Worcester Polytechnic Institute Admitted Student Profiles & Alumni

Dean Kamen

Inventor of the Segway, founder of FIRST Robotics

Honorary Doctorate

1992

Elwood Haynes

Pioneer of the American automobile industry

BS

1881

Robert Goddard

“Father of Modern Rocketry” – developed the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket

BS

1908

George I. Alden

Inventor, philanthropist, and co-founder of WPI

N/A

1865

Charles Hill Morgan

Industrialist, early iron and steel innovator

N/A

1870s

John Woodman Higgins

Founder of the Higgins Armory Museum

BS

1896

J. Michael McQuade

Senior Vice President, United Technologies Corporation

PhD

1980

Joseph J. Kohn

Mathematician known for work on partial differential equations

BS

1953

John F. Young

CEO of Energy Future Holdings

BS

1975

David A. Brown

Co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

MS

1953

Fred L. Whipple

Astronomer, proposed the "dirty snowball" model of comets

BS

1927

William M. Fowler

Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist (worked on stellar nucleosynthesis)

BS

1933

Jeffrey L. Schwartz

Chemist known for biomaterials and self-assembled monolayers

BS

1975

Nancy P. Blodgett

Aerospace engineer, NASA spacecraft systems expert

BS

1988

John H. Sununu

Former Governor of New Hampshire, White House Chief of Staff

BS

1961

Robert H. Goddard Jr.

Rocketry pioneer’s son, advocate for space exploration

BS

1940

Donald R. Peterson

Founder of Peterson Manufacturing Company

BS

1955

James F. McDonough

CEO, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants

BS

1972

Charles E. Merrill

Co-founder of Merrill Lynch (attended WPI before transferring)

N/A

Early 1900s

Bruce T. Moran

Chemist, developed key materials for semiconductor industry

PhD

1982

William B. Walker

NASA engineer, worked on Apollo and Shuttle programs

BS

1969

Paul Allaire

Former CEO and Chairman of Xerox Corporation

BS

1960

Michael J. Gauthier

Roboticist, contributed to early industrial robotics development

MS

1987

William R. Patterson

Pioneer in biomedical engineering, founder of Biotech startup

BS

1992

Henry Woodward

Inventor of the early incandescent light bulb (studied at WPI briefly)

N/A

1870s

Susan D. Landry

Renowned biomedical researcher, pediatric brain injury specialist

BS

1981

Walter H. Rich

Chief Engineer, U.S. Navy – submarine propulsion systems

BS

1974

Thomas J. Eagar

Metallurgist and materials scientist, MIT professor

BS

1972

David C. Brown

AI pioneer and expert in automated design

PhD

1983

Richard F. Gagnon

Telecommunications engineer, satellite systems innovator

MS

1979