List of Worcester Polytechnic Institute people

Alumni

Main page: Category:Worcester Polytechnic Institute alumni

Lesley Small and Jayne Rossetti in 2022, first women enrolled at WPI (class of 1972)

• Todd Akin (Class of 1970), former member U.S. House of Representatives representing Missouri's 2nd District; ^[1] best known for his claim that victims of what he described as "legitimate rape" very rarely become pregnant ^[2]
• Paul Allaire (Class of 1960), former CEO of Xerox
• Harold Stephen Black (Class of 1921), revolutionized electronics by inventing the negative feedback amplifier in 1927
• Loree Griffin Burns (Class of 1991)
• Giovanni Capriglione (Class of c. 1995), degree in physics; Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from Tarrant County, Texas ^[3]
• Curtis Carlson (Class of 1967), imaging systems researcher and current president and CEO of SRI International
• Karen Casella (Class of 1983), software engineer and advocate for inclusion in the technology industry
• Michelle Gass (Class of 1990), CEO of Levi Strauss, ^[4] member of the PepsiCo Board of Directors, ^[5] former CEO of Kohl's ^[6]
• John W. Geils Jr. (dropped out in 1967) founded The J. Geils Band and played lead guitar; bandmates Danny Klein and Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz also left WPI
• David Gewirtz (Class of 1982), CNN columnist, cyberterrorism advisor, and leading presidential scholar; candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters
• Robert H. Goddard (Class of 1908), widely regarded as the father of modern rocketry
• Eric Hahn (Class of 1980), co-founder of Collabra Software (sold to Netscape) and Lookout Software (sold to Microsoft); in 1997 he became the CTO of Netscape
• Elwood Haynes (Class of 1881), early alumnus, prominent chemist and inventor; credited for aiding in the development of the automobile and the creation of stainless steel
• William Hobbs (Class of 1883), 19th-century geologist
• Aldus Chapin Higgins (Class of 1893), Worcester, Massachusetts lawyer, businessman who invented a water-cooled electric furnace for the Norton Companies
• John Woodman Higgins (Class of 1896), founder of Worcester Pressed Steel Company and of the Higgins Armory Museum
• Jeremy Hitchcock (Class of 2004), co-founder and former CEO of Dyn
• Dan Itse (Class of 1980, 1986), engineer, inventor, member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives
• Lawrence C. Jones (Class of 1915), Vermont Attorney General ^[7]
• Dean Kamen (dropped out in 1976), invented the first portable insulin pump; started DEKA, the company that invented the Segway Human Transporter and the iBOT powered wheelchair; co-founded the international youth organization FIRST ^[8]
• Atwater Kent (dropped out in 1895 and 1896) went on to found the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company, which was the world's leading producer of radios in the late 1920s (there is now a building on campus called the Atwater Kent Laboratories)
• Everett J. Lake (Class of 1890), representative, Connecticut General Assembly, 1903–1905, Senator, Connecticut General Assembly, 1905–1907 Lieutenant Governor, 1907–1909 and Governor, 1921–1923 of Connecticut. ^[9]
• William Stevens Lawton (transferred out in 1918), United States Army Lieutenant General, attended from 1917 to 1918, transferred to the United States Military Academy; Army's Comptroller
• Frank Edward Lowe (Class of 1908), United States Army Major General, trusted advisor to US President Harry Truman during the Korean War. Lowe acted as President Harry Truman's "eyes and ears" in Korea.
• Joseph Mancuso (Class of 1963), WPI's youngest department chairman, best-selling author in the business genre, founded CEO Clubs International, of which he is president and CEO
• Dwight Marcus, chief technology officer and co-founder
• Yiqi Mei (Class of 1914), president of Tsinghua University, founder of its college of engineering
• Eric Mill (Class of 2005), the Executive Director for Cloud Strategy of the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service
• Alan R. Pearlman (Class of 1948), founder of ARP Instruments and inventor of the ARP synthesizer
• Don Peterson (Class of 1971), former CFO of Lucent Technologies, founder and former CEO/ chairman of Avaya
• Nancy Pimental (Class of 1987), chemical engineering degree, one of the writers of South Park and the movie The Sweetest Thing; also replaced Jimmy Kimmel as co-host of Win Ben Stein's Money, alumna of Phi Sigma Sigma
• Daniel Robbins (dropped out), founder and former chief architect of the Gentoo Linux project ^[10]
• Andy Ross (Mass Academy Class of 1997), guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist for the rock band OK Go since 2005, spent a year at WPI as part of the Mass Academy program
• Naveen Selvadurai (Class of 2002), co-founder of Foursquare
• Kotaro Shimomura (Class of 1888), chemical engineer; became president of Doshisha University and Osaka Gas Co., Ltd in Japan
• James Smith (founder) (Class of 1906), was an American engineer, entrepreneur, educator, and businessman; co-founder and president of the National Radio Institute (NRI)
• Chartsiri Sophonpanich (Class of 1980), ^[11] president and director of Bangkok Bank, the largest commercial bank in Thailand
• Robert Stempel (Class of 1955), inventor of the catalytic converter, former chairman and CEO of General Motors
• Helen Guillette Vassallo, American scientific researcher and educator, noted for her contributions to the fields of physiology, pharmacology, and anesthesia
• Gilbert Vernam (Class of 1914), credited with the inauguration of modern cryptography
• Richard T. Whitcomb (Class of 1943), aeronautical engineer responsible for the "area rule" of high-speed aircraft design, the supercritical airfoil, and winglets

• 
  Robert H. Goddard
• 
  Elwood P. Haynes
• 
  Richard T. Whitcomb
• 
  Curtis R. Carlson
• 
  Dean Kamen
• 
  Gilbert Vernam
• 
  Naveen Selvadurai
• 
  A. Atwater Kent

Faculty

WPI has employed several professors whose achievements have made them notable across the nation and the world.

• In 1995, Biology professor David Adams was the first to create a mouse which suffered from Alzheimers.
• Former history of science and technology professor Michael Sokal is currently serving as the president of the History of Science Society.
• Kaveh Pahlavan, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Center for Wireless Information Network Studies (CWINS) who, during the 1990s, helped develop the 802.11 wireless protocols.
• Richard H. Gallagher, former professor of mechanical engineering and vice president of academic affairs, was one of the originators of the Finite Element Method.
• Umberto Mosco, professor of mathematical sciences and eponym of Mosco convergence.
• George Phillies, physics professor and 2008 Libertarian presidential candidate.
• Current professor of practice, James Lyneis, serves as the president of the System Dynamics Society. He is the third WPI faculty member to serve in this post, the other two being Michael J. Radzicki (SDS President 2006), and Khalid Saeed (SDS President 1995).
• Brian Moriarty, professor of interactive media and game development and former game developer for Infocom and LucasArts.
• Frederick Bianchi, Director of Music Technology and co-inventor of the Virtual Orchestra.
• Joseph Mancuso (class of 1963) went on to become WPI's youngest department chairman when he took over the WPI management program after earning an M.B.A. from Harvard. Mancuso went on to become a best-selling author in the business genre, and founded the CEO Clubs International, of which he is president and CEO.
• Albert Sacco Jr. Astronaut, former professor of chemical engineering and department head. Served as payload specialist on the STS-73 mission in 1995.
• Mimi Sheller, Dean of the Global School and theorist of mobilities.

Presidents

The following persons had served as the president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute since 1868: ^{[12] [13] [14]}

No.	Image	Name	Term	Refs.
1		Charles O. Thompson	1868–1882
2		Homer T. Fuller	1883–1894
3		Thomas C. Mendenhall	1894–1901
4		Edmund A. Engler	1901–1911
5		Ira N. Hollis	1913–1925
6		Ralph Earle	1925-February 13, 1939 [a]	[15]
acting		Francis W. Roys	February 14, 1939–August 1939
7		Wat Tyler Cluverius Jr.	August 1939–October 28, 1952 [a]	[16]
8		Alvin E. Cormeny	1953–1954
9		Arthur B. Bronwell	1955–1962
10		Harry P. Storke	October 1962–1969
11		George W. Hazzard	1969–1978
12		Edmund T. Cranch	1978–1985
13		Jon C. Strauss	1985–1994
14		Edward Alton Parrish	1995–2004
15		Dennis D. Berkey	July 1, 2004–May 31, 2013	[17] [18]
interim		Philip B. Ryan	June 1, 2013 – May 31, 2014	[19]
16		Laurie A. Leshin	June 1, 2014 – May 15, 2022	[20] [21]
Interim		Winston Wole Soboyejo	May 16, 2022 – April 3, 2023	[22]
17		Grace Wang	April 3, 2023–present	[23]

Table notes:

1. Died in office.

References

1. Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1993–1994 ^{[ permanent dead link ]}, p. 157
2. Jaco, Charles (August 19, 2012). "The Jaco Report: August 19, 2012". Fox News. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
3. "Representative Giovanni Capriglione's Biography". Project Vote Smart. 2013. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
4. Kapner, Suzanne (January 26, 2024). "Top job at Levi Strauss offers retail veteran a second chance". The Wall Street Journal.
5. "PepsiCo elects Michelle Gass to board of directors". EFA News. March 8, 2019.
6. Edelson, Sharon (February 1, 2019). "CEO talks: Kohl's Michelle Gass makes waves". Women's Wear Daily.
7. "L. C. Jones, Candidate for Attorney General" . Burlington Free Press. Burlington, VT. June 3, 1930. p. 2.
8. Longley, Robert (December 2, 2019). "Biography of Dean Kamen, American engineer and inventor". ThoughtCo.
9. "Everett John Lake". August 14, 2015.
10. Gentoo Weekly Newsletter: December 22nd, 2003 Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved October 12, 2007
11. "Alumni". WPI.
12. "Presidents". WPI.
13. "Tech Presidents". WPI.
14. "Presidents of WPI". WPI.
15. "President Ralph Earle records, bulk: 1925 - 1939". WPI.
16. "Papers of President Wat Tyler Cluverius" (PDF). WPI.
17. Craig, David J. (May 13, 2004). "Dennis Berkey tapped as new WPI president". B.U. Bridge.
18. "President Dennis D. Berkey to Conclude Service to WPI". WPI. May 11, 2013.
19. Clark, Susan (July 31, 2013). "Bedford's Philip Ryan to lead Worcester Polytechnic Institute". New Hampshire Union Leader .
20. "Worcester Polytechnic Institute Names Laurie Leshin as its 16th President". WPI. January 21, 2014.
21. "President Leshin to Become Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory". WPI. January 27, 2022.
22. "Provost Wole Soboyejo to be Interim WPI President". WPI. February 18, 2022.
23. "Grace Wang Named 17th President of WPI". WPI Journal. WPI. Winter 2023.