Daima Lockhart Clark (IH 1938-39)
Scholar of African philosophy and religion

"If I had not come to I-House, the experiences and great opportunities that I have had since then simply would not have been possible. "

Edith Simon Coliver (IH 1940-43)
First woman Field Office Director for the Asia Foundation, directed offices in the Philippines and Taiwan. The annual Festival of Cultures at International House was endowed by Coliver and is dedicated in her memory.

Maggie Gee (IH 1950-51)
Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the first Chinese-American women pilots.

Sergio Alejo Rapu Haoa (IH 2001-03)
First native islander to serve as governor of Easter Island

Wendell Lipscomb (IH 1947-48)
First African American to complete residency at Kaiser Hospital, psychiatrist, trainer of Tuskegee Airmen.

Victor Santiago Pineda (IH 1999-2000)
Disability rights activist

"[At I-House], a real understanding of humanity came out and I saw that I could contribute my knowledge about disability to the rest of the world."

Emmett Rice (IH 1947-48)
Berkeley's first African-American firefighter and later a member of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board.

Julianne Cartwright Traylor (IH 1968-69)
Chair of Amnesty International, first African-American woman to hold this position

“ I-House meant a lot to me. It was my community, a multi-cultural one par excellence.The world needs the type of environment that I-House fosters.”

Khatharya Um (IH1983-88)
Associate Professor of Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, first Cambodian woman in the U.S. to earn a doctorate.

Delbert Wong (IH 1940)
First Chinese American Judge in the continental U.S. when appointed to Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1959. He served in the Superior Court for over 20 years, including five years on the Appellate Department.

Melvin Calvin (IH 1937-38)
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1961 for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants.

Willis Lamb (IH 1930-38)
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1955 for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum.

Ali Abdullah Alireza (IH 1941)
Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the U.S.

John Kenneth Galbraith (IH 1931-32)
Professor of Economics at Harvard, author, and Ambassador to India.
He first saw UC Berkeley's International House in July of 1931, when he was 22 years old, at the end of a long trip to California from his home in Guelph, Canada. The evening sun lit up the building's tan facade; Galbraith thought it a place of "unimaginable splendor." The intellectual fare was splendid too. As Galbraith recalled years later, "I experienced here an intensity of discussion beyond anything I have known since, in 60 years of public life."

Robert C.F. Gordon (IH 1939-48)
U.S. Ambassador to Mauritius

Heraldur Kroyer (IH 1941-42)
Ambassador of Iceland to the U.S.

Abdul Majid (IH 1934-40)
Ambassador of Afghanistan to U.S.

Michael Okeyo
Ambassador of Kenya to the U.S.

Joan Plaisted (IH 1996)
U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands

Kenneth Taylor (IH 1957-59)
Canadian Ambassador to Iran

Abdelkader Abbadi (IH 1963-67)
U.N. Deputy Director for Political Affairs, United Nations

"International House is an institution which prepares generations of young men and women for tomorrow's world - a world characterized by interdependence in practically every field, by nations and peoples increasingly stretching their hands towards each other across oceans and frontiers, and aspiring toward a more peaceful, just, and tolerant life."

Jan Egeland (IH 1983)
U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

"Living in International House was like living in the United Nations without the bureaucracy. Every single day led to new friendships with engaging students and scholars from all over the world."

Takehiro Nakamura (IH 1990-92)
Programme Officer, United Nations Environment Programme

W. Michael Blumenthal (IH 1951)
Secretary of the Treasury, U.S.

"My time at I-House was one of the most richly rewarding experiences of my life."

Adriana Gianturco (IH 1960-61)
Director of the Department of Transportation in California from 1976 to 1983. Thought by many to be ahead of her times, promoting mass transit, car-pool lanes, and increased bicycle use.

"One of the high points of my life was my year at I House in l960-6l! "

Laura Castillo Sena de Gurfinkel (IH 1958-62)
Minister of Education, Venezuela

Pyoung Hoon Kim ( IH 1956-57 and 1991-92)
Senior Protocol Secretary to the President, Republic of Korea

Robey Lal (IH 1967-68)
Country Manager for The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in India.

Mauricio Cardenas Santa Maria (IH 1987)
Minister of Economic Development, Colombia

Sudarmo Martonagoro (IH 1950-52)
Foreign Minister of Indonesia

Venkataram Ramakrishna (IH 1954-55)
Director, South East Asia Regional Bureau for the International Union for Health Promotion and Education

Elsie Gardner Ricklefs (IH 1938-39)
Chair of Hupa Tribe, California

Martin Rosen (IH 1953-55)
co-founder and President, Trust for Public Land

Laura Zegna (IH 1970s)
Chair of Italy's Special Olympics Organizing Committee

Haakon Magnus (IH 1996-97)
Crown Prince of Norway

J. Dennis Bonney (IH 1954-55)
Vice Chairman, Chevron Corporation

Charlene Wang Chien (IH 1972-74)
President, First International Computer, Inc., Taiwan

Choong Kun Cho (IH 1955-58)
President of Korean Airlines

Paritish Choksi (IH 1975-77)
Executive Vice President, ATEL Capital Group

Jan Fandrianto (IH 1981-81)
President, Sipura Technology, Inc.

David Fischer (IH 1990-91)
Vice President, AOL Europe

Jawahar Gidwani (IH 1973-76)
Chairman and CEO of KARMA2GO, LLC

Richard Goldman (IH 1941-42)
Founder of Goldman Environmental Prize and founder of Goldman Insurance Services

"International House is a wonderful concept. It serves a valuable function here and in other cities where I-Houses are located. "

Kazusue Konoike (IH 1973-82)
President, Konoike Construction Co., Ltd., Japan

Kakutaro Kitashiro (IH 1970-71)
General Manager, IBM Asia Pacific.

Simon Lewis (IH 1981-82)
Director of Communications and Public Policy, Vodafone

Andre Manoliu (IH 1974-76)
Managing Director, GrowthPlans LLC

Hans Rausing (IH 1948-49)
Founder and Chairman, Tetra Pak

Arun Sarin (IH 1975-78)
CEO of Vodafone

"Since the world is turning into a smaller and smaller global marketplace, we need to have these very comfortable relationships across cultures. Each culture needs to be respected...each culture needs to have empathy...that's what the I-House taught me professionally."

Hamid Savoj (IH 1990-91)
Senior Vice President, Magma Design Automation

Eric Schmidt (IH 1976-80)
CEO of Google

Leigh Steinberg (IH 1973-74)
One of the country's most successful sports agents.

Mario Bancora (IIH 1946-52)
Director of Argentina's Atomic Energy Commission

Hans Peter Duerr (IH 1953-56)
Director of the Max Planck Institute

Drew Gaffney (IH 1967-68)
Space Shuttle Astronaut, Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University

William Haseltine (IH 1963-68)
CEO, Human Genome Sciences

Wilmot Hess (IH 1949-50)
NASA official and Associate Director of the Department of Energy

Alan Pasternak (IH 1959-64)
Energy expert and staff scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Technical Director California Radioactive Materials Management Forum (Cal Rad Forum).

Cyril Ponnamperuma (IH 1959-61)
Director of the Chemical Evolution program, NASA Ames Research Center

Rafael Rodriguez (IH 1946-50)
Costa Rican botanist and artist, specializing in orchids.

David Scheuring (IH 1957-61)
Founding Director, Yolo Land Trust and Director of the Cache Creek Conservancy.

Mohammed Ahmed Selim (IH 1938-43)
Head Engineer for the High Dam in Egypt

"My stay at International House helped me appreciate and take an interest in other cultures. I found the discussions I had and friendships I made there to be of great value. I enjoyed the experience of living there, and cherish the memories of it to this day."

David Shirley (IH 1953-62)
Director, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

Theodore Taylor (IH 1946-49)
Atomic weapons scientist who campaigned against nuclear weaponry

Rose Bird (IH 1960-61)
Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court

Barnet Cooperman (IH 1946-47)
Judge L.A. Superior Court

Adrian Kragen (IH 1930-33)
Professor of Law, UC Berkeley, argued cases before the Supreme Court

Ernst Pakuscher (IH 1955-56)
Chief Judge of the Federal Patent Court in Germany

Stefan Riesenfeld (IH 1935-37)
Professor of Law at UC Berkeley

Sanford Svetcov (IH 1961-63)
A partner with the Appellate Practice Group of Lerach Coughlin, San Francisco, who has briefed and argued more than 300 appeals in state and federal court in cases including securities fraud, Clean Water Act disputes, and Civil Rights Act litigation.

Wakefield Taylor (IH 1930s)
Appointed to the Superior Court and elevated to the California Court of Appeal in San Francisco in 1963. Named Presiding Justice in 1970. 34th President of the Commonwealth Club of California.

Amir Aczel (IH 1972-76)
Author of Fermat's Last Theorem, Descartes' Secret Notebook, The Mystery of Aleph

"At I-House, I began to understand that the hatreds on which we had grown up were left far behind us, and that here at I-House, we could see one another as individuals, as people, as warm and caring human beings. For all of us, I-House was a unique place, which would forever stay in our hearts and minds."

Gray Brechin
A historical geographer, has worked as a journalist and television producer and taught at Berkeley in the geography department. Author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin and co-author of Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream.

Richard H. Dillon (IH 1946-49)
Author of many books on American history including award winning Meriwether Lewis: A Biography, North American Indian Wars, Napa Valley Natives, and Captain John Sutter: Sacramento Valley's Sainted Sinner.

Firoozeh Jazayeri Dumas (IH 1986-87)
Author of Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America

"My experience at I-House confirmed what I already knew: our commonalities far outweigh our differences. It is in places such as International House that we learn to see beyond nationalities, borders, and religions and see instead our shared humanity. It is the only recipe for world peace."

Markos Kounalakis (IH 1977-78)
President and Publisher of Washington Monthly

Robbie Clipper Sethi (IH 1973-74)
Author of Fifty-Fifty which celebrates diversity's complexities through the story of a Punjabi family

Dick Wilson (IH 1950s)
Author of more than 20 books about Asia including They Changed India

"The I-House year was a high point in our early lives when we did not have to learn internationalism because we lived it every day. "

Dietrich von Bothmer (IH 1940)
Distinguished Research Curator of Greek and Roman Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The day I arrived in Berkeley, January 18, 1940, is engraved in my mind. I remember the extraordinary spirit of friendship that prevailed in difficult times."

Tshewang Dendup
Starred in the film, Travelers and Magicians , which explored the appeal of Western glamour versus traditional ways, filmed in Bhutan.

Wilton Dillon (IH 1949-50)
Senior Scholar Emeritus at the Smithsonian

Yoshiko Kakudo (IH 1961-62)
Currator of Japanese Arts, de Young Museum of San Francisco

Margaret Andrews (IH 1983-85)
Executive Director, MBA Program, MIT Sloan School of Management

Helmer Aslaksen (IH 1982-85)
Professor of Mathematics, National University of Singapore

"My three years at I-House were the best years of my life. It was both the perfect introduction to the best of American culture, and an unparalleled exposure to parts of the world that I had only dreamt of before. After I-House I feel welcome and comfortable everywhere in the world!"

John Bahcall (IH 1953-56)
Professor of Natural Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and President Emeritus of the American Astronomical Society. President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest science award, in 1999.

James Cason (IH 1933-35)
Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Marian Cleeves Diamond (IH 1949-52)
Professor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley, and Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science

Heinz Eulau (IH 1935-38)
Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Department of Political Science, Stanford

George Foster (IH 1935-37)
Professor of Anthrolpology, UC Berkeley

Francesca Gobbo (IH 1969-70)
Professor of Intercultural Education, University of Turin, Italy

Wolf Homburger (IH 1950-51) 
Director, Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley.

Homburger served as a lecturer, research engineer, acting director and assistant director of ITS during more than 40 years. He has written or edited a number of transportation textbooks, including the Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering, Introduction to Transportation Engineering, Transportation and Traffic Engineering Handbook, and Residential Street Design and Traffic Control. Wolf met his wife, Arlene Levinson, at I-House and dedicated the South I-House Cafe Terrace in her memory.

William J. Knox (IH 1950)
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UC Davis specializing in experimental nuclear physics. Played a key role in founding I-House Davis.

Choh-Ming Li (IH 1932)
Vice Chancellor Chinese University of Hong Kong

M. Ishaq Nadiri (IH 1958-59)
Professor of Economics, NYU, economic advisor to Afghanistan

"I-House was an experience of being part of the human family with all of its variety, intriguing complexity, and wonder."

A. Richard Newton (IH 1975-76)
Dean of the College of Engineering, UC Berkeley

"I developed many, many friendships while I lived at I-House. In many ways, it is the development of these deeper understandings and these deeper friendships with people from around the world that this House is really all about."

Karl Pister (HI 1943-45 Callaghan Hall Resident)
Lifelong connection to UC as a professor, Dean of the College of Engineering, Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, VP for Educational Outreach. Now serves as senior associate to the Chancellor. Recipient of the Clark Kerr Award for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education in 2007 by the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate.

Lisbet Rausing (IH 1980-81)
Senior research fellow at Imperial College, London. Specializing in the history of science, she is the author of the critically acclaimed biography, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation.

Roger Revelle (IH 1930-31)
Described by the New York Times as "one of the world's most articulate spokesmen for science" and "an early predictor of global warming," he was a giant in American science. At Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he was a professor and then Director from 1950-'64. He championed the establishment of UC San Diego and recruited world-class scientists to join the faculty. Revelle believed that science can make a great contribution to the welfare of people everywhere - especially for the poorest people.

Marion Ross (IH 1947-51)
Professor of Economics Emerita and Dean of the Faculty, Mills College. She has served International House for 20 years as a member of the Board of Directors, Chief Financial Officer, and Chair of the Finance Committee. She co-founded the Rafael Rodriguez/Golden Age Scholarship endowment which now provides full room and board scholarships plus a stipend. Prof. Ross lived at International House during a period fondly remembered as The Golden Age.
"It was shortly after the end of World War II. Students came to I-House as veterans, resistance fighters, and Holocaust survivors. I think of Lottie, the only one of her family to survive the concentration camps, and Milton, who hiked at night from Tientsin to southern China to enlist in the American army and was later dropped behind enemy lines to gather intelligence. Great friendships were formed. I found here a spirit of optimism and a sense of rebuilding a world for peace."

Shankar Sastry (IH 1977-78)
UC Berkeley Dean of College of Engineering, Director of UC Berkeley-based Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)

Prof. S. Shankar Sastry has been appointed Dean of Cal's College of Engineering. Read more. CITRIS is one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation established in 2001 to develop the next generation of technologies that will be critical to sustaining California's economic growth and global competitiveness. Learn more

Hla Shwe (IH 1953-62)
UC Davis Professor of Physics and President of the Davis International House Board of Directors.