Academia

• Lila Abu-Lughod, 1974, author, scholar and expert on the Arab world
• Robert C. Allen, 1969, professor of economic history at New York University Abu Dhabi
• R. Michael Alvarez, 1986, professor of political science at California Institute of Technology
• James C. Anthony, 1971, professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Michigan State University
• Daniel A. Arnold, 1988, philosopher at the University of Chicago
• Frank Edward Brown, 1929, preeminent Mediterranean archaeologist
• Penelope Brown, 1965, anthropologist, co-creator of the theory of politeness
• David M. Carr, 1980, professor of Old Testament at the Union Theological Seminary
• Arland F. Christ-Janer, 1943, president of the College Entrance Examination Board and sixth president of Boston University
• Kimberly Clausing, 1991, economist at Reed College and UCLA School of Law.
• Geoffrey Claussen, 2001, professor of religious studies at Elon University
• Michael Cunningham, social psychologist and professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Louisville
• Anthony Downs, 1952, author of An Economic Theory of Democracy, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
• Buell G. Gallagher, 1925, President of Talladega College; President of City College of New York
• Regan Gurung, 1991, professor of psychology and author
• Susan Hekman, 1971, professor of political science and director of the graduate humanities program at the University of Texas at Arlington
• John Lavine, 1963, Dean of Medill School of Journalism
• Alfred R. Lindesmith, 1927, professor of sociology at Indiana University known for contributions to the study of drug addiction
• Dennis Meadows, 1964, co-author of The Limits to Growth
• Donella Meadows, 1963, lead author of The Limits to Growth
• Thomas Mengler, 1975, President of St. Mary's University (Texas), former Dean of Law at University of St. Thomas and former dean of the University of Illinois College of Law
• William G. Moseley, 1987, writer and professor of geography at Macalester College
• Robert Paarlberg, 1967, professor of political science at Wellesley College, researcher of international agricultural and environmental policy
• Kathy Peiss, 1975, professor of American history at The University of Pennsylvania; former chair of the history department and winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship
• William B. Pickett, 1962, historian and professor emeritus at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana
• Lucian Pye, 1943, political scientist and renowned sinologist, taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 35 years
• Katherine Rowe, 1984, first female President of The College of William & Mary
• Laura Ruetsche, 1987, chair of the philosophy department at the University of Michigan
• Jay Rubenstein, 1989, historian, recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship
• Stephen Thorsett, 1987, President of Willamette University, physicist, astronomer, former dean of UC Santa Cruz Division of Physical and Biological Sciences
• Thorstein Veblen, 1880, economist and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class
• Adam Arkin, 1988, Dean A. Richard Newton Memorial Chair Professor at University of California, Berkeley and CEO/CSO of DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase

Arts

• Jack Carson, 1932, actor, star of many films including Mildred Pierce, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Star Is Born
• Lincoln Child, 1979, New York Times Bestselling author of techno-thrillers
• Jimmy Chin, 1996, National Geographic photographer, documentary filmmaker, and mountain climber
• Masanori Mark Christianson, 1998, musician/creative director, member of indie band Rogue Wave
• Stuart Comer, 1990, chief curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
• Bob Daily, 1986, television producer and screenwriter for Desperate Housewives, Frasier, and Superior Donuts
• Pamela Dean, 1975, fantasy writer
• Brian Freeman, 1984, suspense fiction author
• Piotr Gajewski, 1981 founder, director and artistic director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra^[1]
• Robert Gottschalk, 1939, Academy Award winner and founder of Panavision
• Peter Gwinn, 1993, writer for The Colbert Report
• Jane Hamilton, 1979, novelist and winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, author of The Book of Ruth
• Hal Higdon, 1953, runner and writer
• Loyce Houlton, 1946, choreographer and founder of the Minnesota Dance Theatre
• Christopher Kratt, 1992, TV and film producer, host of Zoboomafoo and Wild Kratts
• Naomi Kritzer, 1995, Locus Award and Hugo Award-winning author of speculative fiction, and blogger
• Clare Walker Leslie, 1968, naturalist and nature writer
• Grace Llewellyn, 1986, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook
• James Loewen, 1964, historian and author of Lies My Teacher Told Me
• Erica Lord, 2001, artist
• Zach McGowan, 2002, actor, roles in television shows including Black Sails and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Beverly Naidus, 1975, artist
• Barrie M. Osborne, 1966, producer of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy
• Parker Palmer, 1961, author, founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal
• Andrij Parekh, 1994, cinematographer for popular television (13 Reasons Why), film (The Zookeepers Wife), and music videos (Electric Feel for MGMT)
• T.J. Stiles, 1986, non-fiction writer, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for Biography in 2010 and for History in 2016
• Marilyn Stokstad, 1950, art historian
• Peter Tork, of The Monkees, was a student at Carleton from 1960 to 1963 (then known as Peter Thorkelson)
• Laura Veirs, 1997, singer-songwriter, member of supergroup case/lang/veirs
• Helene Wecker, 1997, author of the historical fantasy novel The Golem and the Jinni
• Wendy West, 1994, American television producer and Emmy award nominated writer of the Showtime drama, Dexter
• Patricia Collins Wrede, 1974, fantasy writer, author of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
• Karen Tei Yamashita, 1973, novelist, author of I Hotel and Tropic of Orange
• Kao Kalia Yang, 2003, Hmong American writer and author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and The Song Poet

Journalism

• Kai Bird, 1973, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and journalist

• Jonathan Capehart, 1989, journalist, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
• Maya Dusenbery, 2008, executive director of the feminist blog, Feministing
• Jack El-Hai, 1979, writer and journalist^[2]
• Michael Gartner, 1960, journalist, former president of NBC news, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
• Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, 1992, James Beard Award-winning food writer^[3]
• John F. Harris, 1985, editor-in-chief of Politico
• Clara Jeffery, 1989, editor of Mother Jones magazine
• Brian Klaas, 2008, columnist at the Washington Post, assistant professor at University College London
• Margaret Manton Merrill, 1873, journalist
• Peter Schjeldahl, 1965, art critic for The New Yorker, finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
• Joseph Shapiro, 1975, investigations correspondent for NPR News, finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting
• Garrick Utley, 1961, journalist, former host of Meet the Press

Business

• Arnold W. Donald, 1976, CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc cruise company
• Robert K. Greenleaf, 1926, corporate management expert, founder of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership
• Laura Silber, 1982, Chief Communications Operator for the Open Society Foundations
• Brandon Sun, 2007, SPAC Banker at the helm of the Deutsche Bank Strip Club Scandal^[4][5]

Politics and Government

• Chude Pam Allen, 1965, activist, Freedom Summer participant and involved in the women's liberation movement
• C. S. Amsden, South Dakota politician
• Ellen Anderson, 1982, Minnesota politician
• Michael Armacost, 1958, former Under Secretary of State (Policy); former ambassador to Japan and the Philippines; President of the Brookings Institution from 1995 to 2002; and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Carleton from 2004 to 2008
• Jack Barnes, 1961, the leader of the Socialist Workers Party
• Duane C. Butcher, 1987, U.S. chargé d'affaires in Romania from 2012 to 2014, and in Uzbekistan from 2010 to 2011
• Doug DiSalvo, 1995, Head of Field Office at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency since 2003
• Tom Freedman, 1996, Chief of Staff for Political Strategy for the Clinton/Gore Campaign
• John A. Gale, 1962, Secretary of State of Nebraska since 2000
• Susan Golding, 1966, two-term mayor of San Diego
• Rush Holt, Jr., 1970, U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th congressional district from 1999 to 2015; CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the Science family of journals since 2015
• Eleanor Kinnaird, 1953, North Carolina State Senator
• Warren P. Knowles, 1930, governor of Wisconsin from 1965 to 1971
• Jimmy Kolker, 1970, former ambassador to Burkina Faso and Uganda, former chief of HIV/AIDs section at UNICEF, currently Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Melvin R. Laird, 1942, President Nixon's Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973
• Todd Larson, 1983, LGBT activist, served on the board of directors of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission from 2007 to 2013
• Jack Lew, United States Secretary of the Treasury and 25th White House Chief of Staff; transferred to Harvard College after his freshman year
• Fue Lee, 2013, Hmong-American politician, Minnesota House of Representatives from 2016
• Ernest Lundeen, 1901, Minnesota politician; U.S. Representative 1917-1919 and 1933-1937; U.S. Senator from 1937 until his death in 1940
• Karl E. Mundt, 1923, U.S. Representative 1938-1948; U.S. Senator 1948-1973 for South Dakota
• Tom Nelson, 1998, former Wisconsin State Representative and Assembly Majority Leader
• John C. Raines, 1955, professor at Temple University, activist who broke into an F.B.I. office and exposed abuses of power
• Paul Tewes, 1993, Democratic political consultant
• Sheldon B. Vance, 1939, U.S. Ambassador to Zaire from 1969 to 1974
• Liz Watson, 1996, Democratic nominee for Indiana's 9th Congressional District

Law

• Lynn H. Ashley, 1909, district attorney for St. Croix County, Wisconsin
• Pierce Butler, 1887, Supreme Court Justice from 1923 to 1939
• Ben C. Duniway, 1928, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Audrey Fleissig, 1976, Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
• Elizabeth L. Gleicher, 1976, judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals^[6]
• Herbert Goodrich, 1911, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Director of the American Law Institute, Chair of the drafting committee of the Uniform Commercial Code
• Gordon Moore (judge), 1985, Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court^[7]
• Brenda Sannes, 1980, Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York
• Cordenio Severance, 1880, former President of the American Bar Association
• Stephen Six, 1988, Kansas Attorney General from 2008 to 2011

Science

• Walter Alvarez, 1962, geologist credited with the theory that an asteroid impact was the likely cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event
• Evelyn Anderson, 1921, physiologist and biochemist, co-discoverer of andrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)
• Kinsey Anderson, 1949, pioneer space physicist and member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Linda Bartoshuk, 1960, psychologist at the University of Florida, specializes in smell and taste
• Elizabeth Beise, 1981, professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park
• Robert G. Bergman, 1963, professor of chemistry emeritus at UC Berkeley, winner of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry
• Ann T. Bowling, 1965, leading geneticist on the study of horses, one of the leaders of the horse genome project
• Kenneth G. Caulton, professor of inorganic chemistry at the Indiana University
• Joy Crisp, 1979, planetary geologist
• Carl R. Eklund, 1932, leading ornithologist and member of one of the longest recorded Antarctic sled dog journeys, namesake of the Eklund Islands
• Sarah K. England, 1988, physiologist and biophysicist; professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis
• Barbara Fredrickson, 1986, social psychologist studying emotions and positive psychology at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
• Alan Gelperin, 1962, professor at Princeton University, specializes in olfaction, known for electronic scent detection and identification
• David Gerdes, 1986, astrophysicist and professor of physics at the University of Michigan
• Todd Golub, 1985, professor of pediatrics at Harvard, known for applying the tools of genomics to study cancer
• Robert Edward Gross, 1927, highly distinguished surgeon and one of the pioneers of cardiac surgery
• James V. Haxby, 1973, neuroscientist known for face perception, Director of the Dartmouth Brain Imaging Center at Dartmouth College
• Stephen P. Hubbell, 1963, ecologist, author of the unified neutral theory of biodiversity, founder of what would become the National Council for Science and the Environment
• Kathy Hudson, 1982, American microbiologist specializing in science policy, former deputy director for science, outreach, and policy at the National Institutes of Health, assisted in the creation of All of Us, the BRAIN initiative, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and founded the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University
• Mary-Claire King, 1967, human geneticist, discoverer of BRCA1
• Yvonne Connolly Martin, 1958, expert in the field of cheminfomatics
• Eric Pianka, 1960, biologist, herpetologist and well-known evolutionary ecologist known as "the Lizard Man;" pioneered work on r/K selection theory
• Kenneth Poss, 1992, biologist, James B. Duke Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Duke University, known for his work on regeneration. AAAS Fellow.
• Peter H. Schultz, 1966, Brown University geology professor; co-investigator to the NASA Science Mission Directorate spacecraft Deep Impact; awarded the Barringer Medal of the Meteoritical Society in 2004
• Christine Siddoway, 1984, geologist and Antarctic researcher
• Douglas Vakoch, 1983, astrobiologist, president of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
• Simine Vazire, 2000, psychologist at the University of California, Davis with research in self-perception and self-knowledge
• Ray Wendland, 1933, experimental petrochemist and academic
• Sidney Wolff, 1962, astrophysicist, first woman to be named director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and the first director of the Gemini Project
• Anne Sewell Young, 1892, astronomy professor at Mt. Holyoke College and founding member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers

Religion

• Dale Ahlquist, 1980, author, scholar of G. K. Chesterton
• Kirbyjon Caldwell, 1975, pastor of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas; spiritual advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
• Arcturus Z. Conrad, 1882, theologian, pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts
• Henry H. Riggs, 1902, Christian missionary and historical witness to the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century
• Margaret Towner, 1948, religious leader, first woman minister to be ordained by the northern branch of the American Presbyterian Church
• Tsune Watanabe, 1891, President of the Congregational Woman's Missionary Society of Japan, temperance activist, educator

Sports

• Stub Allison, 1917, head football coach at UC Berkeley (1935-1944), his 1937 team won the Rose Bowl in 1938
• Osborne Cowles, 1922, athlete and coach for Carleton; basketball head coach at University of Minnesota, Michigan and Dartmouth
• Freddie Gillespie, NBA player for Toronto Raptors; Transferred to Baylor University after his Sophomore year.
• Philip Dunn, 1993, competed in 2000, 2004, 2008 Olympics in the race walking event.
• Jake Zivin, lead commentator for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

Other

• Donald H. Elliott, 1954, urban planner^[8]
• Jane Elizabeth Hodgson, 1934, physician; Founding Fellow of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; pioneer in women's reproductive health; abortion rights advocate
• Anthony Myint, 1999, restaurateur, founder of Mission Street Food, Mission Chinese Food and Commonwealth in San Francisco; author of Mission Street Food

Fictional

• Ben Wyatt, a likable yet neurotic government worker played by Adam Scott on the television series Parks and Recreation, is revealed to be a Carleton alumnus in a season six episode. He had previously been shown wearing a fictionalized Carleton College Intramural Champions tee-shirt.