Famous people you may not have known were Rutgers Alums
Rutgers is actually pretty star-studded
Rutgers is not only a great institution, but a large one as well. So its no suprise that we have so many distinguished alumni. Here are some famous people that you most likely had no idea were once Scarlet Knights.
Carli Lloyd
Carli Lloyd was an all-star soccer player at Rutgers University from 2001 to 2004 and was the first student in Rutgers history to be named First-Team All-Big East all four years. Lloyd went on to become a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and the 2015 and 2016 FIFA Player of the Year. She now plays for the Premier League team Manchester City and still sports her beloved number ten.
Sebastian Stan
Best known for playing Bucky Barnes in the Captain America and The Avengers franchise, Sebastian Stan is a former student of Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts and says that “The training at Mason Gross School of the Arts was specific and multifaceted. It made it possible for me to walk away with enough trust in my work to get the job done.” He’s also been in other popular movies such as The Martian and Black Swan.
Elizabeth Warren
Senator Warren is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts. She attended Rutgers Law School in Newark from 1977 to 1978. She says that it, “opened a thousand doors for [her],” particularly in the late seventies when it was very difficult to be a woman pursuing law. While she dropped out of law school early to have a child, she did return in 2011 to receive an honorary degree. Even before that she taught courses in legal writing at Rutgers, which proved to launch her career as a professor. She went on to teach at institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, the University of Houston and Harvard University. Warren has also held her position as a member of the Senate committees on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Energy and Natural Resources, and the Special Committee on Aging. TIME Magazine has even named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world on three occassions.
Mike Colter
In his time at Rutgers, Mike Colter attended Mason Gross School of the Arts and sings praises of his classes and professors. He is best known for his roles in Marvel’s Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, both of which take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the highly awarded film Million Dollar Baby. He has also appeared in The Good Wife, ER, Ringer, and Law & Order.
Paul Robeson
If you haven’t at least heard the name Paul Robeson, I don’t know what college you go to, because its definitely not Rutgers. Paul Robeson is a venerated African-American activist, athlete, artist, scholar and is the third African-American to graduate from Rutgers University. Robeson was an accomplished bass singer and actor who became thoroughly involved with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Currently he has a Living-Learning Community and a Cultural Center on campus that are named after him.
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman graduated from Rutgers in 1932 and originally intended to become an actuary. However, two economics professors, Arthur F. Burns and Homer Jones, convinced him that modern politics could be used to bring an end to the Great Depression. So with this knowledge, he went one to develop a number of free-market theories that opposed the theories of more traditional Keynesian economics. In 1976, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. His economic theories are still widely used throughout today’s business world.