List of Drexel University alumni

Drexel University is a private university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The 16th largest private university in the nation,^[1] Drexel is made up of nine colleges and four schools,^[2] most of which serve both undergraduate and graduate students. It offers 96 undergraduate degree programs, 88 master's programs, and 35 doctoral programs.^[3] Drexel was founded as a technical school in 1891 for the "improvement of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young men and women."^[4] Drexel began awarding undergraduate degrees in 1914, starting with the Bachelor of Science in engineering; before that, Drexel granted certificates or diplomas in the field of enrollment. In 1931, Drexel began offering graduate degrees through the School of Home Economics.^[5]

The 1916 class of senior chemist students were among the first graduates to earn a bachelor's degree.

Since its founding the university has graduated over 100,000 alumni.^[6] Certificate-earning alumni such as artist Violet Oakley and illustrator Frank Schoonover reflect the early emphasis on art as part of the university's curriculum.^[7] With World War II, the university's technical programs swelled, and as a result Drexel graduated alumni such as Paul Baran, one of the founding fathers of the Internet and one of the inventors of the packet switching network, and Norman Joseph Woodland the inventor of barcode technology.^[8] In addition to its emphasis on technology Drexel has graduated several notable athletes such as National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball players Michael Anderson and Malik Rose, and several notable business people such as Raj Gupta, former president and chief executive officer of Rohm and Haas, and Nicholas Schorsch, chief executive officer of VEREIT, and Nicholas Howley, founder and chairman of TransDigm Group.^[9]

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Notable alumni

• A "—" indicates that the information is unknown.

Degree abbreviations

• Cert – Certificate
• BS – Bachelor of Science
• Postgraduate degrees:

• MA – Master of Arts
• MBA – Master of Business Administration
• MD – Doctor of Medicine
• MS – Master of Science
• PhD – Doctor of Philosophy

Business

Michael Baum, class of 1985

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Ramani Ayer	1973	PhD	Former CEO of The Hartford Financial Services	[10][11]
Michael Baum	1985	BS	Founder and CEO of Splunk and Founder.org; former VP of e-Commerce at Yahoo! and The Walt Disney Company	[12]
Albert Boscov	1952	BS	Former CEO of Boscov's	[13][14]
Douglas Briggs	1970	BS	Former president and CEO of QVC	[15]
John C. Browne	1965	BS	Former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory	[16]
Kenneth C. Dahlberg	1967	BS	Former CEO of SAIC and previously Executive Vice President of General Dynamics	[17]
Dana Dornsife	1983	BS	CEO of Lazarex Cancer Foundation	[18]
Elaine Garzarelli	1969 1977	BS MBA	Financial analyst credited with predicting Black Monday, the stock market crash of 1987	[19]
Wayne Gattinella	1976	BS	Former CEO of WebMD	[20]
Phil Gallagher	1982	BS	CEO of Avnet	[21]
Yakir Gola	2015	BS	Co-founder of Gopuff	[22]
Christopher Gray	2015	BS	Founder and CEO of Scholly	[23]
Raj Gupta	1972	MBA	Former president and CEO of Rohm and Haas	[24]
Nicholas Howley	1975	BS	Founder and executive chairman of TransDigm Group	[25][26]
Michael J. Hennigan	1982	BS	CEO of Marathon Petroleum	[27]
Rafael Ilishayev	2015	BS	Co-founder of Gopuff	[22]
Jeffrey L. Johnson	1967	BS	Former president of North American operations for Philips	[28]
Bijan Khosrowshahi	1983 1986	BS MBA	Former president and CEO of Fuji Fire and Marine Insurance	[29][30]
Bennett S. LeBow	1960	BS	Former CEO and chairman of the board of Borders and Chairman of the Board of Vector Group	[31]
Earl Lestz	1961	BS	Former president of operations for Paramount Studios	[32]
Raaja Kanwar	1993	BS	Co-founder of UFO Moviez	[33]
Richelle Parham	1991	BS	Former vice president and chief marketing officer of eBay	[34]
Dorcas Bates Reilly	1947	BS	Invented the green bean casserole while working as a staff member in the home economics department of the Campbell Soup Company	[35]
Harold Shaub	1939	BS	Former CEO of Campbell Soup Company	[36]
Toots Shor	1955	BS	Renowned saloon keeper in New York City	[37]
Nicholas Schorsch	—	—	CEO and co-founder of VEREIT	[38]
Anne L. Stevens	1980	BS	Non-executive director at Anglo American plc, former CEO of GKN Aerospace	[39]
Richard J. Tobin	—	MBA	CEO of Dover Corporation, director of KeyCorp	[40][41]
Inhyok Cha	2008	MBA	Former vice president of Samsung SDS	[42]
Christina Visco	-	-	CEO of TerraLeaf, entrepreneur and businesswomen in the Cannabis Industry	[43]

Humanities

Architects

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Juan M. Arellano	1911	Cert	Filipino architect who designed the Manila Metropolitan Theater	[44][45]
Douglas Ellington	1912	Cert	Architect known for his work in the Art Deco style; first American to win the Rougevin prize	[45][46]
William Sidney Pittman	1900	Cert	Architect who designed notable buildings in Washington, D.C. and Texas	[47]
Rudolph Weaver	1905 1919	Cert BS	Architect; founding dean of three architecture schools; official architect for two universities and one state system of three universities	[45]

Arts and entertainment

Violet Oakley, class of 1948

Jack Wall, class of 1986

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Chuck Barris	1953	BS	Entertainer; creator of The Gong Show	[48]
Louise Heims Beck	1911	BS	Vaudeville performer, theatre manager, librarian, co-founder and chairman of the American Theatre Wing, chairman of the Actors' Fund of America (1960-1978), and head organizer of the 1st Tony Awards	[49]
Howard Benson	1980	BS	Grammy Award-winning music producer	[50]
Jake Ewald	2016	BS	Guitarist and vocalist; member of Modern Baseball and Slaughter Beach, Dog	[51]
Ian Farmer	2016	BS	Bassist and vocalist; member of Modern Baseball	[51]
Sean Huber	2015	BS	Guitarist, drummer, and vocalist; member of Modern Baseball and Steady Hands
David Kresh	1966	MS	Poet and reference specialist at the Library of Congress	[52]
Elizabeth McCracken	1997	MS	Author of Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry and professor of creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin	[53]
Caitlyn McGonigal	2021	BS	Photographer, founder of Ascribe Magazine, and youngest entry into Drexel's 40 Under 40
Chris McKendry	1990	BS	ESPN anchor and journalist	[54]
Katherine McNamara	2013	BS	Actress, best known for her role as Clary Fray in Shadowhunters	[55]
Pat Munday	1978	BS	Author, professor, and environmentalist	[56][57]
Violet Oakley	1948	—	Artist; first woman to receive the Gold Medal of Honor from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts	[58]
Maxfield Parrish	1895	Cert	Early twentieth century artist whose works included illustrating Mother Goose in Prose and Collier's Weekly	[59]
Meinhardt Raabe	1970	MBA	Actor, known for his role as the Munchkin coroner in The Wizard of Oz	[60]
Frank Schoonover	1900	Cert	Illustrator for Hopalong Cassidy stories as well as the book A Princess of Mars	[7][61]
Susan Seidelman	1973	BS	Filmmaker whose film Smithereens was the first American independent film invited to compete at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival	[62][63]
Cameron Snyder	1941	—	Sportswriter, Dick McCann Memorial Award winner	[64]
Sarah Stolfa	2005	BS	Photographer, won The New York Times Photography Contest for College Students in 2004	[65][66]
Corinne Trang	2003	BS	Award-winning author of several Asian-themed cookbooks	[67]
Jack Wall	1986	BS	Video game music composer	[68]
Stephen Ward	2003	BS	Host and executive producer of Tough Love	[69]
Stephen M. Wolownik	1989	MS	Pioneer in the Russian and Eastern European music community in the United States	[70]
Zircon (Andrew Aversa)	2009	MS	Founder and CEO of Impact Soundworks	[71][72]
Tom Fulp	2002	BS	Founder of Newgrounds	[73]

Education

George Campbell Jr., class of 1968

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Michael Behe	1974	BS	Biochemist, professor, leading proponent of intelligent design, and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture	[74]
Wiesław Binienda	1987	PhD	Professor and chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Akron	[75]
George Campbell Jr.	1968	BS	Former president of the Cooper Union	[76]
Albert Carnesale	1961	MS	Former chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles and former Provost of Harvard University	[77]
Robert Croneberger	1962	MS	Librarian, one of American Libraries' "100 of the Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century"	[78][79]
Eli Fromm	1962 1964	BS MS	Gordon Prize-winning research professor of engineering at Drexel University	[80]
Moshe Kam	1985 1987	MS PhD	49th president of IEEE and dean of the New Jersey Institute of Technology	[81]
Raphael Carl Lee	1975	MS	Professor at the University of Chicago, surgeon, and 1981 MacArthur Fellow	[82]
Peter J. Liacouras	1953	BS	Former president of Temple University	[83]
Celestino Pennoni	1963 1966	BS MS	Former interim president of Drexel University from 1994–1995 and 2009–2010	[84]
Alia Sabur	2006	MS	Child prodigy and Guinness World Record holder for "World's Youngest Professor"	[85]
Jiang Mianheng	1991	PhD	Former President of ShanghaiTech University and the Former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences	[86]
Elizabeth Gray Vining	1925	BS	Former tutor to Emperor Akihito of Japan	[87]

Medicine and health

The Drexel University College of Medicine retroactively considers graduates from all of the medical institutes that it has acquired to be alumni of the College of Medicine and Drexel University.^[88] This includes MCP Hahnemann University (1993–2002), Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1850–1993), and Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia (1848–1993).^[88]

DUCOM – Drexel University College of Medicine

HMC – Hahnemann Medical College

MCP – Medical College of Pennsylvania

WMCP – Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania

Matilda Evans, class of 1897

Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead, class of 1888

Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi, class of 1864

Susan La Flesche Picotte, class of 1889

Name	Grad year	Degree	College	Notability	Ref(s)
Annie Lowrie Alexander	1884	MD	WMCP	First licensed female physician in the Southern United States	[89]
Isaac Ambrose Barber	1872	MD	HMC	Physician and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland	[90]
Rose Mary Hatem Bonsack	1960	MD	MCP	Physician, former Maryland delegate for Harford County, Maryland	[91]
Myrtelle Canavan	1905	MD	WMCP	One of the first female pathologists; namesake of Canavan disease	[92]
LeRoy Carhart	1973	MD	HMC	Physician who participated in the Supreme Court cases Stenberg v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Carhart	[93]
Deni Carise	1993	PhD		Researcher in clinical psychology and psychiatry; consultant and public speaker	[94]
Rebecca Cole	1867	MD	WMCP	The second African American woman to become a physician in the United States	[95]
Matilda Evans	1897	MD	WMCP	First African American woman licensed to practice medicine in South Carolina	[96]
Nancy E. Gary	1962	MD	WMCP	Executive Vice President of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Dean of its F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine	[97]
Harold Griffith	1923	MD	HMC	Canadian anesthesiologist who introduced the use of ethylene and cyclopropane in anesthesiology	[98]
Stuart Hameroff	1973	MD	HMC	Professor at the University of Arizona known for his study of consciousness	[99]
Lillie Rosa Minoka Hill	1899	MD	WMCP	Second female Native American physician	[100]
Mady Hornig	1988	MD	MCP	Psychiatrist and associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University	[101]
Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead	1888	MD	WMCP	Obstetrician and author of A History of Women in Medicine: From the Earliest of Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century	[102]
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi	1864	MD	WMCP	First woman to become a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine	[103]
Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson	1891	MD	WMCP	First female African-American physician in Alabama	[104]
Anandi Gopal Joshi	1886	MD	WMCP	Second Indian female physician to earn a medical degree through training in Western medicine	[105][106]
Gurubai Karmarkar	1893	MD	WMCP	Medical Marathi Christian missionary in India	[107]
Kenneth S. Kosik	1976	MD	MCP	Author and researcher in neuroscience	[108]
Jennifer S. Lawton	1992	MD	DUCOM	Thoracic surgeon, professor, and researcher	[109]
Sandra Lee	1998	MD	MCP	Dermatologist also known as "Dr. Pimple Popper" who gained popularity for her YouTube channel	[110]
Gary K. Michelson	1975	MD	HMC	Spinal surgeon and inventor	[111]
Mary I. O'Connor	1985	MD	MCP	first director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Care at the Yale School of Medicine	[112]
Susan La Flesche Picotte	1889	MD	WMCP	First female Native American physician	[113]
Joseph H. Romig	1896	MD	HMC	Physician and one-term mayor of Anchorage, Alaska in 1937	[114][115]
Jameela Al Salman		Medicine residency	Hahnemann University	Associate professor	[116]
Ellis Reynolds Shipp	1883	MD	WMCP	One of the first female physicians in Utah	[117]
David Shulkin	1986	MD	MCP	Secretary of Veterans Affairs	[118]
J. Howard Swick	1906	MD	HMC	Physician and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania	[119]
Augustin Thompson	1867	MD	HMC	Physician and creator of Moxie	[120]
Walter Van Fleet	1880	MD	HMC	American horticulturist known for rose cultivars and as physiologist for the federal Department of Agriculture	[121]
Robert J. Wicks	1977	PhD	HMC	Clinical psychologist and author	[122]
Victoria Zdrok	1997 2003	MA PhD	DUCOM	Model and sex columnist	[123]

Politics and public service

Ruth Hale, Class of 1916

Victoria Napolitano, Class of 2010, with Drexel President John Fry and Alumni Board Chair Tony Noce

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Jack Agnew	—	—	United States Army private first class in World War II, a member of the Filthy Thirteen, whose exploits inspired the novel and film The Dirty Dozen	[124]
Gary R. Chiusano	1973	BS	New Jersey General Assembly assemblyman for the 24th legislative district	[125]
Ruth Hale	1916	—	Found for women's rights in 1920s; member of the Algonquin Round Table	[126][127]
Malcolm Kenyatta	2021	MS	Pennsylvania State Representative for the 181st district	[128]
Amara Mohamed Konneh	1999	BS	Former Minister of Finance of Liberia	[129]
Earle I. Mack	1959	BS	Former United States ambassador to Finland, partner of the Mack Company, and award-winning film producer	[130]
Albert Branson Maris	1926	BS	Federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit	[131]
William H. Milliken, Jr.	—	—	United States Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional district from 1959 to 1965	[132]
Peter Mafany Musonge	1967	BS	Former Prime Minister of Cameroon	[8][133]
Victoria Napolitano	2010	BS, MS	Youngest female mayor in New Jersey history; youngest mayor of Moorestown, New Jersey	[134]
Peter O'Keefe		MBA	Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, District 161 from 1975 to 1978	[135]
Alassane Ouattara	1965	BS	Current President of Côte d'Ivoire	[136][137]
Arthur Raymond Randolph	1966	BS	Federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
John Roberts Reading	1966	BS	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
Celeste Riley	2002	MS	New Jersey General Assembly assemblywoman for the 3rd legislative district	[138]
Lindsay Walters	2007	BS	White House Deputy Press Secretary under Donald Trump	[139]
Lawrence G. Williams	—	—	United States Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional district from 1966 to 1975	[140]

Science and engineering

Lex Fridman, Class of 2014

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Sirous Asgari	1997	PhD	Developer of lithium ion battery materials - central in a court case against the US government	[141]
Paul Baran	1949	BS	One of the inventors of packet switching and a founding father of the Internet	[142]
Michael Behe	1974	BS	American biochemist and leading advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design	[143]
Lin Bin	1992	MS	Co-founder and president of Xiaomi, a member of the board of advisors at Tufts University School of Engineering	[144][145]
Samuel P. De Bow, Jr.	1976	BS	Former rear admiral in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, and its director from 2003 to 2007.	[146][147]
Bruce Eisenstein	1965	MS	38th President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers	[148]
Lex Fridman	2014	PhD	Artificial intelligence researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology	[149]
David H. Geiger	—	BS	Architect and engineer who invented the air-supported fabric roof system used in domed stadiums	[150]
Walter Golaski	1946	BS	Developer of the first practical artificial blood vessel replacement	[151]
Harry Gold	1936	Cert	Laboratory chemist who was convicted of being the courier for a number of Soviet spy rings during the Manhattan Project	[152][153]
John Gruber	1996	BS	Creator of the computer markup language Markdown and the website Daring Fireball	[154]
Jon Hall	1973	BS	Board chair for the Linux Professional Institute	[155]
Vasant Honavar	1984	MS	Director Pennsylvania State University Center for Big Data Analytics and Discovery Informatics	[156]
Moshe Kam	1985 1987	MS PhD	49th President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers	[157]
Bruce E. Maryanoff	1969 1972	BS PhD	Medicinal and organic chemist responsible for the drug Topiramate	[158]
Cynthia A. Maryanoff	1972	BS	Organic and biomaterials chemist; winner of two American Chemical Society National Awards	[159]
Arlene Minkiewicz	1988	MS	Chief scientist at PRICE Systems	[160]
James G. Nell	1961	BS	Engineer and systems integrator	[161]
Hsieh Shou-shing	1980	MS	Former minister of the Nuclear Safety Commission	[162]
Bernard Silver	1947	BS	Early developer of barcode technology with Norman Joseph Woodland	[163]
Norman Joseph Woodland	1947	BS	Inventor of barcode technology	[163]

NASA

Moogega Cooper, class of 2009

James P. Bagian, class of 1973

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
James P. Bagian	1973	BS	Astronaut, physician, colonel in the United States Air Force Reserves, and the pararescue flight surgeon for the 939th Air Rescue Wing	[164]
Padi Boyd	1993	PhD	Astrophysicist, head of NASA's Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory and an Associate Director at the Goddard Space Flight Center	[165]
Moogega Cooper	2009	PhD	Astronomer, lead of Planetary Protection for the Mars 2020 Mission	[166]
Christopher Ferguson	1984	BS	Astronaut and pilot	[167]
Pete Frank	—	MS	NASA engineer who served as the lead flight director for the Apollo 14 and Apollo 16 crewed lunar landing missions	[168]
Paul W. Richards	1987	BS	Astronaut and mechanical engineer	[169]
Patricia Robertson	1989	MD	Astronaut and physician	[170]

Sports

Ashley Howard, Class of 2004

Jeff Parke, class of 2003

Name	Grad year	Degree	Notability	Ref(s)
Michael Anderson	1988	BS	Former NBA player with the San Antonio Spurs	[171]
Justin Best	2019	BS	Olympic rower	[172]
Brent Bommentre	—	—	Ice dancer, 2008 Four Continents bronze medalist and a two-time (2008 & 2009) U.S. national bronze medalist	[173]
Jim Casciano	1977	BS	Men's basketball head coach at the New Jersey Institute of Technology	[174]
J. R. Castle	—	—	Former lacrosse player with the Philadelphia Wings	[175]
Robert Church	2013	BS	Lacrosse player; fifth overall pick in the 2013 National Lacrosse League Entry Draft	[176]
Mark Gerban	2003	BS	Represented the Palestinian Rowing Federation at the 2005–2007 World Rowing Championships, 16th-place finish and highest world championship result of any Palestinian athlete	[177]
Tom Grebis	1954	—	Former football coach at Drexel	[178]
Ashley Howard	2004	BA	College basketball coach; assistant coach at Villanova 2013–2018; head coach at La Salle 2018–2022	[179]
Damion Lee	2015	BS	NBA player with the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors	[180]
Eric Lynch	2013	BS	2009 Wendy's Heisman nominee, soccer
Zach Makovsky	2006	BS	Wrestler; professional mixed martial arts fighter; formerly competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship	[181]
Gabriela Mărginean	2010	BS	Women's National Basketball Association player formerly with the Minnesota Lynx	[182]
Frank Masley	1989	BS	Luger; Olympic flag-bearer for USA in the 1984 Olympic opening ceremonies	[183]
Bashir Mason	2007	BS	Hired as basketball head coach at Wagner College beginning in March 2012; was a four-year starter for Drexel while attending school	[184]
Virginia Halas McCaskey	1943	BBA	Football executive, owner of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL)	[185]
Ben McIntosh	2014	BBA	Lacrosse player with the Philadelphia Wings; first overall pick in the 2015 National Lacrosse League Entry Draft	[186]
Travis Mohr	2004	BS	Gold and silver medal winner in swimming events at the 2004 Summer Paralympics, holds one world record	[187]
Jim Ostendarp	—	—	Former NFL player with the New York Giants; collegiate football and wrestling coach	[188]
Jeff Parke	2003	—	Professional soccer player with the Seattle Sounders FC and previously with the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and New York Red Bulls	[189][190]
Malik Rose	1996	BS	Former NBA player with the Charlotte Hornets, the San Antonio Spurs, the New York Knicks, and the Oklahoma City Thunder	[191][192]
Fox Stanton	—	—	Former collegiate football coach
John Szefc	1989	BA	College baseball coach at Marist and Maryland	[193]