Nobel laureates Award affiliations taken from
Alumni (2019) There are more than 1,262 alumni. •
David Albert, physicist and philosopher •
David Baltimore, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase. Has served as president of both the Rockefeller University and the
California Institute of Technology. •
Michael Bratman, Durfee Professor of philosophy at
Stanford University. •
Gerald Edelman, recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. •
Barbara Ehrenreich, social commentator and author of the 2001 book
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. •
Alice F. Healy, psychologist, College Professor of Distinction at the University of Colorado Boulder •
Roy S. Herbst, oncologist, lung cancer researcher, and academic,
Yale Cancer Center and
Yale School of Medicine •
Bertil Hille, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the
University of Washington,
Lasker Award winner who specializes in cell signaling by ion channels, neurotransmitters and hormones. •
Mandë Holford, Professor in Chemistry at
Hunter College with appointments at the
American Museum of Natural History and
Weill Cornell Medical College •
Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Aristotle and psychoanalysis. •
Erich Jarvis, HHMI Investigator and head of the Neurogenetics of Language Laboratory at Rockefeller University. •
Seth Lloyd, physicist •
Harvey Lodish, professor of biology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Founding Member of the
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research •
Kiran Musunuru, professor of medicine at the
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founder of
Verve Therapeutics, recipient of the
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers •
Nina Papavasiliou, Helmholtz Professor in the Division of Immune Diversity at the
German Cancer Research Center •
Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, Colombian pathologist who made the world's first attempt of synthetic vaccine for malaria. Recipient of Prince of Asturias Award in 1994. •
Vanessa Ruta, Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Behavior at Rockefeller University. •
Robert Sapolsky, Stanford professor,
MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient, and writer of numerous books on stress and natural history. •
Amos Smith, Rhodes-Thompson professor of chemistry at the
University of Pennsylvania •
Leslie B. Vosshall, HHMI Investigator and the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor of Neurogenetics and Behavior at The Rockefeller University. •
Richard Wolfenden, professor of chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill •
Gian-Paolo Dotto, professor and researcher, cancer domain. •
Martin Yarmush, Paul and Mary Monroe Chair and Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at
Rutgers University and founding director of the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the
Massachusetts General Hospital, Member of US National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors
Individual affiliates , New York, NY, 2021 Notable figures to emerge from the institution include
Alexis Carrel,
Peyton Rous,
Hideyo Noguchi,
Thomas Milton Rivers,
Richard Shope,
Thomas Francis Jr,
Oswald T. Avery,
Frederick Griffith,
Colin MacLeod,
Maclyn McCarty,
Rebecca Lancefield,
Wendell Meredith Stanley,
René Dubos,
Ashton Carter, and
Cornelius P. Rhoads. Others attained eminence before being drawn to the university.
Joshua Lederberg, who won the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958, served as president of the university from 1978 to 1990.
Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001, was president from 2003 to 2010. (Before Nurse's tenure,
Thomas Sakmar was acting-president from 2002.)
Barry Coller, who invented the
Abciximab, currently serves as the vice president for medical affairs. In all, as of October 2020, 38 Nobel Prize recipients have been associated with the university. In the mid-1970s, the university attracted a few prominent academicians in the humanities, such as
Saul Kripke. ==Controversy==