Notable Alumnae

Household names, experts, advocates, award winners...Wellesley women.

If you go to Wellesley, you immediately share something in common with these women:

Alumnae Dating Back to 1880

• Madeleine Korbel Albright - 1959 - Former U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. ambassador; Wellesley's 2007 commencement speaker; founded Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs
• Katharine Lee Bates - 1880 - Author of the anthem “America the Beautiful”
• JudyAnn Bigby - 1973 - President's Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health
• Marian Burros - 1954 - New York Times food columnist and cookbook author
• Michelle Caruso-Cabrera - 1991 - CNBC host and anchor; named one of the "100 Most Influential Hispanic Women in America"
• Robin Chase - 1980 - Cofounder and former CEO of Zipcar
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek - 1917 - Former first lady of the Republic of China
• Hillary Rodham Clinton - 1969 - U.S. senator from New York; former first lady; 2008 presidential candidate; U.S. Secretary of State
• Alecia DeCoudreaux - 1976 - President, Mills College
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas - 1912 - Champion of the Everglades and founder of Florida's environmental movement
• Persis S. Drell - 1977 - Physicist and director of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; named one of the "50 Most Important Women in Science" by Discover Magazine
• Nora Ephron - 1962 - Film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and blogger
• Laurie (1992) and Michele Geronimo (1997) - Cofounders of Secure Sponsorship
• Ellen Rubin Gordon - 1952 - President and COO, Tootsie Roll Industries
• Heidi Howkins - 1989 - Professional mountain climber/expedition leader
• Rosemary Jordano - 1984 - Founder of ChildrenFirst, provider of backup childcare for corporations
• Lois Juliber - 1971 - Retired vice chairman and former COO, Colgate-Palmolive Company; named one of the “Top 25 Managers in the U.S.” by BusinessWeek magazine
• Amalya L. Kearse - 1959 - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, New York; first African American woman to serve on the Second Circuit Court
• Nannerl Overholser Keohane - 1961 - Former president, Duke University and Wellesley College; professor of political science, focusing on political philosophy, feminism, and education
• In Ho Lee - 1960 - First female ambassador in Korean history (in Finland and Russia); president of the Korea Foundation; renowned foreign affairs expert
• Ellen Levine - 1964 - Editor-in-Chief, Good Housekeeping magazine
• Ali MacGraw - 1960 - Academy Award–nominated actress
• Judith Pearlman Martin - 1959 - Syndicated columnist and author “Miss Manners”
• Nergis Mavalvala - 1990 - Quantum astrophysicist; MacArthur "genius award" recipient
• Pamela Melroy - 1983 - Former astronaut/NASA Space Shuttle pilot and commander; currently serves on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees
• Geneva Overholser - 1970 - Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist
• Anne Patterson - 1973 - recent U.S. ambassador to Pakistan; considered the second most powerful woman in U.S. diplomacy, after Secretary of State Clinton
• Vivian Pinn, M.D. - 1962 - Director of research on women's health at the National Institutes of Health
• Jennifer Eplett Reilly - 1985 - Cofounder of City Year
• Sonya Rhee - 1998 - Documentary filmmaker (shown on PBS and in film festivals)
• Cokie Roberts - 1964 - ABC News correspondent; National Public Radio senior news analyst; Edward R. Murrow Award winner
• Desiree Rogers - 1981 - CEO of Johnson Publishing; named one of the 50 most powerful African-American women in business by Black Enterprise and one of the "Top 25 Women to Watch" by Crain's Chicago Business
• Diane Sawyer - 1967 - Television broadcast journalist (ABC and CBS)
• Susan Sheehan - 1958 - Pulitzer Prize–winning author; staff writer for The New Yorker
• Lynn Sherr - 1963 - Emmy Award–winning ABC 20/20 news correspondent; serves on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees
• Kathy Simon - 1965 - Founder and principal of an all-women architectural firm, SMWM
• Joan Wallace-Benjamin - 1975 - CEO of The Home for Little Wanderers
• Lori Wallach - 1986 - Director, Public Citizens’ Global Trade Watch
• Linda Wertheimer - 1965 - Award–winning National Public Radio (NPR) senior national correspondent; former host of NPR’s All Things Considered, currently on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees
• Bing Xin - 1926 (master's degree) - Chinese poet, essayist, short-story writer

A Sampling of Younger Alums

• Fazeelat Aslam - 2007 - Coproducer of Saving Face, winner of the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).
• Halimatou Hima Moussa Dioula - 2010 - Working with UNICEF at United Nations offices in Niger
• Regina Edifor - 2009 - Research assistant, Children’s Hospital, Boston
• Alexis Frank - 2007 - Account associate, Enterprise at Google
• Hannah Galvin - 2001 - Pediatrician, special care nursery focused on maternal-infant couplet care
• Yumi Huh - 2002 - Public relations for Sur La Table
• Elizabeth Masiello - 2003- Public Policy Team, Google
• Salwa Nur Muhammad - 2006 - Assistant director of internships and service learning, Center for Work and Service, Wellesley College
• Jennifer Redfearn – 2003 - Producer and writer; nominated for Academy Award for climate change documentary Sun Come Up
• Sarah Rogan - 2004 - Ph.D. candidate; fellowship in Paris for French Embassy to work in lab
• Nina Schloesser - 2002 - Author; recipient of Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Fiction
• Rachel Stern - 2001 - Junior fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows, Cambridge, Mass.