List of University of Missouri-Kansas City people

The following is a list of notable people associated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, located in the American city of Kansas City, Missouri.

Notable alumni

Politics and government

• Thomas D. Barr, lawyer at the firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore
• Brian Birdwell, Texas State Senator
• Hilary A. Bush, Missouri lieutenant governor
• David F. Duncan, drug policy consultant to President Bill Clinton
• Clarence M. Kelley, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1973–1978
• Sam Page, Missouri State Representative for 6 years and 2008 Candidate for Missouri State Lieutenant Governor
• Bill Reardon, Kansas politician
• Rick Scott, Governor of Florida
• Katheryn Shields, Jackson County executive
• Harry S. Truman, President of the United States (attended night classes at the Law School but never graduated from any college)
• William L. Webster, Missouri politician
• Charles Evans Whittaker, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States

Media and arts

• Robert Brookmeyer, jazz trombonist
• Danny Carey, drummer for the band Tool
• Vinson Cole, international opera star, tenor
• Zel Fischer, Judge for the Missouri Supreme Court
• Mike Keefe, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist
• Edie McClurg, actress
• James Mobberley, composer and musician
• Mikel Rouse, music composer
• Craig Stevens, actor
• Leith Stevens, film composer
• Shelby Storck, television producer
• Connor Trinneer, actor
• J. Michael Yates, poet and dramatist
• Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, dancer, Founder of New York-based, Urban Bush Women, concert dance company and choreography center

Science and technology

• John D. Carmack, video game programmer
• Juris Hartmanis, computer scientist, ACM Turing Award winner (considered the Nobel Prize of Computing)

Business

• Jay B. Dillingham, President of the Kansas City Stockyards
• Clarence Ollson Senior, Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America and academic

Athletics

• Tony Dumas, basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks; the only player from UMKC to be drafted in the NBA (1994)
• Donald Fehr, Executive Director, National Hockey League Players Association

Notable faculty

• William K. Black, lawyer, author, former bank regulator, and developer of the concept of "control fraud"
• John Ciardi, poet, translator of Dante
• Louis Colaianni, author, voice and speech coach
• Vinson Cole, voice teacher, international opera singer (tenor)
• John Ezell, award-winning scenic designer, Hall Family Foundation Professor of Design
• Mark Funkhouser, former Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri
• Michael Hudson, research professor of economics and a former Wall Street analyst
• Benny Kim, Associate Professor of Violin
• Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, on leave as Daniel L. Brenner Professor of Law, former White House fellow
• Jan Kregel, post-Keynsian economist, professor of economics
• Felicia Hardison Londré, theatre historian and dramaturg, Dean of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre
• Zhou Long, contemporary classical composer, professor of musical composition, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
• Ernest Manheim, sociologist, namesake of Manheim Hall
• Tom Mardikes, sound designer, music producer, Chair of UMKC Theatre
• Pellom McDaniels, former professional football player, Kansas City Chiefs, now an assistant professor at UMKC
• Hans Morgenthau, political scientist and founder of classical realism in international relations
• Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Theodore Swetz, actor, stage director, and professor
• Whitney Terrell, author, journalist, and professor
• Bobby Watson, Jazz saxophonist
• Chen Yi, contemporary classical composer, professor of musical composition
• Rich Zvosec, former basketball coach