Notable Inventors and Trailblazers among Iowa Alumni - After Graduation—Iowa Outcomes - Undergraduate Admissions

Some of the nation's foremost figures in the world of plate tectonics, acoustics, law, engineering, educational testing, and public opinion polling attended Iowa.

Inventors

George Gallup—Pioneer of public opinion polling, founder of the Gallup Poll. BA, Journalism, 1923; former UI journalism professor. He died in 1984.
E.F. Lindquist—A pioneer whose work in educational testing and measurement led to the founding of ACT and Westinghouse Learning. PhD, Education, 1927; former UI education professor. He died in 1978.
George Nissen—Inventor of the trampoline, which he built in his garage in 1936. Trampolining debuted as an Olympic sport at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. BSC, Commerce and Science, 1937.
Harry F. Olson—A pioneer and leading authority in acoustics and electronic sound recording, Olson developed magnetic tape recorders for sound and television, the electronic music synthesizer, and underwater sound equipment. Bachelor of Engineering, 1924; Electrical Engineering degree, 1932. He died in 1982.
Jerome K. Sherman—His doctoral research at Iowa was the basis for the first Cryobank for frozen semen in the world, established at The University of Iowa. PhD, Zoology, 1954.

Trailblazers

Lilia Abron—She was the first African American woman in the nation, and the third woman at The University of Iowa, to receive a doctorate in chemical engineering. PhD, 1972.
G. Alexander Clark—The son of America's first black ambassador to Liberia became the first African American to graduate from the Iowa law school, and possibly the first African American in the nation to earn a law degree. Bachelor of Laws, 1879.
Phyllis Propp Fowle—First female Judge Advocate General officer in the U.S. Army and the only woman in her graduating class in the UI College of Law. She helped launch the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II. BA, 1930; JD, 1933.
She died in 2000.
Homer Harris—The University's first African American football team captain (a first in Big Ten history). After graduating from Iowa in 1939, he became a dermatologist in Seattle, Wash., where a park in his name commemorates his contributions to the community. BA, 1939. He died in 2007.
Bruce C. Heezen—Oceanographer and pioneer in plate tectonics. By the time he was 30, he had obtained mineral specimens 10,000 years old that helped decipher the history of the Earth. BA, Geology, 1948. He died in 1977.
Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson—The first woman to graduate from the University of Iowa College of Law. She was possibly the first woman to earn a law degree in America. Bachelor of Laws, 1873.
Lulu Johnson—The first African American in the United States to earn a doctorate in history and first African American woman to earn a PhD from The University of Iowa. BA, 1930; MA, 1930; PhD, History, 1941. She died in 1995.
Bingnan Lin—A senior design team member on the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in the People's Republic of China, the largest dam design and construction project in the world. MS, 1947; PhD, Mechanics and Hydraulics, 1951.
Elizabeth Catlett Mora—This significant 20th-century sculptor and civil rights advocate studied under the renowned painter Grant Wood at Iowa. MFA, 1940.
John McLendon—First black coach hired by a predominately white institution when he was selected at Cleveland State University in 1966. It was his service on the National Athletic Steering Committee, which McLendon founded in 1949, which had a large impact on the integration of basketball, and eventually, all sports. MA, Physical Education, 1937. He died in 1999.
Richard N. Olney—A famous chef, an authority on French cuisine, and a respected cookbook author. BFA, 1949.
Jewel Prestage—She was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in political science. MA, Political Science, 1953; PhD, Political Science, 1954.
Colleen Rowley—The FBI agent whose publicized memo exposed FBI missteps in the months leading up to Sept. 11, 2001. In 2002, she was Time magazine's co-person of the year. JD, 1980.
Frederick W. “Duke” Slater—Frederick W. “Duke” Slater was the University's first African American All-America football player and was named to the Chicago Tribune’s All-American football team. He later became a municipal court judge in Cook County, Illinois. Slater Residence Hall is named in his honor. Bachelor of Laws, 1928.
Juanita Kidd Stout—First African American woman in America to be appointed as a judge; She also was the first African American woman appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. BA, Music, 1939.
James L. Watson—A distinguished anthropologist specializing in knowledge of contemporary China. He has taught at Harvard and at the Universities of London, Hawaii, and Pittsburgh. BA, Asian Languages and Literature, 1965.