List of Cornell University faculty

This list of Cornell University faculty includes notable current and former instructors and administrators of Cornell University, an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York.

Cornell's faculty for the 2005–06 academic year included three Nobel laureates, a Crafoord Prize winner, two Turing Award winners, a Fields Medal winner, two Legion of Honor recipients, a World Food Prize winner, an Andrei Sakharov Prize winner, three National Medal of Science winners, two Wolf Prize winners, four MacArthur award winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, two Eminent Ecologist Award recipients, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, four Presidential Early Career Award winners, 20 National Science Foundation CAREER grant holders, a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, a recipient of the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, three Packard Foundation grant holders, a Keck Distinguished Young Scholar, two Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grant holders, and two NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research) early career award winners.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Nobel laureates

Physics

• Richard Feynman (Physics faculty, 1945–50) – Physics 1965; National Medal of Science (1979)

Hans Bethe

• Hans Bethe (John Wendell Anderson Professor of Physics, 1935–2005) – Physics 1967; National Medal of Science (1975)
• Hannes Alfvén (Distinguished Professor in Engineering) – Physics 1970
• Brian D. Josephson (NSF Senior Foreign Scientist Fellow, 1971–1972) – Physics 1973
• Anthony James Leggett (Visiting Professor, April 1973, July 1974, Bethe Lecturer, April 1980, Visiting Scientist, January - August 1983) – Physics 2003; Wolf Prize in Physics (2002)
• John Robert Schrieffer (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1969–75) – Physics 1972; National Medal of Science (1983)
• George Paget Thomson (Non-resident Lecturer, 1929–30) – Physics 1937
• Kenneth G. Wilson (Professor of Physics and Nuclear Studies, 1963–88) – Physics 1982; Wolf Prize in Physics (1980)
• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1977–83) and Bethe Lecturer in Physics, 1989–90) – Physics 1991
• David Lee (Professor of Physics) – Physics 1996
• Robert Coleman Richardson (Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics) – Physics 1996

Peace, Literature, or Economics

Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution

• Norman Borlaug (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1982–88) – Peace 1970; National Medal of Science (2004)
• Wole Soyinka (Senior Fellow, Society for the Humanities, 1985) – Literature 1986
• Linus Pauling (George Fischer Baker Non-Resident Lecturer in Chemistry 1937–1938; Messenger Lecturer 1959) – Peace 1962
• Octavio Paz (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1972–74) – Literature 1990
• Amartya Sen (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1978–84) – Economics 1998; National Humanities Medal (2012)

Chemistry

• Peter Debye (Professor of Chemistry, 1940–50; Department Chair) – Chemistry 1936; National Medal of Science (1965)
• Otto Hahn (George Fisher Baker Lecturer of Chemistry, 1933) - Chemistry 1944
• James B. Sumner (Professor, 1929–55 and Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry/Nutrition) – Chemistry 1946
• Vincent du Vigneaud (Professor of Biochemistry, Medical College, 1938–67), Professor of Chemistry, 1967–75) – Chemistry 1955
• Manfred Eigen (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1965–76) – Chemistry 1967
• Paul Flory (Chemistry faculty, 1948–57) – Chemistry 1974; National Medal of Science (1974)
• Gerhard Herzberg (George Fischer Baker Non-Resident Lecturer in Chemistry 1968) – Chemistry 1971
• Roald Hoffmann (Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor in Humane Letters) – Chemistry 1981; National Medal of Science (1983)
• Linus Pauling (George Fischer Baker Non-Resident Lecturer in Chemistry 1937–1938; Messenger Lecturer 1959) – Chemistry 1954; the bulk of his most influential scientific book The Nature of the Chemical Bond was completed while he was at Cornell and was published by Cornell University Press in 1939
• Henry Taube (Assistant Professor, 1944–46) – Chemistry 1983; National Medal of Science (1976)
• Richard R. Ernst (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1996–2002) – Chemistry 1991

Physiology or Medicine

• Herbert Spencer Gasser (Medical College, 1931–34) – Physiology or Medicine 1944
• Fritz Albert Lipmann (Research Associate, Medical College, 1939–1941) – Physiology or Medicine 1953; National Medal of Science (1966)
• Peter Medawar (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1965–71) – Physiology or Medicine 1960
• Haldan Keffer Hartline (Associate Professor, Medical College, 1940–41) – Physiology or Medicine 1967
• Robert W. Holley (Ph.D. 1947 Organic Chemistry; Professor and Department Chair in Biochemistry, 1948–64) – Physiology or Medicine 1968
• Har Gobind Khorana (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1974–80) – Physiology or Medicine 1968; National Medal of Science (1987)
• Robert F. Furchgott (Assistant Professor of biochemistry, Research Associate, Medical College, 1940–49) – Physiology or Medicine 1998
• Paul Greengard (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1981–87) – Physiology or Medicine 2000
• Harold E. Varmus (Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine, 2015–) – Physiology or Medicine 1989; National Medal of Science (2001)

MacArthur awards

• Archie Randolph Ammons (Professor of Creative Writing, 1964–98) – poetry 1981
• Craig Fennie (Assistant Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics) - materials science 2013
• Mitchell J. Feigenbaum (Postdoc 1970–1972, Professor, 1982–1988) – physics 1984; Wolf Prize in Physics (1986), member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Alice Fulton (Professor of Creative Writing) – poetry 1991
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Professor, 1985–90) – literary critic (1981)
• Paul Ginsparg (Professor of Physics and Computing & Information Science) - physics 2002
• Jon Kleinberg (Tisch University Professor of Computer Science) - computer science 2005
• Stephen Lee (Professor of Solid State Chemistry) - chemistry 1993
• Michal Lipson (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering) - optical physics 2010
• Robert Parris Moses (Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor, 2006–) – educator and philosopher (1982)
• Rebecca J. Nelson (Associate Professor of Plant Pathology, Plant Breeding and International Agriculture) – plant pathologist (1998)
• Sheila Nirenberg (Professor at Weill Medical College) – neuroscience 2013
• Margaret W. Rossiter (Marie Underhill Noll Professor of the History of Science) – historian of science 1989
• Gregory Vlastos (Faculty 1948–1955) – classicist and philosopher 1990
• William Dichtel (Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology) - chemistry 2015

Natural sciences and related fields

Mathematics

• William J. Cook (Assistant Professor 1985–1987) – University Professor of the University of Waterloo, member of the National Academy of Engineering, American Mathematical Society Fellow, INFORMS Fellow and SIAM Fellow, recipient of the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize of INFORMS (2007)
• Eugene Dynkin (Professor) – mathematics
• Walter Feit (Professor, 1952–64) – mathematician, co-author of the Feit–Thompson theorem
• William Feller (Professor 1945–1950) – mathematician, known in probability theory; recipient of the National Medal of Science (1969)
• Allen Hatcher (Professor, 1985–) – mathematics
• John Irwin Hutchinson (Professor of Mathematics, 1894–?) – mathematician
• Jack Kiefer (Professor of Mathematics 1952–1979) – Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Sciences; president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1969–1970)
• Saunders Mac Lane (Professor) – developer of algebra's category theory; recipient of the National Medal of Science (1989)
• Marston Morse (Instructor 1920–1922, Assistant Professor 1922–1925) – mathematician, known for Morse theory in differential topology; recipient of Bôcher Memorial Prize (1933); National Medal of Science (1964)
• Anil Nerode (Goldwin Smith Professor of Mathematics) – mathematician
• Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Professor) – mathematician
• Paul Olum (Professor) – mathematics, President of the University of Oregon 1980–89
• Steven Strogatz (Professor of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, 1994–) – mathematician
• Éva Tardos (Professor of Computer Science) – mathematician, Guggeinheim fellow, winner of the Fulkerson Prize, 1988
• William Thurston (Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, 2003–) – mathematics; Fields Medal winner
• Charles F. Van Loan (Chair of the Department of Computer Science) – mathematician

Physics

See also: List of Cornell Manhattan Project people

Freeman Dyson

• Robert Bacher (Professor, 1935–1949) – Manhattan Project leader and member of Atomic Energy Commission
• Dale R. Corson (Professor, 1947-1969, President 1969-1977, Chancellor, 1977-1980) - as President, defused riots and armed stand-off in 1969
• Harold Craighead (Charles W. Lake Professor of Engineering, 1989-) - applied physicist
• Persis Drell (Professor, 1988–2002) – particle physicist
• Freeman Dyson (Professor, 1951–53) – physics, mathematics; recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics (1981), Templeton Prize (2000) etc.
• Mitchell Feigenbaum (Professor) – physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constant
• Michael Fisher (Professor 1966–1987) – Irving Langmuir Award (1971), Wolf Prize in Physics (1980), Boltzmann Medal (1983), Lars Onsager Prize (1995), Royal Medal (2005); Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Peter Goldreich (Thomas Gold Lecturer, 1987) – astrophysicist
• Brian Greene (Professor, 1990–95) – theoretical physicist and author, specializing in string theory
• Alan Guth (1977–1979) – recipient of Fundamental Physics Prize (2012)
• Arthur Kantrowitz (Professor, 1946–56) – physicist and engineer
• Boyce McDaniel (Professor, 1946–1985) – Manhattan Project physicist and synchrotron designer; member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Paul McEuen (Professor, 2001–) – physicist, specializes in carbon nanotubes and graphene
• David Mermin (Professor) – physicist
• Yuri Orlov (Researcher of Physics, 1986–) – nuclear physicist; former Soviet dissident; human rights activist
• Albert Overhauser (Faculty, 1953–1958) – physicist, known for Overhauser Effect; member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; recipient of National Medal of Science (1994)
• Bruno Rossi (Associate Professor 1940–1943) – National Medal of Science (1983), Wolf Prize in Physics (1987)
• Dennis William Sciama (Professor) – physicist
• George Paget Thomson (Non-resident Lecturer, 1929–30) – Nobel Prize, Physics 1937
• Kip Thorne (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1986–92) – astrophysicist
• Robert R. Wilson (Professor) – youngest group leader on the Manhattan Project; first director of Fermilab; National Medal of Science (1973)

Astronomy

Carl Sagan

• James L. Elliot (Former postdoctoral fellow, Faculty) – astrophysicist; discoverer of the ring system of Uranus while at Cornell; discoverer of the atmosphere of Pluto
• Thomas Gold (John L. Wetherill Professor of Astronomy, 1959–2004) – astrophysicist, coined the term "magnetosphere"
• Jean-Luc Margot (Assistant Professor) – astronomer, awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the American Astronomical Society, 2004
• Carl Sagan (David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences, 1968–96) – space sciences
• Edwin Ernest Salpeter (James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor of the Physical Sciences Emeritus, 1948–2008) – astronomer; Crafoord Prize (1997)
• Aleksander Wolszczan (Professor) – discoverer of first extrasolar planets and pulsar planets

Chemistry

• Wilder Dwight Bancroft (Professor, 1895–?) – physical chemist
• James Crafts (Professor of Chemistry, 1868–97) – President of MIT, 1897–1900
• Jean Fréchet (Professor 1987–1998) – Japan Prize (2013); fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering
• John Gamble Kirkwood (Professor) – chemist
• Stephen Lee (Professor of Solid State Chemistry) – MacArthur Award and Sloan Fellow
• Efraim Racker (Professor of Biochemistry) – founder of the biochemistry department at Cornell University; member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences; recipient of Warren Triennial Prize (1974), National Medal of Science (1976), Gairdner Award (1980)
• Hans Muxfeldt (Professor of Chemistry 1966-1968), first total synthesis of tetracycline antibiotics
• Alfred T. Blomquist (Professor of Chemistry )
• Benjamin Widom (Professor of Chemistry 1955-)
• Jerrold Meinwald (Professor of Chemistry 1960s –) – Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recipient of the National Medal of Science (2014) and Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists (1997)

Computer science and engineering

File:Ginsparg at Cornell University.jpg

Paul Ginsparg at Cornell University

• Paul Ginsparg (Professor of Physics and Computing & Information Science, 2001–) – developer of the arXiv e-print archive, MacArthur Award
• Joseph Halpern (Professor of Computer Science) – computer scientist
• Juris Hartmanis (Professor, 1965–) – computer scientist; Turing Award recipient, 1993
• John Hopcroft (IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computer Science) – Turing Award recipient, 1986
• Jon Kleinberg (Tisch University Professor of Computer Science) – MacArthur Award and Nevanlinna Prize
• Trevor Pinch (Chair of Science and Technology Studies Department) – Chair of the Science and Technology Studies department
• Theodore Paul Wright (Acting President, 1951) – aeronautical engineer and educator
• Dexter Kozen (Professor of Computer Science) – computer scientist specializing in dynamic logic
• David Shmoys (Professor of Computer Science) – ACM Fellow and INFORMS Fellow, and recipient of the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize (2013)
• Gerard Salton (Professor of Computer Science) – father of information retrieval; recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship (1962), ASIS Award for Best Information Science Paper (1970), Best Information Science Book (1975), the first Gerard Salton Award (named in his honor) for Outstanding Contributions to Information Retrieval (1983), the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Science Award (1988), the ASIS Award of Merit (1989); ACM Fellow
• Éva Tardos (Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Science) – Recipient of the Fulkerson Prize (1988), the George B. Dantzig Prize (2006) and the Gödel Prize (2012); Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Robert Tarjan (Assistant Professor of Computer Science 1973–1974) – computer scientist and mathematician, known for discovering several graph algorithms, including Tarjan's off-line least common ancestors algorithm; co-inventor of splay trees and Fibonacci heaps; Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University; recipient of Turing Award (1986)
• David P. Williamson (Professor) – Editor-in-chief of the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics; recipient of the Fulkerson Prize (2000) and the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize (2013)

Engineering and material science

• Michal Lipson (Assistant Professor, Engineering) – MacArthur Award, research into nanotech applications to optics
• Peter C. Schultz (Materials Science Visiting Professor 1978-1984) – co-inventor of the fiber optics now used worldwide for telecommunications; member of the National Academy of Engineering, inductee to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2000)

Biology, ecology, botany, and nutrition

Jane Goodall

• Louis Agassiz (Lecturer) – zoologist, glaciologist, and geologist
• Liberty Hyde Bailey (Professor) – botanist, early progenitor of the 4-H movement, namesake of Bailey Hall
• Bjorkman, Thomas - Horticulture
• Joan Jacobs Brumberg (Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow; Professor of History, Human Development, and Gender Studies, 1979–) – scholar in adolescence, body image and eating disorders, and related fields
• T. Colin Campbell (Professor) – nutritionist; director of the China Project;author of The China Study
• Thomas Eisner (Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology) – pioneer of chemical ecology; recipient of the National Medal of Science (1994)
• Barton Warren Evermann (Lecturer, 1900–03) – ichthyologist
• Jane Goodall (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1996–2002) – naturalist
• Everett Peter Greenberg (Faculty 1978–1988) – American microbiologist who received the Shaw Prize in 2015; member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Charles Frederick Hartt (Professor, 1868–?) – Canadian-American geologist, palaeontologist and naturalist who specialized in the geology of Brazil
• Harold Hill Smith (Professor) – geneticist
• William Tinsley Keeton (Professor) - expert in animal navigation, namesake of William Keeton House
• Graham Kerr (Professor, 1973) – chef, "The Galloping Gourmet"
• Simon A. Levin (Professor 1965-1992) – Recipient of the National Medal of Science (2015), Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2014), Kyoto Prize (2005)
• Gene Likens (Professor of Ecology, 1969–1983; Adjunct Professor 1983–) – ecologist; member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; recipient of National Medal of Science (2001)
• John T. Lis (Faculty 1978 –) – Guggenheim Fellow (2000), member of the National Academy of Sciences (2015)
• Thomas Lyttleton Lyon − Emeritus Professor of Soils Science for the Department of Agriculture; co-winner of the Howard N. Potts Medal (1913)
• Jerrold Meinwald (Professor Emeritus of Chemistry) – chemical ecologist; member of the National Academy of Sciences (1969) and the American Philosophical Society (1987); fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1970); recipient of the National Medal of Science (2014)
• John Keith Moffat - Guggenheim Fellow, former associate professor in Biochemistry, Molecular, and Cell Biology at Cornell, later deputy provost at University of Chicago, noted for Advanced Photon Source and Time resolved crystallography
• Rebecca J. Nelson (Associate Professor of Plant Pathology, Plant Breeding and International Agriculture) – MacArthur Fellow (1998); researcher in crop disease resistance
• Karl J. Niklas (Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Plant Biology)
• Katharine Payne (Researcher at Bio-acoustics Research Program, Lab of Ornithology) – whale and elephant researcher
• David Peakall (1968–1975 Laboratory of Ornithology, senior research associate in the Section of Ecology and Systematics in the Biological Sciences Division)
• Wendell L. Roelofs (Professor) – recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Award (1977), Wolf Prize in Agriculture (1982), National Medal of Science (1983)
• Benoît Roux (Professor) – molecular biologist; winner of the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Chemistry, 1998) from the Royal Society of Canada
• John C. Sanford (Professor, 1980–98) – inventor of the gene gun
• Steven D. Tanksley (Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Breeding, 1985–) – plant breeding and agronomy researcher; recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award, Martin Gibbs Medal of the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Wolf Prize in Agriculture and the Japan Prize, member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Stanley Temple (1975-1976 Research Associate) - avian ecologist
• Helen Turley – winemaker
• Herbert John Webber (Professor, 1907–12) – plant physiologist, developed the citrange
• Robert Whittaker (Professor) – vegetation ecologist
• Burt Green Wilder (Professor of Neurology and Vertebrate Zoology, 1867–1910) – comparative anatomist
• Charles Edward Stevens (Chairman of Physiology, Biology and Pharmacology, 1961–1979) – Fulbright Scholar and internationally recognized expert in the field of comparative physiology and digestive systems.

Medicine

• James Ewing (Professor of Clinical Pathology, 1899–1939) – pathologist; discovery of a form of malignant bone tumor that later became known as Ewing's Sarcoma
• Duane Gish (professor of biomedical science) - prominent for his advocacy of creationist theory
• Elvin A. Kabat (Instructor of pathology 1938–1941) – immunologist, member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; president of the American Association of Immunologists (1965–1966); recipient of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1977) and the National Medal of Science (1991)
• Robert Foster Kennedy (Professor of Neurology) – one of the first to use electroconvulsive treatment to treat psychosis; first to link shell shock and hysteria
• Agnes Claypole Moody – first female appointed a position in the Medical Department
• Georgios Papanikolaou (Researcher at Department of Anatomy, Medical College, 1913–?) – inventor of the Pap smear test for cervical cancer
• Stephen J. Roberts - Chairman of the Department of Large Animal Medicine, Obstetrics and Surgery, 1965-1966 and 1969-1972
• Juan Rosai (James Ewing Alumni Professor of Pathology (1991–1999, later Adjunct Professor of Pathology at the Weill Cornell Medical College) – author and editor of a main textbook in surgical pathology; discoverer of several entities such as Rosai-Dorfman disease and desmoplastic small round cell tumor
• Tom Shires (Chair of Surgery, 1975–91) – trauma surgeon; use of saline solution in shock
• Daniel Stern (Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College) - studied early child development
• Ashutosh Tewari (Professor of Urology and Public Health)
• Theodore H. Schwartz (Professor of Neurosurgery)
• Madelon Lubin Finkel, Professor of Clinical Healthcare Policy and Research

Geology and geography

• Hollis Dow Hedberg (M.S. 1926, Geology) – geologist, specialized in petroleum exploration, known for his monumental work on stratigraphic classification of rocks and procedures; professor of geology at Princeton University (1959–1972); member of the National Academy of Sciences; recipient of Sidney Powers Memorial Award (1963), Mary Clark Thompson Medal (1973), Wollaston Medal (1975), Penrose Medal (1980)
• Heinrich Ries (Professor, 1898–?) – economic geologist
• Ralph Stockman Tarr (Professor, 1897–?) – geographer

Social sciences

Economics

• Francine D. Blau (Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Labor Economics since 1995) - received her B.S. in industrial and labor relations in 1966 from Cornell
• Kaushik Basu (Professor of Economics) – Indian economist; chief economist of the World Bank; fellow of the Econometric Society
• David Easley (Professor of Economics) – Fellow of the Econometric Society and recipient of the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize (2011)
• George M. von Furstenberg (Assistant Professor of Economics) – economist best known for monetary policy, free trade policy and international finance
• John D. Kasarda - earned a bachelor of science degree in applied economics from Cornell in 1967 and masters of business administration degree in Organizational Theory from Cornell in 1968; developer of the aerotropolis concept, which defines the role of airports and aviation-driven economic development in shaping 21st-century urban growth and form; directs the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School
• James Laurence Laughlin (Professor, 1890–92) – founded the Federal Reserve System
• Emmett J. Rice (Professor, 1954–60) - former Governor of the Federal Reserve System
• Thomas Sowell (Professor, 1965–1969) – economist; National Humanities Medal (2002)
• Holbrook Working (Professor) – economic theorist on hedging, futures prices, market maker behavior, and storage

Psychology

• Daryl Bem (Professor of Psychology) – social psychologist, creator of self-perception theory
• Sandra Bem (Professor) – psychologist; created Bem Sex Role Inventory; studies gender roles
• Gilbert J. Botvin (Professor of Psychology in Public Health and Psychiatry, 1980-2012), Weill Cornell Medical College—seminal research in adolescent health promotion/disease prevention; founding editor of the journal Prevention Science
• Stephen J. Ceci (Professor) - researcher of children's courtroom testimony
• Michael J. Freeman (visiting assistant professor) - behavior sciences
• Thomas Gilovich (Professor of Psychology) – researcher of decision making and behavioral economics
• Paulina Kernberg (Professor of Psychiatry, 1978–2006) – child psychiatrist and authority on personality disorders
• Kurt Lewin (Professor) – founder of modern social psychology
• Neal E. Miller – American experimental psychologist and a recipient of the National Medal of Science (1964)
• Ulrich Neisser (Professor) - studied intelligence and memory
• Robert Morris Ogden (1877-1959) - Cornell University graduate, Professor of Psychology, and Cornell's Dean of Arts and Sciences, 1923-1945
• Ritch Savin-Williams (Professor) – sexual orientation researcher
• Edward B. Titchener (Professor) – psychologist; inventor of structuralism
• Eleanor J. Gibson (Professor of Psychology) - perception and developmental psychology; fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; member of the National Academy of Sciences; recipient of the National Medal of Science (1992)
• James J. Gibson (Professor of Psychology) - perception, member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Robert Sternberg (Professor of Human Development) – President of the American Psychological Association; Professor of Psychology and Provost at Oklahoma State University, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University; IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University; known for Triarchic theory of intelligence, Triangular theory of love and The Three-Process View; Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Anthropology, sociology, other social science

• Yutaka Tsujinaka (visiting fellow, 1989-1991) - professor of political science
• John Adair (Professor, 1948–1960) – anthropologist
• Benedict Anderson (Professor Emeritus of International Studies) – author of Imagined Communities
• Walter Berns (Professor, 1959–1969) – Constitutional law and political philosophy professor; recipient of National Humanities Medal in 2005
• Fred Buttel (Professor of Rural Sociology) – sociologist
• John Collier - visual anthropologist
• Dian Fossey (Visiting Research Associate, 1980) – anthropologist whose murder was recreated in the film Gorillas in the Mist
• Rose Goldsen – pioneer in studying the effects of television and popular culture
• Jay Jasanoff (Professor, 1978–1998) – Indo-European linguistics specialist
• Bronisław Malinowski (Lecturer, 1933) – founder of social anthropology
• Robert B. McGinnis – originator of the "Cornell Mobility Model" for studying social mobility
• George McGovern (Visiting Lecturer, 1990) - Democratic Nominee for U.S. President (1972) and Senator from South Dakota (1963-81). Taught on US Foreign Policy.
• John V. Murra (1968–82) — professor of anthropology, with a focus on the Inca Empire
• Alan Nussbaum (Professor of Linguistics, 1997–) – Indo-European linguist and classical philologist
• Richard Swedberg (Professor of Sociology, 2002–) – Swedish economic sociologist
• Mark P. Talbert - senior lecturer of hotel management, and subject of a viral YouTube video publicly criticizing an unknown student who was yawning loudly in one of his classes
• Sidney Tarrow (Maxwell Upson Professor of Government and Sociology) – researcher of comparative politics, social movements, and political sociology
• James D. Thompson (Professor) – sociologist
• Bassam Tibi (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 2004–) – political scientist of Islamic countries
• Meredith Small (Professor, 1998–) – anthropologist and primatologist, author of several books on child development, including Our Babies, Ourselves
• Adam T. Smith (Professor, 2011–) – anthropologist researching the history and societies of the South Caucasus
• Barbara Wertheimer (Associate Professor, 1977–1983) – co-ounder and director of the Institute for Women and Work at the Industrial and Labor Relations School.

Humanities

Philosophy

• Kwame Anthony Appiah (Professor, 1986–89) – African Studies philosopher and novelist; National Humanities Medal (2012)
• Max Black
• Allan Bloom (Professor, 1963–70) – philosophy and government, author of Closing of the American Mind, recipient of the National Humanities Medal (1992)
• Richard Boyd (Professor) – philosopher
• Judith Butler - philosophy 2003-2007; Andrew White Professor at Large
• Edwin Arthur Burtt (Professor) - Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy in 1941, author of works on philosophy
• Harold F. Cherniss (Professor) – author and expert on the philosophy of Ancient Greece
• Morris Raphael Cohen (Lecturer) – Jewish philosopher, lawyer and legal scholar
• James Edwin Creighton (Professor) – philosopher
• Terence Irwin
• Anthony Kenny
• Norman Kretzmann
• Norman Malcolm (Professor, 1947–58) – Ludwig Wittgenstein scholar
• Evander Bradley McGilvary (Susan Linn Sage Professor of Ethics, 1899–1905) – philosophical scholar
• John Rawls (Professor) – philosopher; author of A Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism, and The Law of Peoples; National Humanities Medal (1999); namesake of Asteroid 16561 Rawls
• Sydney Shoemaker (Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy) – philosopher and metaphysician
• Jason Stanley
• Brian Weatherson (Associate Professor of Philosophy) – philosopher, metaphysician

Literature

Betty Friedan

• M.H. Abrams - author of the Mirror and the Lamp; literary critic; fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; recipient of National Humanities Medal (2013)
• Frederick Ahl (Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature) – classics scholar
• Archie Randolph Ammons (Professor of Creative Writing, 1964–98) – poet, MacArthur Award (1981)
• Charles Edwin Bennett (Goldwin Smith Professor of Latin, 1892–?) – classicist
• Thomas G. Bergin (Professor of Romance Languages) - author and translator
• Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (Professor of North European Languages, 1874 to 1880) – author
• Hiram Corson (Professor) – professor of literature
• Jonathan Culler (Professor) - literary critic and theorist
• Louis Dyer (Acting Professor of Greek, 1895–96) – educator and author
• Max Farrand (Professor) – author of American historical subjects
• Betty Friedan (Professor) – feminist, author of The Feminine Mystique
• Alice Fulton (Professor of Creative Writing) – poet, fiction writer, MacArthur Award (1991)
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Professor, 1985–90) – Afro-American Studies scholar; MacArthur Fellow (1981)
• Victor Lange (Professor) – professor of modern languages
• Alison Lurie (Professor of Creative Writing, 1968-) – fiction writer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
• Paul de Man (Professor) – Professor of Comparative Literature
• Vladimir Nabokov (Professor of European and Russian Literature, 1948–58) – author of the novel Lolita
• Adrienne Rich (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1981–87) – feminist poet
• Nathaniel Schmidt (Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures) – American orientalist
• William De Witt Snodgrass (Professor, 1955–57) – poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
• Melanie Thernstrom (Professor) – author and freelance journalist
• Alvin Toffler (Professor) – writer, sociologist, and futurist; Future Shock
• Helena Maria Viramontes (Professor of English) – Chicana fiction writer
• Wendy Wasserstein (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 2005–06) – Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

History

Goldwin Smith

• Felix Adler (Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature, 1874–76) – early 20th-century Jewish rationalist and social reformer
• Glenn C. Altschuler - Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies; Weiss Presidential Fellow; Dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions at Cornell University
• Carl L. Becker (John Wendell Anderson Professor of History, 1917–41) – historian; namesake of Carl Becker House
• Martin Bernal, (1972-2001) - professor of modern Chinese history; author of Black Athena
• Sherman Cochran - Hu Shih Professor Emeritus of Chinese history
• David Brion Davis (Professor of History, 1955–1969) – 1967 Pulitzer Prize winner; scholar of slavery and American intellectual history; National Humanities Medal (2014)
• Anthony Grafton (Professor) – a leading scholar of the Renaissance
• D.G.E. Hall - Emeritus Professor of Southeast Asian History
• Donald Kagan (Professor 1960–1969) – classicist; National Humanities Medal (2002)
• Michael Kammen (Professor of History) – 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner; U.S. Constitution scholar
• Benzion Netanyahu (Professor of History 1971–1975) – Professor emeritus of history at Cornell University; father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
• Walter LaFeber (Steven Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow of History, 1958–2006) – U.S. foreign policy historian
• Fredrik Logevall - (John S. Knight Professor of International Studies) - 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner
• Hunter R. Rawlings III - 10th President of Cornell University
• Goldwin Smith (Professor of English and Constitutional History, 1868–71) – historian; university reformer; namesake of Goldwin Smith Hall
• Carl Stephenson (Professor of Medieval history, 1930–54?) – early 20th-century medievalist
• John Szarkowski (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1983–89) – photography curator, historian, and critic
• Eric Tagliacozzo - historian of modern Southeast Asia
• Herbert Tuttle (Professor of international law) - 19th-century historian, author
• Andrew Dickson White - first President of Cornell University; first President of the American Historical Association
• O. W. Wolters - twentieth-century historian of early Southeast Asia

Music

• Malcolm Bilson (Professor) – music historian
• David Borden (Director, Digital Music Program) – composer of minimalist music
• Donald Byrd - jazz trumpeter and educator
• Adolf Dahm-Petersen – voice specialist and teacher of artistic singing
• Karel Husa (Professor, 1954-1992) – composer best known for his Music for Prague 1968; won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3
• Hunter Johnson (Professor) – composer
• James Thomas Quarles – organist and music educator
• Steven Stucky – Pulitzer Prize-winning composer

Architecture and design

• Bristow Adams (Professor, 1914–45) – journalist, professor, forester, illustrator
• Buckminster Fuller (Professor) – architect and inventor, known for work with geodesic domes
• Colin Rowe (Professor, 1970s) – architectural historian and theoretician
• Romaldo Giurgola (Professor) – architect, winner of the AIA Gold Medal
• Oswald Mathias Ungers (Professor, 1968–1976) – architect

Fine arts and photography

• Michael Ashkin – sculptor
• Jacqueline Livingston (Professor of Photography and Art (?-1978) – feminist photographer
• Alison Lurie (Professor of Literature, 1970–) – Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Carl Ostendarp – painter

John Cleese

Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes

Media

Journalism, film, television, theatre

• John Cleese (A.D. White Professor-at-Large, 1999–2006; Provost’s Visiting Professor, 2006–) – comedian and actor
• John Pilger (Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor, 2003–06) – journalist and documentary filmmaker

Government, law, business

• Iajuddin Ahmed (Visiting Professor, 1984) – President of Bangladesh, 2002–09
• Alfred C. Aman, Jr. (Professor, 1977–91) – Dean of Suffolk University Law School and Indiana University School of Law
• G. Robert Blakey professor of law and director of the Cornell Institute on Organized Crime (1973–80) – author of the RICO statute and chief counsel to House Select Committee on Assassinations
• Michael J. Freeman (Assistant Professor) - inventor; business consultant, behavior sciences
• Andrew Hacker (Professor) – political scientist; questioned race, class, and gender in American society
• Harry George Henn
• Robert C. Hockett
• Charles Evans Hughes (Professor, Law School, 1891–93) – Governor of New York, 1907–10; U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice, 1910–16; U.S. Presidential candidate, 1916; U.S. Secretary of State, 1921–25; Chief Justice of the United States, 1930–41
• Irving Ives (Trustee; Dean of Industrial & Labor Relations, 1945–47) – U.S. Senator from New York, 1947–59; namesake of Ives Hall
• Robert Jarrow (Ronald P. and Susan E. Lynch Professor of Investment Management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management) – expert on derivative securities; co-developer of Heath-Jarrow-Morton framework and Jarrow-Turnbull model
• George McTurnan Kahin (Professor of Government, 1951–88) – expert on Southeast Asia and critic of the Vietnam War
• Alfred E. Kahn (Robert Julius Thorne Professor Emeritus of Political Economy; Trustee; Dean of Arts & Sciences) – advisor to President Jimmy Carter on deregulation; economist
• Milton R. Konvitz – head of Liberian codification project
• Cynthia McKinney (Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor, 2003–06) – U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1993–2003, 2005–2007
• Edwin Barber Morgan (Trustee, 1865–74) – U.S. Representative from New York, 1853–59; Director of American Express
• Robert Parris Moses (Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor, 2006–) – Civil rights leader; creator of the Algebra Project; MacArthur "genius"
• Frances Perkins (Lecturer of Industrial & Labor Relations (?-1965) – U.S. Secretary of Labor, 1933–45); first female U.S. Cabinet member
• Richard Neustadt (Professor of Public Administration, 1952?–54?) – political scientist specializing in the United States presidency; advised presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton
• Clinton Rossiter (Professor of Government, 1946–70) – political scientist
• Frederick A. Sawyer (Professor) – Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, 1873–74; Senator from South Carolina, 1968–73
• Martin Shefter (Professor of Government, 1986–) – political scientist
• Lynn Stout - Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law

Education

• Arthur S. Adams (University Provost 1946–1948) – President of the University of New Hampshire (1948–1950); President of the American Council on Education (1950–1961)
• Charles Kendall Adams (University President, 1885–1892) – President of the University of Wisconsin, 1892–1901
• John L. Anderson (Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, 1971–1976) – President of the Illinois Institute of Technology (2007–2015), Provost and University Vice President of Case Western Reserve University (2004–2007), Dean of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (1996–2004); member of the National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Elisha Andrews (Faculty 1888–89) – President of Denison University (1875–79) and Brown University (1889–1898); Chancellor of the University of Nebraska (1900–1909)
• Sanford S. Atwood (University Provost 1955–1963) – President of Emory University (1963–1977)
• Sarah Gibson Blanding (Dean of Human Ecology, 1941–46) – President of Vassar College, 1946–1964
• Robert F. Chandler (Professor of Forest Soils) – President of the University of New Hampshire (1950–1954); Winner of the World Food Prize, 1988
• James Mason Crafts (Chemistry Professor, 1867–1870) – President of MIT, 1897–1900
• Cornelis W. de Kiewiet (University Provost 1948–1951; Acting President 1949–1951) – President of the University of Rochester (1951–1961)
• Lloyd Hartman Elliott (Professor of Educational Administration) – President of the University of Maine (1958–1965) and George Washington University (1965–1988)
• Thomas E. Everhart (Professor of Electrical Engineering, Dean of Engineering 1979–1984) – Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (1984–1987), President of the California Institute of Technology (1987–1997); member of the National Academy of Engineering and foreign fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• W. Kent Fuchs (University Provost, 2009-2014) – President of the University of Florida, 2015–
• Richard H. Gallagher (Faculty 1967–1978) – President of Clarkson University (1988–1995) and member of National Academy of Engineering
• Charles De Garmo (Faculty) – President of Swarthmore College (1891–1898)
• Theodore L. Hullar (Faculty, 1979–1984, 1997–) – Chancellor of UC Riverside(1985–1987) and UC Davis (1987–1994)
• Harry Burns Hutchins (Law Faculty 1887–1894) – President of the University of Michigan, 1909–1920
• William Rea Keast (Professor, Department Chair, Dean of Arts & Sciences, Vice President for Academic Affairs, 1951–1965) – President of Wayne State University, 1965–1971
• David C. Knapp (University Provost, 1974-1978) – President of the University of Massachusetts (1978–1990)
• Asa S. Knowles (Vice President for University Development, 1948–1951) – President of the University of Toledo (1951–1958) and of Northeastern University (1959–1975)
• Edward H. Litchfield (Dean of School of Business) – twelfth Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh (1956–1965)
• Carolyn Martin (University Provost, 2000-2008) – Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, 2008–2011; President of Amherst College, 2011–
• Alan G. Merten (Dean of the Johnson School) – President of George Mason University (1996–2012)
• Paul Olum (Faculty, 1949–1974; Mathematics Department Chair, 1963–1966) – President of the University of Oregon, 1980–1989
• Russell K. Osgood (Dean and Professor of Law, 1988–1998) – President of Grinnell College 1998–2010
• Robert A. Plane (Chemistry Professor; University Provost 1969-1973) – President of Clarkson University (1974–1985) and of Wells College (1991–1995)
• Don Michael Randel (University Provost, Dean of Arts & Sciences) – President of the University of Chicago, 2000–2006
• Charles Ashmead Schaeffer (Dean of Faculty) – President of the University of Iowa, 1887–1898
• Benjamin Ide Wheeler (Professor of Greek and Comparative Philology) - President of the University of California, 1899–1919
• Roy A. Young (President of Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research of Cornell University, 1980–1986) – Chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1976–1980

Athletics

• Bob Blackman (Head Coach, Football, 1977–82) – member of the College Football Hall of Fame
• Charles E. Courtney (Head Coach, Rowing, 1883–1920) – rower and rowing coach
• Melody Davidson (Head Coach, Women's Ice Hockey) – head coach of the Canadian national women's hockey team and the Canadian 2006 Winter Olympics women's hockey team
• Hilary Gehman (Head Coach, Women's Rowing) - two-time Olympian; six-time member of the U.S. national rowing team
• Edward Moylan (Head Coach, Tennis and Squash, 1962–72) – tennis player
• Michael Slive (Director of Athletics) – Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, 2002–present
• Phil Sykes (Interim Head Coach, Field Hockey, 2003) – U.S. Olympic field hockey defender

See also

• List of Cornell University alumni
• List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation

Further reading

• List of faculty holding named professorships
• List of A.D. White Professors-at-Large
• List of Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professors