- Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers is an American comedian, talk show host, businesswoman, and celebrity. She is known for her brash manner and loud, gruff voice with a heavy metropolitan New York accent. Rivers is the National Chairwoman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and is a board member of God's Love We Deliver. Like the ground-breaking Phyllis Diller, whose career preceded and overlapped hers, Rivers' act relied heavily on poking fun at herself.
- Judith Miller
Judith Miller, is a controversial American journalist. Miller, based in Washington D.C., was a prominent "New York Times" reporter with access to top U.S. government officials. Her coverage of these officials, especially regarding the Bush administration’s conclusions about Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Program and her involvement in the Plame Affair, made her a conspicuous media personality.
- Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is a Tony and Emmy Award-winning American actress who is best known for her portrayal of lawyer Miranda Hobbes in the popular HBO dramedy "Sex and the City" (1998-2004).
- Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901, Philadelphia - November 15, 1978, New York City) was an American cultural anthropologist.
- Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega (born Suzanne Nadine Vega, 11 July 1959, Santa Monica, California) is an American songwriter and singer known for her highly literate lyrics and eclectic folk-inspired music.
- Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 - January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the 1937 novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God".
- Anna Quindlen
Anna Quindlen hasn't been a New York Times columnist for more than a decade, but she'd still fit in quite well on her old paper's op-ed page. In her opinion piece for the October 31 Newsweek, Quindlen takes up the inclination to psychoanalyze President Bush from one current Times columnist, Maureen Dowd , and the Iraq-is-Vietnam argument from another, Frank Rich.
- Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa (born 1961 in Mexico City) is a television journalist. Her first journalism experience was as host of a Latino radio show as a student at Barnard College, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Latin American studies. In 1995, Hinojosa began hosting the National Public Radio show "Latino USA". She hosted the WNBC-TV public affairs show "Visiones" before joining CNN in 1997, …
- Martha Stewart
Martha’s public turnaround on fur began this spring, when she responded from jail to a letter from PETA Vice President Dan Mathews , explaining that the fur she famously wore the day of her sentencing was fake. Martha credits her vegetarian daughter, Alexis , who costars in her new show, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart , with making her aware of animal issues.
- Atoosa Rubenstein
Atoosa Rubenstein (born Atoosa Behnegar in Tehran, Iran in 1972) was the editor-in-chief of "Seventeen" magazine. She was also the founding editor of "CosmoGIRL!". She is currently the founder of Big Momma Productions, Inc. and "Atoosa.com".
- Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri Vourvoulias is a contemporary Indian American author based in New York City.
- Jane Wyatt
Jane Waddington Wyatt (August 12, 1910 - October 20, 2006) was an American actress in films and television. Her most famous role was as Ronald Colman's love interest in Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon" (1937). Other film appearances included 1947's "Gentleman's Agreement" (with Gregory Peck), "None but the Lonely Heart" (with Cary Grant), and "Boomerang" (with Dana Andrews). For many people, she is best remembered for her television roles, …
- Lauren Helen Graham
Lauren Helen Graham (born March 16, 1967) is a Golden Globe-nominated American actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Lorelai Gilmore on "Gilmore Girls".
- Natalie Angier
Natalie Angier (born February 16, 1958) is a nonfiction writer and a science journalist for the "New York Times". Angier was born in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York. After completing two years at the University of Michigan, she studied physics and English at Barnard College, where she graduated with high honors in 1978. From 1980 to 1984, Angier wrote about biology for "Discover Magazine".
- Sprague Grayden
Sprague Grayden (born July 21, 1980) is an American television, film and theater actress born in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. An alumna of Manchester-Essex Regional High School and Barnard College, she has been appearing since the fall of 2006 in the US television drama "Jericho", where she plays schoolteacher Heather Lisinski. Grayden co-starred in the short-lived FX war drama "Over There" in 2005, …
- Lis Wiehl
Lis Wiehl (born August 9, 1961, Seattle, Washington) is a legal analyst for Fox News, joining the network in October 2001. She is an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School, and formerly was an associate professor at University of Washington Law School. She frequently may be heard giving legal analysis on Bill O'Reilly's radio program, "The Radio Factor". She is also a legal commentator for National Public Radio program All Things Considered.
- Judith Kaye
Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge of New York (b. Monticello, New York on August 4 1938) was appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo on February 22 1993, confirmed by the New York Senate on March 17, and sworn in on March 23. She is the first woman to occupy the State Judiciary's highest office. Kaye holds a B.A. from Barnard College (1958) and a LL.B. from New York University School of Law (cum laude) (1962). She was admitted to the New York State Bar, 1963.
- Janna Levin
Janna J. Levin (born 1967) is a theoretical cosmologist. She holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology granted in 1993 and a Bachelor of Arts in Astronomy and Physics from Barnard College granted in 1988.. Her work predicts a finite universe and uses techniques from topology and fractals to demonstrate this. Other work includes black holes and chaos.
- Anna Diggs Taylor
Anna Diggs Taylor (born Anna Katherine Johnston, 1932, Washington, D.C.) is a United States District Court judge in Detroit, Michigan. She graduated from Barnard College in 1954 and Yale Law School in 1957, and worked in the Office of Solicitor for the United States Department of Labor. In 1979, she was appointed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by President Jimmy Carter, …
- Jami Bernard
Jami Bernard (born on August 8, 1956) is an author and award-winning film critic. She has written for the "New York Post" and the "New York Daily News". She has also appeared in films as herself. She is a frequent guest on the radio on talk shows like "Lynn Samuels" on Satellite Radio.
- Elizabeth Janeway
Elizabeth Janeway was an American author and critic. Born Elizabeth Ames Hall in Brooklyn, New York, her naval architect father and homemaker mother fell on hard times during the Depression, leading her to end her Swarthmore College education and help support the family by creating bargain basement sale slogans (she graduated from Barnard College just a few years later, in 1935). Never a supporter of the Communist Party or even a socialist, …
- June Jordan
June Jordan (July 9, 1936-June 14, 2002) was an African-American bisexual political activist, writer, poet, and teacher, born in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants.
- Elsie Clews Parsons
Elsie Clews Parsons was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes—such as the Pueblo and Hopi—in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. She helped found the New School for Social Research. She was associate editor for "The Journal of American Folklore" (1918-1941), president of the American Folklore Society (1919-1920), president of the American Ethnological Society (1923-1925), …
- Ellen V. Futter
Ellen V. Futter is President of the American Museum of Natural History. She previously served as President of Barnard College for thirteen years. Ms. Futter was graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, from Barnard in 1971. She earned her J.D. degree from Columbia Law School in 1974. She was elected to the Board of Trustees of Barnard as a student representative in 1971 and was subsequently elected to full membership to complete the term of Arthur Goldberg, …
- Rebecca Goldstein
Rebecca Goldstein is an American novelist and professor of Philosophy. She has written five novels, a number of short stories and essays, and biographical studies of mathematician Kurt Gödel and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Goldstein, born Rebecca Newberger, grew up in White Plains, New York, and did her undergraduate work at Barnard College. After earning her Ph.D. from Princeton University, she returned to Barnard to teach courses in various philosophical studies.
- Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations. "Strangers on a Train" has been adapted to the screen three times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. In addition to her acclaimed series about murderer Tom Ripley, she wrote many short stories, often macabre, satirical or tinged with black humor.
- Ann Brashares
Ann Brashares is an American writer of young adult fiction. She is best known as the author of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series of books. Brashares was born in Virginia and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland the neighboring city of Bethesda. AS a child she attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C.. After studying philosophy at Barnard College, she worked as an editor, though she had originally intended to pursue a graduate degree.
- Karla Jay
Karla Jay (born February 22, 1947) is a professor of English and the director of the Women's Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. Jay was born Karla Jayne Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, to a conservative Jewish family. She attended the Berkeley Institute, a private girls' school in Brooklyn now called the Berkeley Carroll School.
- Virginia Gildersleeve
Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (October 3 1877 - July 7 1965) was an American academic and the sole female US delegate to the San Francisco United Nations Charter Conference in April 1945. Gildersleeve was born in New York City, she attended the Brearley School and following her graduation in 1895 went on to attend Barnard College. She completed her studies in 1899 and received a fellowship to undertake research for her MA in medieval history at Columbia University.
- Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp (born July 1 1941) is an American dancer and choreographer. She has won Emmy and Tony awards, and currently works as a choreographer in New York City.
- Judith Coplon
Judith Coplon (born 1922) was one of the first major figures tried in the United States for spying for the Soviet Union; problems in her trials had a profound influence on espionage prosecutions during the McCarthy era. Her disclosures to the Soviet intelligence agencies were the first information to alert them to the size of the U.S. counter-intelligence operation against them.
- Joyce Johnson
Joyce Johnson (b. 1935) is an American author of fiction and nonfiction who won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her memoir "Minor Characters" about her relationship with Jack Kerouac. Born Joyce Glassman to a Jewish family in Queens, New York, Joyce was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, just around the corner from the apartment of William S. Burroughs and Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs.
- Erica Jong
Erica Jong Author
- Christy Carlson Romano
Christy Carlson Romano (born Christy Michelle Romano on March 20, 1984) is an American actress and singer. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the sitcom "Even Stevens" and the animated series "Kim Possible", in which she is the voice of Kim Possible, as well as garnering a considerable boost in fandom for providing the voice of Yuffie Kisaragi in "Kingdom Hearts" and "Final Fantasy VII Advent Children".
- Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson (born Laura Phillips Anderson, on June 5 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) is an American experimental performance artist and musician. She is the inventor of the tape-bow violin, which has a tape head in place of strings, and a strip of magnetic tape in place of the hairs on a bow.
- Flora Wovschin
Flora Don Wovschin was born 20 February 1923 in New York City. Her mother was Maria Wicher and her stepfather was Enos Wicher. She attended the University of Wisconsin, Columbia University and Barnard College. At Barnard, she was active in the American Students Union and may have been a member of American Youth for Democracy. She attended Barnard with Marion Davis Berdecio and Judith Coplon, both of whom Wovschin later recruited into service for the NKVD.
- Jeanine Tesori
Jeanine Tesori (formerly known as Jeanine Levenson) is a composer of musicals. She is perhaps best known for the Broadway musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie"; she composed eleven new songs for the show and added them to three from the movie version; four previously written songs from the 1920s were also added to the musical's score. She also composed the music for the Broadway musical "Caroline, or Change", with lyrics by Tony Kushner.
- Ellen Willis
Ellen Jane Willis was an American political essayist, journalist, and pop music critic.
- Jacqueline Barton
Professor Jacqueline K. Barton is the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology. The primary focus of her research is transverse electron transport along double-stranded DNA, its implications in the biology of DNA damage and repair, and its potential for materials sciences applications. She is married to fellow Caltech chemist Peter Dervan.
- Joan Vollmer
Joan Vollmer (aka "Joan Vollmer Adams" or "Joan Vollmer Burroughs") (b. 1924 Loudonville, New York - d. September 1951 Mexico City), is the most prominent female member of the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac) and their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s. There Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all night discussions.