Elected politicians

• Bill Bradley A.B. 1965 - former basketball star, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, former U.S. Senator
• Aaron Burr 1772 - 3rd Vice President of the United States
• Mitch Daniels Governor of Indiana
• Bill Frist A.B. 1974 - Senate Majority Leader
• Thomas Kean - former Governor of New Jersey
• John F. Kennedy class of 1939 (left after first semester for medical reasons) - 35th President of the United States
• Jim Leach A.B. 1964 - U.S. Congressman
• Jim Marshall A.B. 1972 - U.S. Congressman
• James Madison 1771 - 4th President of the United States
• Claiborne Pell A.B. 1940 - former U.S. Senator
• Paul Sarbanes A.B. 1954 - U.S. Senator
• Eliot Spitzer A.B. 1981 - New York State Attorney General
• Adlai E. Stevenson A.B. 1922 - former governor of Illinois, Democratic presidential candidate, and United Nations ambassador
• Woodrow Wilson A.B. 1879 - 28th President of the United States, 13th president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey

Government / Law / Public policy

• James Baker A.B. 1952 - Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush
• Frank Carlucci A.B. 1952 - Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan
• William Colby A.B. 1940 - director of the CIA under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford
• Allen Dulles A.B. 1914, M.A. 1916 - director of the CIA under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• John Foster Dulles A.B. 1908 - Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• James V. Forrestal Class of 1915 (did not graduate) - Secretary of Defense under Harry Truman
• Robert Goheen A.B. 1940, M.A. 1947, Ph.D. 1948 - former president of Princeton, former U.S. ambassador to India
• Ralph Nader A.B. 1955 - Green Party presidential candidate
• Richard Perle M.A. 1967 - neo-conservative policy expert
• Donald Rumsfeld A.B. 1954 - Secretary of Defense under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush
• George Shultz A.B. 1942 - Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan
• Anne-Marie Slaughter A.B. 1980 - professor of politics and international affairs, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, president of the American Society of International Law
• Ronald I. Spiers M.A. 1950 - retired American ambassador and diplomat

Business

• James T. Aubrey, Jr. A.B. 1941 - president of CBS and MGM
• Jeff Bezos B.S.E. 1986 - founder of Amazon.com
• Malcolm Forbes A.B. 1941 - businessman and publisher
• Steve Forbes A.B. 1970 - son of Malcolm, businessman and publisher of Forbes magazine
• Carl Icahn A.B. 1957 - Corporate raider
• F. Thomson Leighton B.S.E. 1978 - cofounder of Akamai Technologies
• Eric Schmidt B.S.E. 1976 - CEO of Google
• Charles Schwab A.B. 1944 - founder of brokerage firm
• Meg Whitman A.B. 1977 - CEO of eBay

Economics

• Gary Becker A.B. 1951 - Nobel laureate (Economics 1992)
• Alan Blinder A.B. 1967 - professor of economics, Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under President Bill Clinton
• James Heckman M.A. 1968, Ph.D 1971 - Nobel laureate (Economics 2000)
• Harold Shapiro Ph.D 1964 - professor of economics, president of Princeton until 2001
• Michael Spence A.B. 1966 - Nobel laureate (Economics 2001)

Mathematics/Science

• John Bardeen Ph.D 1936- Nobel laureate (Physics 1956 and 1972)
• George Boolos, A.B. 1961 - philosopher/logician, professor at MIT
• Arthur Compton Ph.D 1916 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1927)
• Clinton Davisson Ph.D 1911 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1937)
• Richard Feynman Ph.D 1942 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1965)
• Robert Hofstadter Ph.D 1938 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1961)
• Edwin McMillan Ph.D 1933 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1951)
• John Nash, Ph.D 1950 - Nobel laureate (Economics 1994)
• Richard Smalley Ph.D 1974 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1996)
• Steven Weinberg Ph.D 1957 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1979)
• Frank Wilczek M.A. 1972, Ph.D. 1974 - Nobel laureate (Physics 2004)

Engineering/Technology

• Hal Abelson, A.B. 1969 - directed implementation of the Logo programming language for the Apple II, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT
• Alonzo Church, A.B. 1924, Ph.D.1927 - mathematician known for the Church-Turing thesis, developed the lambda calculus that exposed the "undecideability" problem and influenced the Lisp programming language
• Charles "Pete" Conrad, B.S.E. 1953 - astronaut, third man to walk on the moon
• Brian Kernighan Ph.D 1969, electrical engineering. Professor, computer science. Co-inventor of the awk programming language, and co-author of the definitive textbook The C Programming Language.
• Michael Stonebraker, S.B. 1965 - pioneer researcher in relational databases, founder of Ingres (acquired by Computer Associates) and Illustra Information Technologies (acquired by Informix) and initiator of PostgreSQL
• Alan Turing Ph.D 1938 - pioneering computer scientist, formulated the Turing machine and the Turing test. The Turing award is named in his honor.
• Robert Venturi A.B. 1947, M.F.A. 1950 - architect, Pritzker Prize laureate 1991

Literature

• Ian Caldwell A.B. 1998 - co-authored the recent book The Rule of Four, set on the Princeton campus.
• Jonathan Safran Foer A.B. 1999 - author of Everything is Illuminated
• Frederick Buechner A.B. 1947 - Pulitzer Prize-nominated author
• José Donoso A.B. 1951 - Chilean author
• F. Scott Fitzgerald Class of 1917 (did not graduate) - author of The Great Gatsby
• Eugene O'Neill class of 1910 (did not graduate) - Nobel laureate (Literature 1936)
• David Remnick A.B. 1981 - editor of New Yorker Magazine
• Booth Tarkington A.B. 1893 - novelist
• Thornton Wilder M.A. 1925 - Our Town premiered at Princeton
• Edmund Wilson A.B. 1916 - literary critic
• John Norman Ph.D - sci-fi author and philosopher

Sports

• Hobey Baker A.B. 1914 - famous hockey player; college hockey's top individual award is named in his memory
• Bill Bradley A.B. 1965 - former basketball star, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, former U.S. Senator
• Jeff Halpern A.B. 1999 - current NHL player; plays for the NHL team Washington Capitals
• Dick Kazmaier A.B. 1952 - Heisman Trophy winner 1952

Entertainment

• Dean Cain A.B. 1988 - actor, played Superman in the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
• David Duchovny A.B. 1982 - actor best known for his role in The X-Files
• José Ferrer A.B. 1933 - Academy Award and Tony Award-winning actor
• Charlie Gibson A.B. 1965 - TV morning show host
• Stanley Jordan A.B. 1981 - jazz guitarist
• Brooke Shields A.B. 1987 - actress
• Jimmy Stewart B.S. 1932 - actor
• Maria Ressa B.S. - CNN Anchor

Other

• James Caldwell, American Revolutionary soldier and chaplain
• Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee A.B. 1773 - American Revolutionary cavalry officer, father of Robert E. Lee
• Alan Lightman A.B. 1970 - physicist and novelist, professor at MIT
• Neil Rudenstine A.B. 1955 - former president of Harvard University
• George Rupp A.B. 1964 - former president of Columbia University
• Lowell Thomas M.A. 1916 - American traveller, broadcaster, and writer
• Cornel West Ph.D 1980 - professor of religion and African American studies