A9%2F10%3C253%3ABDVW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
