Notable Alumni

Google employee #23, inventor of Gmail and now an angel investor.

Credited with suggesting Google's now-famous motto, “Don't be evil.”

Academy Award-winning inventor.

National Academy of Engineering member and recipient of an Academy Award of Merit for innovations that led to the transformation of movies from film to digital technology.

Energy engineer and entrepreneur.

Founder and CEO of FGC Plasma Solutions who was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list and honored by President Barack Obama as an emerging global entrepreneur.

Developer of the first commercially available full-body CAT scan.

An engineer who had more than 100 patents and played a role in at least 1,000 new or updated inventions.

Engineer and inventor who held more than 250 patents.

Revolutionized the athletic footwear industry with his creation of the Nike Air Sole.

Physician, scientist and entrepreneur.

Creator of the first antivirus software, Vaccine, which later became Norton AntiVirus.

Civil rights icon and attorney.

Worked with Martin Luther King Jr., defended Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin in landmark civil-rights cases, and successfully represented plaintiffs against the U.S. government in the Tuskegee Experiment lawsuit.

Ohio's first Black congresswoman.

Prior to that election, was Ohio's first Black woman common pleas judge and county prosecutor.

Ohio's first Black Congressman.

Years after taking classes at Western Reserve's Cleveland College, Stokes served 15 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the east side of Cleveland, and later was a visiting professor at Case Western Reserve.

Tony- and Drama Desk-nominated actress.

First Tony nominee from the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program for her performance in Once.

Actress, screenwriter and director.

Credits her time studying abroad during college (as an engineering major) for inspiring her passion for theater; she's featured in Awkward Black Girl and Insecure and wrote and directed her own film, Definition Please.

Former chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Longtime executive at Warner Bros. Entertainment, serving as chairman and chief executive officer from 1999-2013.

Author of best-selling mystery novels Dark Lady and Silent Witness, among many others.

Trial attorney who was the Securities & Exchange Commission's liaison to the Watergate Special Prosecutor.

Award-winning and box-office-record-breaking directors and producers who worked on their first film, Pieces, while graduate students at Case Western Reserve.

Helmed Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: Civil War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and numerous other movies and television shows, filming scenes occasionally at CWRU and in Cleveland.

Television, film and theater actor.

Held prominent roles in films and TV shows such as Mad Men, The Devil Wears Prada and GLOW.

Television Actor

Television, film and Broadway actor best known for his portrayal of Tom Willis in the long-running series The Jeffersons, which offered one of the first depictions of an interracial marriage on television.

Seven-time Emmy-Award-winning television executive

Former president of Westinghouse Broadcasting who helped make Oprah Winfrey a household name, led New York Public Television in its golden age and launched the Discovery and Disney cable channels.

1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner alongside Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger.

A biochemist whose research brought greater understanding of recombinant DNA.

1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine co-winner.

A physician whose work revealed how nitric oxide acts as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.

2004 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences co-winner.

An economist recognized for his work in the field of macroeconomics.

2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences winner.

Recognized for his pioneering work in behavioral economics (and his appearance in the Academy Award-winning film The Big Short), Thaler is also the author of Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015).

1955 Nobel Prize in Physics co-winner

A physicist recognized for precisely measuring the magnetic moment of the electron, leading to new insights in the quantum theory of electromagnetism.

1960 Nobel Prize in Physics winner

A physicist renowned for his invention of the bubble chamber, which detects the motion of electrically charged particles through a liquid and makes their paths visible as lines of bubbles.

Founder of Dow Chemical Co.

A prolific inventor of chemical compounds, processes and products, and a successful businessman.

Television anchor and business journalist.

A contributor for Nightly Business Report, Forbes and other publications, and the recipient of the New York Financial Writers' Elliott V. Bell Award for exemplary contributions to the field.

Creator (and namesake) of Craigslist.

After transforming how people do business on the internet, he's now a philanthropist who supports efforts such as increasing women in STEM, including here at CWRU.

Co-founder and CEO of KiwiCo.

In 2011, launched a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) subscription box service for children that later soared amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artist and entrepreneur.

Co-founder and chief brand officer of Numi Organic Tea, the largest brand purchaser of Fair Trade Certified teas in the U.S., whose artwork inspires the company's packaging and vision.

Entrepreneurs whose startup sold for $540M in 2019.

On a mission to modernize procurement, they started Scout RFP, a company that is now part of Workday; some of their entrepreneurial roots started at CWRU with a web development business.

Surgeon and one of the four founders of Cleveland Clinic.

A graduate of Wooster Medical College, which later merged to form Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Crile is the first surgeon to have succeeded in a direct blood transfusion.

First woman director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2002-2009).

Former Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Pioneering researcher in women's health.

Led the National Institutes of Health's landmark Women's Health Initiative involving 164,000 women, and whose work helped establish that men's and women's reactions to diseases and drugs may be different.

Former Detroit Lions player and college football coach.

His son, the multi-Super-Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick, donated to name the CWRU Wyant Center's weight room in his father's honor.

The National Football League's winningest head coach.

Chalked up 347 career victories, including two Super Bowl titles, and led the Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in NFL history.

Coach for a Boston Red Sox Minor League team.

The first Black woman to coach in professional baseball—and the first director of baseball operations for CWRU's Spartan baseball team.