List of Sarah Lawrence College people

The following is a list of notable individuals associated with Sarah Lawrence College through attendance as a student, or service as a member of the faculty or staff.

Alumni

Entertainment and media

• Abiola Abrams, TV personality, writer and filmmaker
• J. J. Abrams, Emmy Award-winning film and television producer, writer, actor, composer, and director
• Jane Alexander, actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts
• Jon Avnet, film producer, director, and writer
• Dylan Brody, playwright, author and stand-up comedian
• Golden Brooks, actress
• Yancy Butler, actress
• Gabrielle Carteris, actress, best known for playing Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210
• Austin Chick, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer
• Jill Clayburgh, Academy Award-nominated actress
• Brian De Palma, film director
• Cary Elwes, actor
• Beverly Emmons, dance and Broadway lighting designer
• Rachel Feldman, screenwriter and director
• Tovah Feldshuh, actor
• William Finley, actor
• Carrie Fisher, actress, writer, comedienne, mental health advocate
• Robin Givens, actor
• Adam Goldberg, actor
• Lesley Gore, singer of the 1963 hit song "It's My Party". Songwriter to the 1980 film Fame. Actress appeared in the ABC TV series Batman portrayal of the character Pussycat (one of Catwoman's minions). The 1965 film Girls On The Beach and Ski Party. Made an appearance on the Teenage Awards Music International.
• Janine Jackson, journalist and activist
• Reo Jones, voice actor
• Stacey Kent, jazz singer
• Sarah Kernochan, writer, producer, and director
• Téa Leoni, actress
• David Lindsay-Abaire, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter
• Robert Lyons, playwright and director
• Eric Mabius, actor
• Consuelo Mack, business news journalist
• Julianna Margulies, actress
• Ivy Meeropol, film director
• Larisa Oleynik, actress
• Alice Pearce, actress
• Jordan Peele, film director, actor, comedian
• Holly Robinson Peete, actress
• Sam Robards, actor
• Amy Robinson, film producer and actress
• Elisabeth Röhm, actress
• Kyra Sedgwick, actress
• Natalie Shaw, actress
• Joan Micklin Silver, award-winning director
• Sabiha Sumar, director
• Aly Tadros, singer-songwriter
• Misti Traya, actress
• Guinevere Turner, actor, producer, and writer
• James Veitch, comedian
• Barbara Walters, television personality
• Sigourney Weaver, actress
• Merritt Wever, actress
• Jeff Williams, actor
• Joanne Woodward, actress /political activist

Music

• Max Bemis, singer and songwriter for the band Say Anything
• Win Butler, lead vocalist and songwriter for the band Arcade Fire
• Alice Cohen, singer and songwriter
• Margaret Fiedler, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist with Laika, Moonshake and PJ Harvey
• Girlyman, folk-rock trio of Nate Borofsky, Ty Greenstein and Doris Muramatsu
• Lesley Gore, singer and songwriter
• Susie Ibarra, jazz composer and avant-garde musician
• Diana Jones, singer-songwriter
• Ira Kaplan, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter of the band Yo La Tengo
• Zoë Keating, composer and cellist from the band Rasputina
• Stacey Kent, jazz vocalist
• Josh Mancell, freelance composer and multi-instrumentalist
• Rhett Miller, singer/songwriter and member of the band Old 97's
• David Porter, TV composer for Breaking Bad
• JD Samson, member of the band Le Tigre
• Carly Simon, singer and songwriter
• Joanna Simon, vocalist
• Stewart Lupton, poet and singer-songwriter from the bands Jonathan Fire*Eater, the Childballads, and the Beatins'
• Dana Williams, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and poet.

Politics and public service

• Brooke Anderson, diplomat; Deputy Ambassador to the UN; former chief-of-staff to the White House National Security Council; VP Communications, The Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Lisa Anderson, scholar; President of the American University in Cairo, Egypt; former dean of Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
• Amanda Burden, director of the New York City Department of City Planning
• Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago; former White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama; former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Fifth Congressional District of Illinois
• Sharon Hom, director of Human Rights in China
• Sue Kelly, U.S. House of Representatives, 19th Congressional District of New York
• Clifford D. May, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Writing and poetics

• G. D. Baum, writer
• Melvin Jules Bukiet, novelist
• Carolyn Ferrell, writer
• Amanda Foreman, award-winning biographer
• Louise Gluck, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and former Poet Laureate of the United States
• Rebecca Godfrey, novelist
• Philip Graham, writer
• Lucy Grealy, writer
• Karl Taro Greenfeld, journalist and author
• David Grimm, playwright
• Allan Gurganus, writer
• Benjamin Hale, novelist
• Justin Haythe, novelist and screenwriter
• Kaui Hart Hemmings, writer
• A.M. Homes, writer
• Nancy Huston, Canadian author who writes primarily in French
• Porochista Khakpour, writer
• Carolyn Kizer, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Christian Kracht, Swiss writer
• Phillis Levin, poet
• Heather Lewis, American Author
• Myra Cohn Livingston, children's poet
• Bennett Madison, writer
• Jeffrey McDaniel, poet
• Giulia Melucci, writer
• Brian Morton, novelist
• Sharyn November, editor
• Ann Patchett, author
• Anne Roiphe, novelist and essayist
• Esmeralda Santiago, Puerto Rican writer
• Alice Sheldon, who published science fiction as James Tiptree, Jr.
• Leora Skolkin-Smith, novelist
• Alice Walker, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple

Visual and performing arts

• Janine Antoni, sculptor, installation artist
• Ian Spencer Bell, choreographer
• Mary Griggs Burke, largest private collector of Japanese art outside Japan
• Lucinda Childs, postmodern dancer and choreographer, member of the Judson Dance Theater
• Alexis de Chaunac, Contemporary artist
• Jean Erdman, dancer and wife of Joseph Campbell
• Mary Heilmann, painter, sculptor
• Dan Hurlin, writer, choreographer, actor, puppet/object maker and puppeteer, winner of Obie and Alpert Awards
• John Jasperse, choreographer, dancer, and artist
• Linda McCartney, photographer; was married to musician Paul McCartney
• Susan Meiselas, photographer and photojournalist, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient
• Meredith Monk, composer, singer and choreographer
• Cady Noland, visual artist
• Jedd Novatt, sculptor and painter
• Yoko Ono, conceptual artist; was married to John Lennon
• Maureen Paley, London art dealer
• Meridel Rubenstein, photographer and installation artist
• Sonia Sekula, Swiss-American abstract-expressionist painter
• Alice Louise Judd Simpich, sculptor
• Holly Solomon, Soho art dealer
• Alec Soth, photographer
• Nancy Spector, chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum, NY
• Ruth Carter Stevenson (1945), patron of the arts and founder of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
• Vera Wang, fashion designer

Other notable alumni

• Karen Adolph, psychologist and professor
• Alice Brock, former restaurateur turned artist, title character of the song "Alice's Restaurant"
• Nancy Cantor, Chancellor, Syracuse University
• Hope Cooke, wife of 12th Chogyal (King) of Sikkim
• Cornelia Fort, pioneer aviator who became the first female pilot to die on war duty in America history
• Dr. Susan Houde-Walter, former president of the Optical Society of America, CEO of LaserMax Inc.
• Ian Lipkin, Director of the Center for Infection & Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, authority on West Nile Virus
• Jean Baker Miller, feminist, psychoanalyst, social activist
• Lee Radziwill, actress, socialite, younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and wife of Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł
• Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, academic and psychotherapist

Fictional alumni

• Lloyd, of the HBO dramedy Entourage, is a Sarah Lawrence graduate, perhaps a sly reference to Rahm Emmanuel, brother of Ari Emmanuel, the real-life inspiration for Lloyd's boss, Ari Gold.
• Eric van der Woodsen, of the CW teen drama Gossip Girl
• Karen Walker, of the sitcom Will & Grace
• Kat Stratford, in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You
• Allison "Allie" Hamilton, in the movie The Notebook
• Jill Rosen, in the movie Baby It's You
• Guinevere Turner, co-screenwriter of American Psycho, has a cameo in the film as one of the girls Patrick has in Paul's apartment. He asks if she wants to get it on with the other girl, and she says "I'm not a lesbian! Why would you think that?" Patrick replies "well, for one thing, you DID go to Sarah Lawrence"—the joke being that Turner is a lesbian, and she actually went to Sarah Lawrence.
• Jenny Whiteman, of the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills
• Mia Thermopolis, of Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries series
• Hero Brown, a character in Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man comic book series
• Marcia Jeffries from the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd studied music when she went east to Sarah Lawrence
• Gil Chesterton from sitcom Frasier claims to be married to Deb, a "Sarah Lawrence graduate and the owner of a very successful auto body repair shop" (and an Army Reservist), whom his co-workers had believed to be merely a pet cat.
• Remy "Thirteen" Hadley of the Fox medical drama House
• "Sewage Joe" on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation is revealed to be an alumnus when he sends a lewd photograph to Ann from his alumni e-mail address.
• In J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey, a girl on a train is described as "absolutely... a Sarah Lawrence type... looked like she'd spent the whole train ride in the john, sculpting or painting or something, or as though she had a leotard on under her dress."
• In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie's older sister Candace has chosen to attend a “small liberal arts college back East called Sarah Lawrence.”
• Parker Posey's character in Broken English
• Charles Boyle, of NBC's police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Mary Andrews played by Molly Ringwald on Riverdale attended the show's fictional stand-in for the school, Sarah Florence.

Faculty

Current

• Kirsten Agresta, harpist
• William Anderson, musician
• Colin Beavan, environmental activist and blogger
• Chester Biscardi, composer
• Melvin Jules Bukiet, novelist
• Jerrilynn Dodds, art historian, Guggenheim Fellow, Slade Professor of Art at Oxford
• Thomas Sayers Ellis, poet
• Beverly Emmons, dance and Broadway lighting designer
• Fawaz Gerges, Middle Eastern Affairs analyst for ABC news
• Mark Helias, musician
• Marie Howe, poet
• William Melvin Kelley, novelist and short story writer
• Eduardo Lago, novelist and winner of the Premio Nadal
• Tom Lux, poet
• Maria Negroni, poet
• Victoria Redel, poet, novelist, short fiction
• Vijay Seshadri, poet and essayist; winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
• Jacob Slichter, drummer for Semisonic
• Joel Sternfeld, photographer
• Malcolm Turvey, author, film historian, editor of October magazine
• Matilde Zimmermann, political activist and former U.S. presidential candidate

Former

• Glenda Adams, novelist
• Léonie Adams, poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States and mentor to Louise Gluck
• Rudolf Arnheim
• Peter Cameron, novelist
• Joseph Campbell, cultural historian and critic of mythology
• Suzanne Chazin, novelist
• Billy Collins, poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States
• Dorothy DeLay, violin teacher at the Juilliard School
• Norman Dello Joio, Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning composer
• Stephen Dobyns, poet
• E.L. Doctorow, writer
• Mark Doty, poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States
• Cornelius Eady, poet
• Dana Gioia, poet
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Nobel Prize-winner in physics and one of only a few female winners of the prize
• Irving Goldman, anthropologist
• Paul Goodman, writer, anarchist, Gestalt Therapy contributor
• Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer
• Allan Gurganus, writer
• Kimiko Hahn, poet
• Randall Jarrell, poet and writer
• Mary Karr, poet and writer
• Randall Kenan, writer
• Galway Kinnell, poet
• Jane Kramer, Emmy Award-winning journalist
• Wilford Leach, Tony Award-winning director and screenwriter
• Max Lerner, journalist
• Tao Lin, writer
• Paul Lisicky, poet
• Helen Lynd, sociologist
• Valerie Martin, writer
• David Maslanka, composer
• Mary McCarthy, writer
• Donald McKayle, dancer and choreographer
• Grace Paley, poet, fiction writer, and political activist who in 2004 was awarded an honorary doctorate from Sarah Lawrence College
• Gilberto Perez, author, film historian
• Santha Rama Rau, writer
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt, III, economist
• Theodore Roszak, sculptor
• Muriel Rukeyser, poet and political activist who, while teaching at Sarah Lawrence, helped student Alice Walker publish her first works
• J.D. Salinger, writer
• Bessie Schonberg, dancer, choreographer and dance teacher, after whom the Bessie Awards were named.
• William Schuman, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer; former director of the Juilliard School; taught at Sarah Lawrence 1935-45
• Alan Shulman, composer and cellist
• David Smith, sculptor
• Susan Sontag, leftist intellectual, essayist, novelist, and activist
• Brooke Stevens, novelist
• Jean Valentine, National Book Award-winning poet
• Caroline F. Ware, New Deal activist
• Marguerite Yourcenar, writer

References