Tufts University

Tufts University is a private university located in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. In 1852, Charles Tufts founded Tufts College and donated the land for the campus on Walnut Hill, the highest point in Medford. Tufts said that he wanted to set a "light on the hill." Originally affiliated with the Universalist Church, Tufts is now non-sectarian. The name changed to "Tufts University" in 1954, although the corporate name remains "the Trustees of Tufts College."

Notable Tufts alumni

Political leaders

• Jeb Bradley, Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003.
• Anson Chan Fang On-sang (陳方安生), politician, formerly a prominent and long-standing head of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s civil service before and after the territory's handover to the People's Republic of China from British colonial rule. She is both the first woman and the first Chinese to hold the second-highest governmental position in Hong Kong.
• James B. Foley, diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
• General Joseph P. Hoar, former commander-in-chief of United States Central Command
• Wolfgang F. Ischinger, diplomat, German Ambassador to the U.S.
• Costas Karamanlis, politician, Greek prime minister
• Cynthia McKinney, U.S. Representative from Georgia (did not finish)
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a four-term U.S. Senator, ambassador, administration official, and academic.
• John Olver, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1991
• Frank Pallone, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1988
• Bill Richardson, politician, former ambassador to the United Nations, governor of New Mexico
• Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network, ran for chair of the DNC
• John G. Sargent, lawyer and statesman, Attorney General of the United States from 1925 to 1929
• Surakiart Sathirathai, the Foreign Minister of Thailand

Entrepreneurs and business leaders

• Seamus Blackley, game developer, co-creator of Microsoft's Xbox
• Peter R. Dolan, CEO Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Andrew Fastow, ex-Enron CFO (our bad)
• Richard Hill, retired chairman Fleet Bank Boston
• Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Blogger creators Pyra Labs
• John Martin Mugar, retired Chairman and President of Star Market. Life Trustee at Tufts
• Joseph Neubauer, CEO Aramark Corporation
• Pierre and Pamela Omidyar, billionaire founders of Ebay
• Arthur Sulzberger, Publisher of New York Times
• Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels
• Walter Wriston, retired chairman and CEO of Citicorp/Citibank from 1967 to 1984
• Edson Zvobgo, founder of Zimbabwe's ruling party Zanu-PF, post-independence politician

Actors, film, and media

• Hank Azaria, actor
• Jessica Biel (dropped out), actress, 7th Heaven, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Rob Burnett, Executive Producer of Late Night with David Letterman
• Tracy Chapman, musician
• Slaid Cleaves, folk musician
• Peter Gallagher, actor, Mr. Deeds, American Beauty, Broadway production Grease, The O.C.
• Jeff Greenstein, Executive Producer of Will & Grace
• Guster, musicians, Parachute, Goldfly, Lost and Gone Forever, Keep It Together, Guster on Ice
• Dan Hedaya, actor, Blood Simple, The Addams Family, The Usual Suspects, Clueless, Dick, A Night at the Roxbury
• William Hurt, actor, The Big Chill, Kiss of the Spider Woman (winning the Academy Award for Best Actor)
• Amisha Patel, Indian actress.
• Oliver Platt, actor
• Neal Shapiro, former President of NBC News
• Meredith Vieira, TV host

Literature and arts

• Cid Corman, poet, translator and editor who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century.
• John Ciardi, was a poet, translator, and etymologist
• Erik Lindgren, composer and musician.
• Gregory Maguire, writer, Wicked.
• Anita Shreve, writer, The Pilot's Wife.
• Nathanael West (dropped out), writer.

Academic leaders

• Vannevar Bush, scientist
• Ram Dass (formerly known as Richard Alpert), former psychology professor at Harvard University, dismissed in 1963 after his work with Dr. Timothy Leary on the Harvard Psilocybin Project.
• Eugene Fama, economist particularly known for his work on portfolio theory and asset pricing, both theoretical and empirical.
• Roderick MacKinnon, 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Ellery Schempp, physicist and political activist
• Norbert Wiener, was a mathematician, known as the founder of cybernetics

Athletes

• Jennifer Toomey, athlete

In fiction

• Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 classic The Graduate
• Elaine Benes, character on Seinfeld played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, graduated from Tufts University, called it her "safety school."
• Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, title character from Crossing Jordan, played by Jill Hennessy. The fictional Boston medical examiner graduated from Tufts.
• Dr. Melfi, Psychiatrist to Tony Soprano from The Sopranos graduated from Tufts Medical School.
• Ken Erdedy, character in the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is likely that the fictional marijuana addict and resident of Ennet House attended Tufts University, evidenced among other things by the memorabilia in his household (p.25, 358, 360).
• Kenny, a Stuckeybowl employee on the TV show Ed, graduated from Tufts (and, when asked about it by Ed, replied, "It's in Massachusetts.").
• The characters in Two Guys and a Girl were Tufts alumni, as well as graduate students, and the sitcom's sets featured Tufts items, while its plots sometimes revolved around their former university.