University of Groningen - Notable Alumni

Notable Alumni

• Johann Heinrich Alting, theologian
• Gerbrand Bakker, early 19th century physician
• Johan van Benthem, computer scientist
• Johann Bernoulli, mathematician
• Bart Bok, astronomer
• Clemens von Bönninghausen, lawyer, botanist, homeopathic physician
• James Burnett
• Job Cohen, former mayor of Amsterdam and former leader of the Dutch labour party
• Wim Duisenberg, the first president of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt studied here and obtained his PhD on the economics of disarmament
• Ubbo Emmius, founder of the University
• Pim Fortuyn, lecturer, later politician (and assassinated)
• Willem Frederik Hermans, lecturer and writer
• Gerardus Heymans, philosopher and psychologist
• Pieter Hofstede Crull, jurist, attorney-general of Suriname and acting governor
• Peter Hofstee, professor of theoretical physics, joined IBM in 1996, currently the chief architect of the Synergistic Processor Element (SPE) of the Cell microprocessor.
• Johan Huizinga, historian
• Aletta Jacobs, first woman in the Netherlands to receive a MD
• Jaap Kunst, ethnomusicologist (studied law)
• George Malliaras, Professor of Materials Science, Cornell University
• Evangelos Manias, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University
• Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutch astronaut, received a PhD degree in physics and mathematics, 1973
• Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his experiments on the properties of matter at low temperatures which made, among other things, the production of liquid helium possible
• Jan Oort, astronomer
• Maurits van Oranje Nassau
• Joost Platje, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford
• Johannes Jacobus Poortman, philosopher, psychologist
• Willem de Sitter, astronomer
• Henk G. Sol, Professor Business Engineering and ICT
• Dirk Stikker, secretary general of NATO
• Pieter Jelles Troelstra, lawyer, politician (early 20th century)
• Henk te Velde, professor of Dutch history at Leiden University
• Hans van Abeelen, first Dutch behavior geneticist
• Wietse Venema, programmer and physicist
• Jacques Wallage, former mayor of Groningen
• Paramanga Ernest Yonli, Prime Minister of Burkina Faso (2000–2007), studied Economics
• Frits Zernike, professor of theoretical physics, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the phase contrast optical microscope in 1953
• Epke Zonderland, gymnast and 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the high bar
• Klaas Knot, current President of the Dutch central bank De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).