Pennsylvania people See also: List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Noam Chomsky studied philosophy and linguistics at Penn graduating with a BA in 1949, an MA in 1951, and a PhD in 1955.

Notable people[edit]

Main article: List of University of Pennsylvania people
See also: List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania


Noam Chomsky studied philosophy and linguistics at Penn graduating with a BA in 1949, an MA in 1951, and a PhD in 1955.


Physician and poet William Carlos Williams studied at Penn's School of Medicine.
Penn has produced many alumni that have distinguished themselves in the sciences, academia, politics, the military, arts and media. The size, quality, and diversity of Penn's alumni body has established it as one of the most powerful alumni networks in the United States and internationally.[106]
Twelve heads of state or government have attended or graduated from Penn, including former U.S. president William Henry Harrison;[107] former Prime Minister of the Philippines Cesar Virata; the first president of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe; the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; and the current president of Côte d'Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara. Other notable politicians who hold a degree from Penn include former ambassador to China and former 2012 presidential candidate and Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., Mexico's current minister of finance, Ernesto J. Cordero, long-serving Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, and former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.
The university's presence in the judiciary in and outside of the United States is also notable. It has produced three United States Supreme Court justices, William J. Brennan, Owen J. Roberts and James Wilson, Supreme Court justices of foreign states (e.g., Ronald Wilson of the High Court of Australia and Ayala Procaccia of the Israel Supreme Court), European Court of Human Rights judge Nona Tsotsoria, and founders of international law firms (e.g. James Harry Covington (co-founder of Covington & Burling), Martin Lipton (co-founder of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz), and George Wharton Pepper (U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and founder of Pepper Hamilton).
Penn alumni also have a strong presence in financial and economic life. Penn has educated several governors of central banks including Yasin Anwar (State Bank of Pakistan), Ignazio Visco (Bank of Italy), Kim Choongsoo (Bank of Korea), Zeti Akhtar Aziz (Central Bank of Malaysia), Pridiyathorn Devakula (Governor, Bank of Thailand, and former Minister of Finance), Farouk El Okdah (Central Bank of Egypt), and Alfonso Prat Gay (Central Bank o