Educators
92 people, across 8 fields.
Field:
All
Ideas & Media 55
Science & Medicine 10
Arts & Letters 7
Government & Politics 6
Reform & Rights 6
Technology & Building 5
Frontier & Sport 2
Business & Labor 1
Woodrow Wilson 1856–1924Presidents28th President who led the nation through World War I and championed the League of Nations.
Booker T. Washington 1856–1915EducationEducator and founder of Tuskegee Institute who advocated for vocational training for African Americans.
George Washington Carver 1864–1943Environment, Agriculture & FoodAgricultural scientist whose research on crop rotation and alternative crops transformed Southern farming.
John Dewey 1859–1952EducationPhilosopher and educational reformer whose progressive ideas shaped modern American pedagogy.
Richard Feynman 1918–1988Science & MathematicsTheoretical physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics and his accessible teaching style.
William James 1842–1910Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American psychology as a discipline and shaped pragmatist philosophy at Harvard.
Leonard Bernstein 1918–1990MusicConductor, composer, and educator who brought classical music to mass audiences and reshaped American musical theater.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807–1882Literature & DramaThe most widely read American poet of the 19th century, and the most argued over since.
Noah Webster 1758–1843EducationLexicographer whose spellers and American dictionary standardized United States spelling and schoolroom instruction.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1886–1969Engineering & ArchitectureDirected architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology and defined American modernist steel-and-glass buildings.
Horace Mann 1796–1859EducationReformist who championed public education and is considered the father of the American public school system.
Vladimir Nabokov 1899–1977Literature & DramaAuthor of Lolita, Pale Fire and Speak, Memory
Elie Wiesel 1928–2016Scholars & Public IntellectualsHolocaust survivor, author of Night, and Nobel Peace laureate
Mary McLeod Bethune 1875–1955EducationEducator and civil rights leader who founded Bethune-Cookman University and advised four presidents.
Condoleezza Rice b. 1954Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst Black woman to serve as Secretary of State after directing national security policy under George W. Bush.
Elizabeth Blackwell 1821–1910Medicine & Public HealthFirst woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and a pioneer of women’s medical education.
Angela Davis b. 1944Scholars & Public IntellectualsPolitical activist and academic whose scholarship on race, class, and prisons became globally influential.
Christa McAuliffe 1948–1986Exploration, Aviation & SpaceTeacher selected for the Teacher in Space program who died in the Challenger disaster.
James Naismith 1861–1939SportsNailed two peach baskets to a gymnasium balcony in December 1891 and invented basketball.Mamie Till-Mobley 1921–2003Civil Rights & Social ReformInsisted the country look at what was done to her son, then taught school and campaigned for fifty years.
Anne Sullivan 1866–1936EducationTeacher who famously educated Helen Keller, breaking through her isolation from deafness and blindness.
Shirley Chisholm 1924–2005Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst Black woman elected to Congress and first woman to run for a major party's presidential nomination.
Edward Said 1935–2003Scholars & Public IntellectualsHis 1978 book Orientalism argued that Western knowledge of the East was built inside imperial power, and it remade several humanities fields.
Paul Samuelson 1915–2009Scholars & Public IntellectualsFirst American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, whose textbook defined the field for decades.
Franz Boas 1858–1942Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American academic anthropology and argued against racial determinism from Columbia University.Richard Hofstadter 1916–1970Scholars & Public IntellectualsHistorian who named the paranoid style in American politics and won two Pulitzer Prizes, for The Age of Reform and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
Louis Kahn 1901–1974Engineering & ArchitectureThe Salk Institute, the Kimbell and the National Assembly at Dhaka, from an architect who began at 50.
Marvin Minsky 1927–2016Technology & InventionBuilt the first neural network learning machine, then wrote the book blamed for burying the idea.
Frederick Jackson Turner 1861–1932Scholars & Public IntellectualsThe frontier thesis — the most influential and most attacked argument in American history.
Carter G. Woodson 1875–1950Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounder of Negro History Week and the Journal of Negro History
Stella Adler 1901–1992Film, Television & ComedyActing teacher who trained Marlon Brando and broke with Lee Strasberg
Charles W. Eliot 1834–1926EducationRebuilt Harvard into the first modern American research university and gave undergraduates the elective system.
Robert Millikan 1868–1953Science & MathematicsMeasuring the charge of the electron
Frederick Terman 1900–1982Technology & InventionStanford dean and provost who built the first university industrial park
Harold Bloom 1930–2019Scholars & Public IntellectualsArgued that great poems are deliberate misreadings of earlier ones, then fought the canon wars in public.
Oral Roberts 1918–2009Religion & Religious MovementsMoved Pentecostal healing services from the revival tent onto national television, and built a university on the proceeds.
Lee Strasberg 1901–1982Film, Television & ComedyTaught the Method to two generations of American actors, and made affective memory the centre of it.Vivien Thomas 1910–1985Medicine & Public HealthDevised the blue-baby heart operation without a medical degree, and went unnamed on the paper.
Mary Lyon 1797–1849EducationFounder of Mount Holyoke, the first endowed college for American women
Barbara Gittings 1932–2007Civil Rights & Social ReformStruck homosexuality from the psychiatric manual and put gay books on library shelves.
Dwight L. Moody 1837–1899Religion & Religious MovementsRan revival like a business and left the Chicago school that trained American fundamentalism.
Lawrence Summers b. 1954Scholars & Public IntellectualsEconomist, Treasury Secretary, and president of Harvard
William Osler 1849–1919Medicine & Public HealthBuilt bedside clinical teaching into American medical education as a founding Johns Hopkins professor.
Sequoyah 1770–1843Indigenous Leaders & Native NationsCherokee scholar who created the Cherokee syllabary, enabling mass literacy and strengthening Cherokee political and cultural life.
James Bryant Conant 1893–1978EducationPresident of Harvard, chairman of the wartime NDRC, and champion of the SAT
Mildred Dresselhaus 1930–2017Science & MathematicsCarbon nanoscience, nanotubes and low-dimensional thermoelectrics
Robert Maynard Hutchins 1899–1977EducationRan the University of Chicago at 30 and rebuilt it around the great books.
Theodore von Karman 1881–1963Engineering & ArchitectureAerodynamics, the Karman vortex street, and the founding of JPLSanford Meisner 1905–1997Film, Television & ComedyActing teacher who created the Meisner technique
Richard Posner b. 1939Scholars & Public IntellectualsJudge and legal scholar who put economics at the centre of American law
Roger Revelle 1909–1991Science & MathematicsOceanographer and early scientist of human-caused global warming
Martin Seligman b. 1942Medicine & Public HealthLearned helplessness and the founding of positive psychology
Robert Solow 1924–2023Scholars & Public IntellectualsMeasured economic growth and found that most of it comes from technological progress, not capital.
Robert Parris Moses 1935–2021EducationCivil rights leader and math educator who founded the Algebra Project to empower poor students.
Benjamin Graham 1894–1976Business, Finance & IndustryEstablished value investing and securities analysis as a professional discipline.
bell hooks 1952–2021Scholars & Public IntellectualsFeminist scholar and cultural critic whose writings on race, gender, and class transformed critical theory.
Harold Clurman 1901–1980Film, Television & ComedyCo-founder of the Group Theatre and drama critic of The Nation
Charles Grandison Finney 1792–1875Religion & Religious MovementsTurned religious revival into a set of repeatable methods that every American evangelist since has used.
Daniel Coit Gilman 1831–1908EducationFounding president of Johns Hopkins University
Clark Kerr 1911–2003EducationArchitect of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education
Sal Khan b. 1976EducationFounder of Khan Academy, whose free online lessons have reached hundreds of millions of learners globally.
James Beard 1903–1985Environment, Agriculture & FoodCookbook author and teacher whose advocacy helped define a distinct modern American culinary tradition.
Felix Frankfurter 1882–1965Law & the JudiciarySupreme Court justice and Harvard professor whose jurisprudence and government service shaped twentieth-century American law.
Frank McCourt 1930–2009EducationPulitzer Prize-winning memoirist and New York City teacher whose Angela's Ashes became a global bestseller.
Judith Butler b. 1956Scholars & Public IntellectualsPhilosopher whose work on gender performativity reshaped feminist and queer theory worldwide.
Barbara Jordan 1936–1996Political Leaders & StatecraftTexas congresswoman whose Watergate impeachment address made her a leading constitutional voice in Congress.
Kimberlé Crenshaw b. 1959Scholars & Public IntellectualsLegal scholar who coined the term intersectionality, reshaping understandings of overlapping discrimination.
William Stewart Halsted 1852–1922Medicine & Public HealthEstablished aseptic surgical technique and the American surgical residency training system.
Jaime Escalante 1930–2010EducationMath teacher who inspired underprivileged students in East Los Angeles to excel in advanced calculus.
Joseph Story 1779–1845Law & the JudiciaryEarly Supreme Court justice and legal scholar whose treatises and opinions strengthened federal judicial authority.
Isaac Mayer Wise 1819–1900Religion & Religious MovementsBuilt the three institutions that still hold American Reform Judaism together.
Emma Willard 1787–1870EducationWomen's education reformer who founded the Troy Female Seminary, a model for women's higher education.
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet 1787–1851EducationFounded the first permanent American school for deaf students.
Maria Mitchell 1818–1889Science & MathematicsFirst American woman professional astronomer who discovered a comet and taught at Vassar College.
Ed Roberts 1939–1995Civil Rights & Social ReformBuilt the independent living movement and made disability a civil rights question rather than a medical one.
Howard Gardner b. 1943EducationDevelopmental psychologist whose theory of multiple intelligences transformed educational philosophy.
Lawrence Lessig b. 1961Scholars & Public IntellectualsHarvard Law professor and activist who founded Creative Commons and campaigns against political corruption.
Catharine Beecher 1800–1878EducationPioneer in women's education who founded schools and advocated for female teachers across America.
Wendy Kopp b. 1967EducationFounder of Teach for America, which places college graduates as teachers in underserved schools.
Diane Ravitch b. 1938EducationHistorian of education and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education who shaped national education policy debates.
Geoffrey Canada b. 1952EducationSocial activist who founded the Harlem Children's Zone, a model for comprehensive community-based education.
Jonathan Kozol b. 1936EducationWriter and activist whose books exposed the stark inequalities in American public schooling.
Michelle Rhee b. 1969EducationFormer chancellor of D.C. public schools who became a polarizing figure in education reform debates.
Marva Collins 1936–2015EducationEducator who founded Westside Preparatory School and proved that disadvantaged students could achieve excellence.
Glenn Loury b. 1948Scholars & Public IntellectualsBrown University economist whose work on race, inequality, and social policy bridges left and right.
E. D. Hirsch Jr. b. 1928EducationLiterary scholar whose Core Knowledge curriculum emphasized cultural literacy and shared knowledge.John Holt 1923–1985EducationTeacher and author whose How Children Fail and How Children Learn inspired the homeschooling movement.
Linda Darling-Hammond b. 1951EducationEducation researcher and Stanford professor who shaped teacher preparation and assessment policy.
Lucy Sprague Mitchell 1878–1967EducationProgressive educator who founded Bank Street College and revolutionized early childhood education.
Deborah Meier b. 1931EducationPioneer of small-school reform who founded Central Park East and won a MacArthur Genius Grant.Ted Sizer 1932–2009EducationEducational reformer whose Coalition of Essential Schools reshaped American secondary education.
Amy Wax b. 1953Scholars & Public IntellectualsUniversity of Pennsylvania law professor whose controversial writings on culture and immigration sparked national debate.