This is a list of University of Sydney people , including notable alumni and staff.
Dennis A. Ahlburg – former president of Trinity University ; dean of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Professor of Human Resources at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota
Brian Anderson – former president of the Australian Academy of Science ; Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Australian National University
Elizabeth Bannan – educationist; fellow of the Australian College of Education [ 1] [ 2]
Brian L. Byrne – social scientist known for research in psycholinguistics ; Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of New England
Jill Ker Conway – former vice-president of the University of Toronto and President of Smith College ; Visiting Professor in MIT 's program in Science, Technology, and Society; Chairman of Lendlease ; director of Nike , Merrill Lynch , and Colgate-Palmolive
Beverly Derewianka – Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wollongong
Theodore Thomson Flynn , professor of marine biology and zoology at the University of Tasmania and Queen's University of Belfast , Chair of Zoology at Queen's University of Belfast, director of the marine station at Portaferry , father of actor Errol Flynn
Margaret Gardner – Vice-Chancellor of Monash University
Michael Halliday – creator of the systemic functional grammar , an internationally influential grammar model
Jenny Hammond - linguist known for research on literacy development
Frank Lancaster Jones – sociologist known for research on social inequality, social stratification, social mobility, and national identity
Sir Robert Madgwick – first Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England ; former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission ; Director of the Australian Army Education Service during World War II [ 3]
Robert May, Baron May of Oxford – former president of the Royal Society ; Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government
Jim Peacock – former president of Australian Academy of Science
Michael Pitman – former chief scientist of Australia
Ken Robinson – former head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of New South Wales
Nicholas Saunders – former vice-chancellor of the University of Newcastle and former dean of medicine at Monash University and Flinders University
Michael Spence – president and provost of the University College London and former vice-chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney
Sir Brian Windeyer – former dean of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School at the University of London and former vice-chancellor of the University of London[ 4]
Nicki Packer – Distinguished Professor of Glycoproteomics at Macquarie University
Governors-General of Australia [ edit ]
State governors and Territory Administrators [ edit ]
Prime ministers of Australia [ edit ]
Premiers of New South Wales [ edit ]
Federal politicians [ edit ]
Australian state and territory politicians [ edit ]
International politicians [ edit ]
John Bell – actor, theatre director and theatre impresario
Bruce Beresford – film director
Anne Boyd – composer, first Australian and first woman appointed Professor of Music at the University of Sydney
Rose Byrne – actress
Jane Campion – New Zealand director, producer, and screenwriter
Alex Cubis – actor
Somaratne Dissanayake – Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter and producer
Christopher Doyle – cinematographer
Sandy Edwards – photographer
Jacqueline Fernandez – Bahraini–Sri Lankan actress and model who predominantly works in Bollywood , Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2006
Charles Firth – comedian
John Flaus – broadcaster, actor, voice talent, anarchist, poet and raconteur
Ania Freer – documentary filmmaker
Andrew Hansen – comedian and musician
Michael Hannan – composer, pianist, and musicologist[ 14]
Tom Gleeson – comedian, radio and television presenter
May Hollinworth – theatre producer and director
Yvonne Kenny – soprano
Chas Licciardello – comedian
Dolph Lundgren – Swedish actor, filmmaker, and martial artist
Julian Morrow – comedian and television producer
Craig Reucassel – comedian, radio and television presenter
Dame Joan Sutherland – dramatic coloratura soprano
Chris Taylor – comedian
Huỳnh Trần Ý Nhi – Vietnamese model, Miss World Vietnam 2023
Peter Weir – film director
Kip Williams – director of the Sydney Theatre Company
Georgina Wilson – Filipino-British model, actress
Roger Woodward – pianist, composer, conductor
Literature, writing and poetry[ edit ]
Other legal professionals [ edit ]
Astronauts and astronomy [ edit ]
Computer scientists [ edit ]
Geology, archeology and oceanography[ edit ]
Mathematics and economics [ edit ]
George Henry Abbott – surgeon and former Fellow at the University of Sydney
Katie Louisa Ardill – first woman to be appointed as a divisional surgeon in New South Wales; among the first female doctors when she joined the British Expeditionary Forces in Egypt in 1915
Nikos Athanasou – Professor of Musculoskeletal Pathology at the Oxford University and Greek-Australian novelist
Samy Azer – Professor of Medical Education; international medical educator
Maxwell Bennett – proved that nerve terminals on muscles release transmitter molecules, rather than just the noradrenaline and acetylcholine that were previously known
Dame Valerie Beral – epidemiologist ; Fellow of the Royal Society; Head of Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and Cancer Research UK [ 20]
Ralph Beattie Blacket – beriberi and heart disease researcher
Grace Boelke – general practitioner; one of the first two female graduates in medicine from the University of Sydney
Claudia Bradley – pharmacist, paediatrician, orthopaedist
Jennifer Byrne – cancer researcher
Janet Carr – physiotherapist
John Carter – endocrinologist and former President of Australian Diabetes Society
Victor Chang – pioneer of modern heart transplantation
Robert Clancy – developer of first oral vaccine for acute bronchitis
Graeme Clark – inventor of cochlear ear implant
Iza Coghlan – physician; one of the first two female graduates in medicine from the University of Sydney
David A. Cooper – HIV/AIDS researcher and Director of the Kirby Institute
Grace Cuthbert-Browne – doctor and Director of Maternal and Baby Welfare in the New South Wales Department of Public Health, 1937–1964
Justine Damond – veterinarian, spiritual healer, and meditation coach before being killed by a Minneapolis Police Department officer
Raymond Dart – anatomist and anthropologist, known for his discovery in 1924 of a fossil (first ever found) of Australopithecus africanus (extinct hominid closely related to humans)
John Diamond – developer of Behavioral Kinesiology (now called Life-Energy Analysis), a system based upon applied kinesiology , incorporating the emotions
Anna Donald – pioneer and advocate of evidence-based medicine
Rachael Dunlop – medical researcher and sceptic
John Dwyer – Australian doctor, Professor of Medicine, and public health advocate.
Creswell Eastman – Endocrinologist, Professor of Medicine, known for Iodine Deficiency Disorders research.
Sir John Eccles – winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1963)
Peter Green – Director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University
Sir Norman Gregg – identified rubella in early pregnancy as a human teratogen
Sir Henry Harris – Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford; first demonstrated the existence of tumour-suppressing genes
Freida Ruth Heighway – obstetrician and gynaecologist
Ken Hillman – intensive care physician
Portia Holman – child psychiatrist
David Hunter – Dean of Academic Affairs of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University
John Hunter – Challis Professor of Anatomy at age 24 years whose brilliant career, achieving international recognition, was cut short by fever just two years later
Sir Keith Jones – surgeon and former president of the Australian Medical Association
Sir Bernard Katz – 1970 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology "for discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation"
Robert Kavanaugh – dentist and George Cross recipient
Ross Kerridge - anesthesiologist; Lord Mayor of Newcastle
Stephen W. Kuffler – "father of modern neuroscience"
Max Lake – Australia's first specialist hand surgeon
Gerald Lawrie – American heart surgeon and pioneer in the surgical treatment of valvular heart disease; performed the first mitral valve repair using the daVinci robotic surgical system; Methodist Hospital Michael E. Debakey Professor of Cardiac Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine
Sir Herbert Maitland – surgeon
William McBride – obstetrician, who in 1961 first warned the medical world against thalidomide as a human teratogen
Charles George McDonald – physician, army officer and academic
Patrick McGorry – Australian of the Year 2010
Wirginia Maixner – neurosurgeon, Director of neurosurgery at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne; graduated in 1986
Sir Michael Marmot – President of British Medical Association , Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London; has conducted ground-breaking studies into stroke
John Mattick – Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, whose research led to the discovery of the function of non-coding DNA
Stan Devenish Meares – former president of Australian Council Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Donald Metcalf – his research revealed the control of blood cell formation
Errol Solomon Meyers – prominent Brisbane doctor; one of the founding fathers of the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland
Jacques Miller – discoverer of the function of the thymus (the last major organ of the human body whose function remained unknown)
Sir William Morrow – former president of Royal Australasian College of Physicians
Philip Nitschke – physician, humanist, founder and director of Exit International
Sir Gustav Nossal – immunologist, discoverer of the "one cell-one antibody" rule, which states that each B lymphocyte, developed in bone marrow, secretes a specific antibody in response to an encounter with a specific foreign antigen
Mitchell Notaras – graduate who funded the $1.1 million Mitchel J Notaras Scholarship for Colorectal Medicine at the University of Sydney
Susie O'Reilly – family doctor and obstetrician, noted for her rejected application for residency at Sydney Hospital in favour of male applicants in 1905 despite her excellent academic record
Brian Owler – president of the Australian Medical Association
Cecil Purser – former chairman Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Margery Scott-Young – surgeon
Colin Sullivan – inventor of the Continuous Positive Airflow Pressure (CPAP) mask
Mavis Sweeney – hospital pharmacist
Frank Tidswell – former director New South Wales Government Bureau of Microbiology and Director of Pathology at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children
Alan O. Trounson – President of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
John Turtle – Kellion Professor of Endocrinology at the University of Sydney
Nan Waddy – psychiatrist
Robert Walsh - medical researcher and geneticist
Claire Weekes – health writer and pioneer of anxiety treatment; first woman to graduate from the University of Sydney with a doctorate of science
Harry Windsor – heart surgeon
Donald Wood-Smith – Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University
Jeannette Young – medical doctor and Chief Health Officer of Queensland
Veterinary and agricultural scientists [ edit ]
'Snowy' Baker – rugby union, diving, boxing, swimming and polo player[ 22] [ 23]
Nigel Barker – sprinter
Ken Catchpole [ a] – rugby union footballer, state and national representative half-back
Alex Chambers – mixed martial artist[ 24]
Brendon Cook – international race car driver
Chloe Dalton – Australian rules football, rugby union player and basketballer; gold medalist at the 2016 Summer Olympics [ 25]
Caitlin De Wit – wheelchair basketball player
Kilian Elkinson – Bermudian footballer
Nick Farr-Jones – rugby union footballer
Jessica Fox – slalom canoer , gold medalist at the 2020 Summer Olympics and 2024 Summer Olympics [ 26]
Peter Fuzes – association soccer player
Scott Gourley – rugby union and rugby league
Sienna Green - water polo player
Phil Hardcastle – rugby union footballer
Peter Johnson – rugby player[ b]
Tom Lawton, Snr – rugby union player
Jack Metcalfe – long jumper, triple jumper and javelin thrower
Herbert Moran – rugby union player
Stirling Mortlock [ c] – rugby union player
Dean Mumm [ d] – rugby union player
Otto Nothling – rugby union and cricket player
Ellyse Perry – cricket and football player
Mike Pyke – rugby union player and Australian rules footballer
Alex Ross – state and national representative rugby union player
Kevin Ryan – rugby union and rugby league player[ e]
John Solomon – rugby union player, state and national representative versatile back
Johnny Taylor – rugby union and cricket player
John Thornett [ f] – rugby union player
Dick Tooth – rugby union footballer
John Treloar – sprinter,
Johnnie Wallace – rugby union player, state and national representative three-quarter
Phil Waugh – rugby union footballer
Zhao Zong-Yuan – youngest Australian to become a chess Grandmaster
^ Graduated with a Masters of Science; played exclusively for the Randwick Club.
^ Played for Sydney University Club and was a member of Randwick Club at time of Australian captaincy.
^ Graduated with a Bachelor of Science; played exclusively for the Gordon Club.
^ Captained Australia in non-test matches in 2009.
^ Graduated in Law; did not play for any Sydney University Club.
^ Graduate in Science and Engineering; played for Sydney University Club and was a member of Northern Suburbs Club at time of Australian captaincy.
The chancellor is elected by the fellows and presides at Senate meetings. In 1924, the executive position of vice-chancellor was created, and the chancellor ceased to have managerial responsibilities. Until 1860, the chancellor was known as the provost.
The vice-chancellor serves as the chief executive officer of the university, and oversees most of the university's day-to-day operations, with the chancellor serving in a largely ceremonial role. Before 1924, the vice-chancellors were fellows of the university, elected annually by the fellows. Until 1860, the vice-chancellor was known as the vice-provost. Since 1955, the full title has been Vice-Chancellor and Principal.
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