List of famous alumni from University of Washington, with photos when available. Prominent graduates from University of Washington include celebrities, politicians, business people, athletes and more. This list of distinguished University of Washington alumni is loosely ordered by relevance, so the most recognizable celebrities who attended University of Washington are at the top of the list. This directory is not just composed of graduates of this school, as some of the famous people on this list didn't necessarily earn a degree from University of Washington.
List ranges from Bruce Lee to Anna Faris and more.
This list answers the questions “Which famous people went to University of Washington?” and “Which celebrities are University of Washington alumni?”
Daniel M. Ashe
Daniel M. Ashe is the President and CEO of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.Ashe was the Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) from February 2011 to January 2017. The United States Senate held a hearing on his nomination on February 15, 2011 and confirmed him to the post by unanimous consent on June 30, 2011. Ashe used to be Deputy Director for Policy of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). His prior positions included being a member of the staff of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries (1982–95), Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System (1998-2003), and Science Advisor to the Director of the USFWS (2003).Ashe graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Marine Affairs, and also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biological science from Florida State University. He wrote his master's thesis on wetland mitigation, and it was published in the Coastal Zone Management Journal in 1982.He lives in Maryland with his family.Jeff Ragsdale
WriterJeffrey Charles "Jeff" Ragsdale is an American author, documentary filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, and national game show champion. He is best known for his starring role in the 2014 award-winning documentary, Hotline, and his 2012 book Jeff, One Lonely Guy, which was selected by Dave Eggers for inclusion in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012, and it was a GQ 2012 "Book of the Year".Paul W. Ewald
Paul W. Ewald (born c. 1953) is an evolutionary biologist, specializing in the evolution of infectious disease. He received his BSc in 1975 from the University of California, Irvine, in Biological Sciences and his PhD in 1980 from the University of Washington, in Zoology, with specialization in Ecology and Evolution. He is currently director of the program in Evolutionary Medicine at the Biology Department of the University of Louisville. Ewald asserts, along with a growing body of studies, that many common diseases of unknown origin are likely the result of chronic low-level infections from viruses, bacteria or protozoa. For example, cervical cancer can be caused by the human papilloma virus, some cases of liver cancer are caused by hepatitis C or B and the bacteria Helicobacter pylori has been proven to cause stomach ulcers. Ewald argues that many common diseases of currently unknown etiology, such as cancers, heart attacks, stroke and Alzheimer's, may likewise be also caused by chronic low-level microbial infection.Ewald disagrees with the popular theory that genes alone dictate chronic disease susceptibility. Ewald, whose background is in evolutionary biology, points out that any disease causing gene that reduces survival and reproduction would normally eliminate itself over a number of generations. Ewald says that "chronic diseases, if they are common and damaging, must be powerful eliminators of any genetic instruction that may cause them." One example of this is schizophrenia; patients with this mental illness rarely reproduce. Ewald argues that, just by evolutionary pressures, schizophrenia would have already been eliminated if its causes were strictly genetic; he suggests that in the future, an infectious cause of schizophrenia will be discovered.Ewald explains that purely genetic causes of chronic disease will persist only if a genetic instruction provides a compensating benefit (for example, the disease sickle cell anemia is caused by a genetic mutation that, in heterozygotes, protects against malaria, which kills millions worldwide each year).Further evidence for a non-genetic etiology of diseases like schizophrenia, Ewald also points out, comes from concordance studies on identical twins, which measure the percentage of identical twins who both develop a disease. A concordance of 100% indicates a primarily genetic disease, which is not really influenced by environmental factors like infection, nutrition, or toxins. Huntington's disease, for example, has a concordance rate of 100%, indicating a predominately genetic etiology. However, when the concordance rate is lower, this indicates environmental factors like infectious microbes or toxin exposure are playing a causal role. Schizophrenia's concordance is approximately 35-60%, suggesting, says Ewald, that microbes are etiologically involved. Another example is breast cancer: Ewald notes that in the case of identical twins, when one twin develops breast cancer, the other twin has only a 10% to 20% chance of developing the disease, and this concordance rate of just 20% again indicates that environmental factors like infectious microbes or toxins are likely playing large causal roles in breast cancer. Ewald's curiosity regarding the evolutionary process of infections was sparked by his fateful bout of diarrhea in the late 1970s. His first thought during this bout was that his body was using diarrhea to expel the pathogen and he should avoid anti-diarrheal medication. Looking at the problem from the standpoint of the organism, expulsion was not an evolutionary benefit. The only benefit to the pathogen causing the sickness would be the potential transmission to other hosts; much like the particulate expelled during coughing, diarrhea can be a means of distribution. Another major influence on Ewald's thinking in evolutionary biology terms was the HIV virus, which once caught, initially remains inactive for years thus allowing it to spread, before the chronic disease of AIDS finally manifests, incapacitates, and eventually kills the host.Eleanor Maccoby
PsychologistEleanor Emmons Maccoby is a psychologist best known for her contributions to developmental psychology and the psychology of sex differences. She worked with B.F. Skinner and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She has also worked as a professor at Stanford University. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993.Lorna Paul
Film Producer, ActorLorna Paul is a film producer and actor.Joe Mallahan
The 2009 Seattle mayoral election took place November 3, 2009. Incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels sought reelection but finished third in the August 18, 2009 primary election. The general election was instead between Joe Mallahan and Michael McGinn. After a very close initial count, McGinn beat Mallahan in the election, becoming Seattle's next mayor.Richard L. Stroup
Richard Lyndell Stroup is a free-market environmentalist and emeritus professor of economics at both North Carolina State University and Montana State University. He was co-founder of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and a senior fellow. He is also a research fellow at the Independent Institute, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society At Montana State University, he served as head of the Department of Agricultural Economics & Economics. Stroup served as director of the Office of Policy Analysis in the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1982 to 1984 .He is co-author with James Gwartney and others of Economics: Public and Private Choice, an economics principles textbook now in its 16th edition. Among other writing, he has contributed to Re-Thinking Green, edited Cutting Green Tape, and is the author of Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know about Economics and the Environment, which received the 2004 Sir Anthony Fisher Memorial Award. He is a coauthor of Common Sense Economics. Stroup received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington, where he also received his bachelor's and master's degrees. He is married to Jane S. Shaw, former president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (previously the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy).Rodney Erickson
Rodney Allen Erickson is an American academic administrator who served as the 17th president of Pennsylvania State University from 2011 to 2014. Formerly executive vice president and provost, he was named interim president of Penn State on November 9, 2011, after previous president Graham Spanier was forced to resign in the wake of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, after which the "interim" tag was removed later that month.Alden Mason
Alden Mason was a widely traveled American painter, particularly noted for his controversial murals.- ActorJo Ann Sayers (born Miriam Lucille Lilygren, October 22, 1918 – November 14, 2011) was an American actress who was active in Broadway and in Hollywood films. Her film career spanned the 1930s through the 1950s.
Jim Stiger
Jim Stiger (January 7, 1941 – December 12, 1981) was an American football running back in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams. He played college football at the University of Washington.Brian Christian
Brian Christian (born 1984 in Wilmington, Delaware) is an American non-fiction author and poet, best known for the two bestselling books The Most Human Human (2011) and Algorithms to Live By (2016).Christian competed as a "confederate" in the 2009 Loebner Prize competition, attempting to seem "more human" than the humans taking the test, and succeeded. He was interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on March 8, 2011. Reading The Most Human Human inspired the playwright Jordan Harrison to write the play Marjorie Prime, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was released as a feature film in 2017. The book also inspired filmmaker Tommy Pallotta's 2018 documentary More Human Than Human, in which Christian appears.In 2010, Christian collaborated with film director Michael Langan on a short film adaptation of Christian's poem "Heliotropes," which was published in the final issue of Wholphin magazine. Christian attended high school at the prestigious High Technology High School in Lincroft, NJ. Christian holds a degree from Brown University in computer science and philosophy, and an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. He is also an alumnus of High Technology High School class of 2002. He is a native of Little Silver, New Jersey. Beginning in 2012, Christian has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His awards and honors include publication in The Best American Science and Nature Writing and fellowships at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. In 2016 Christian was named a Laureate of the San Francisco Public Library.- American football playerDonald Butler (born October 17, 1988) is a former American football linebacker. He played college football at the University of Washington. He was considered one of the top linebacker prospects for the 2010 NFL Draft, and was selected with the 79th overall pick by the San Diego Chargers.
Lisa Stevens
Lisa Stevens is an American editor, CEO of Paizo Publishing, and COO of Goblinworks.- ProfessorAnnelise Barron is Associate Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Current research interests of the Barron Group are biophysical mechanisms of host defense peptides and their mimics.
George M. Martin
George M. Martin, M.D. (born June 30, 1927, in New York, New York) is an American biogerontologist. He received both his B.S. in Chemistry and his M.D. from the University of Washington and has been a member of its faculty since 1957. Dr. Martin is a Professor Emeritus (Active) in the Department of Pathology, Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences (Retired) and Director Emeritus of the University of Washington’s Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.Jenni Hogan
Jennifer Hogan, born Jennifer Vesnaver on 23 August in Adelaide, South Australia, is a 2 x NCAA National Champion athlete, entrepreneur, TV host and journalist. She has received an Emmy Award for her work and Forbes calls Hogan the "Socially Savvy TV Journalist" with the most online followers of any local TV anchor in the nation on Twitter and Facebook combined.Jennifer McCreight
- Politician, LawyerRaúl Rafael Labrador (born December 8, 1967) is the Idaho Republican Party Chair and American politician who served as a U.S. Representative for Idaho's 1st congressional district from 2011 to 2019. He is a member of the Republican Party. Labrador previously represented District 14B in the Idaho House of Representatives from 2006 to 2010. Labrador opted not to seek another term in Congress to run for Governor of Idaho in the 2018 election; he lost the Republican primary to Idaho Lieutenant Governor Brad Little.
Christine Babcock
Christine Babcock is a two-time all-American collegiate athlete in the United States. Babcock was born in Laguna Hills, California. She is an Oiselle professional athlete, 2012 graduate of the University of Washington at Seattle, but is best known for being one of only a few high school athletes to compete in the 2008 US Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon and for setting two national high school records at the distances of 1500 and 1600 meters. Babcock attended Woodbridge High School in Irvine, California.Peter Mountford
Peter Mountford (born July 17, 1976) is an American novelist and writer of short stories and non-fiction.Daniel Te'o-Nesheim
American football playerDaniel Te'o-Nesheim (né Nesheim; June 12, 1987 – October 29, 2017) was a Samoan American football defensive end. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the third round of the 2010 NFL Draft. He played college football at Washington.Jevin D. West
Jevin West is a postdoctoral research working on ways to extract information from large network datasets. His current focus is on paper-level citation networks. Jevin is the driving force behind the Eigenfactor project and other network-based approach to bibliometric analysis.Paul Thiry
Paul Thiry (1904–1993) was an American architect most active in Washington state, known as the father of architectural modernism in the Pacific Northwest. Thiry designed "some of the best period buildings around the state of Washington during the 1950, 60s and 70s."Barbara Madsen
Barbara Madsen (born 1952) is member of the Washington Supreme Court. She joined the court in 1993 as the first woman to be popularly elected to the Court in Washington state history. She was re-elected in 1998, 2004, and 2010, and 2016. In her years on the Washington Supreme Court, Madsen has sat in judgement on thousands of cases.On November 5, 2009, Barbara Madsen was unanimously elected by her peers to serve as Chief Justice of the Washington Supreme Court. She was sworn in as Chief Justice on January 11, 2010, replacing retiring Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander. She served two terms as Chief Justice, the second longest serving in Washington state history. Madsen is a native of Renton, Washington, and graduated from Hazen High School. In 1974, she received her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington. In 1977, she earned her Juris Doctor from Gonzaga University School of Law. After completing law school, Madsen worked as a public defender in King County and Snohomish County. In 1982, she joined the Seattle City Attorney's Office and was appointed Special Prosecutor in 1984. Seattle Mayor Charles Royer appointed Madsen in 1988 to the Seattle Municipal Court bench. After serving as the Presiding Judge of the Seattle Municipal Court, she ran for the Washington Supreme Court in 1992 to fill the vacancy left by retiring Justice Fred H. Dore.Geraldine Dawson
Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. is an American child clinical psychologist, specializing in autism. She has conducted extensive research on early detection, brain development, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders and collaborated on studies of genetic risk factors in autism. Dawson is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, and Neuroscience and Director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development at Duke University Medical Center. Dawson is President-Elect of the International Society for Autism Research, a scientific and professional organization devoted to advancing knowledge about autism spectrum disorders. From 2008-2013, Dawson was Research Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was Chief Science Officer for Autism Speaks, the world’s largest autism science and advocacy organization. Dawson also holds the positions of Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at University of Washington. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, American Psychological Association, and the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.Tim Hanstad
Landesa Rural Development Institute is a nonprofit organization that partners with governments and local organizations to secure legal land rights for world's poorest families. Since 1967, Landesa has helped more than 100 million poor families in 35 countries gain legal control over their land. When families have secure rights to land, they can invest in their land to sustainably increase their harvests and reap the benefits—improved nutrition, health, education, and dignity. Landesa partners with governments, world leaders, NGOs, foundations, donor agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and others to design and implement land laws, policies and programs that provide opportunity, further economic growth, and promote social justice through land rights. Based in Seattle, Landesa has program offices in Beijing, China; Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Patna, India; Yangon, Myanmar; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Landesa currently works in China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Rwanda, and Tanzania.Sanjay Lal
Sanjay Lal is an American football coach. He currently serves as the wide receivers coach for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League.Troy Kelly
Troy Kelly is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour.- American football playerAlameda Ta'amu is an American football nose tackle for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League. He played college football for the Washington Huskies.
