Famous Nonmathematicians who studied Mathematics

This is a list of Famous Nonmathematicians who studied Mathematics, featuring Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, with first class honours in mathematics from Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

Source: http://www.math.uh.edu/~tomforde/famous.html

We often tell our students that there are many things besides teaching and actuarial work that they can do with a degree in mathematics, but they often don’t believe us. Here is a list of well-known people who were math majors (or some equivalent in other countries and times), although not all of them completed their degrees.

THE PUBLIC REALM
•Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader and Martin Luther King’s closest aide.

•Corazon Aquino, former President of the Philippines. She was a math minor at the College of Mt. St. Vincent.

•Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, AB summa cum laude in mathematics at Harvard.

•Simeon DeWitt, was the first math major at Rutgers. He became General George Washington’s Chief Geographer in the Revolutionary War. His maps of Yorktown helped win the final battle of that war. Afterwards (1784-1834) he was the Surveyor General for New York State; he helped to plan the Erie Canal, and to develop the grid system of streets and avenues in New York City, among other things.

•David Dinkins, Mayor of New York, BA in mathematics from Howard.

•Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru, MS in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

•Ira Glasser, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, both a BS and an MA.

•Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, a Bachelor’s from Cambridge.

Read more at http://www.math.uh.edu/~tomforde/famous.html