List of alumni of the University of Cape Town

This list of the notable alumni of the University of Cape Town is divided into the six faculties of the university: Commerce, Humanities, Sciences, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Law.

Commerce

• Raymond Ackerman, businessman, who purchased the Pick 'n Pay supermarket group from its founder; philanthropist
• Roelof Botha, grandson of Pik Botha; began his career as an actuary and became a venture capitalist
• Polly Courtice, founder Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and member of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes Benz Group
• Chelsy Davy, ex-girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry
• Sir Bradley Fried, ex-chief executive of Investec Bank; current chairman of Goldman Sachs International
• Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor of Cape Town (2021– )
• Nick Mallett, played for and later coached the Springboks, South Africa's national rugby union team
• Tshediso Matona, CEO of Eskom
• Mark Nielsen, CEO of Talent
• Mark Shuttleworth, billionaire entrepreneur; founder of Canonical Ltd; sponsor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution; second space tourist

Humanities

• Lauren Beukes, international best-selling author of The Shining Girls, winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award
• J. M. Coetzee, Professor Emeritus, Literature, 2003
• Jean Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
• John Comaroff, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
• Harold Cressy, head teacher and first coloured person to gain a degree in South Africa
• Janette Deacon, archaeologist specialising in heritage management and rock art conservation
• Roger Ebert, film critic, graduated with an English degree as part of a Rotary International program
• David Fanning, Emmy Award-winning producer of Frontline
• Bobby Godsell, Masters of Arts, later CEO of AngloGold Ashanti and Chairman of Eskom
• Johannes de Villiers Graaff, professor of welfare economics; economist
• Adrian Guelke, Professor of Comparative Politics at Queen's University Belfast
• Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, deputy prime minister of South Africa, obtained an M.A. at the age of 17
• Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, New Testament scholar, Professor at Westminster Theological Seminary
• Edward Neville Isdell, former CEO of the Coca-Cola Company
• Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac; 8th most influential woman in the world, according to Forbes magazine
• David Lewis-Williams, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand specialising in Upper-Palaeolithic and Bushmen rock art
• Gwen Lister, South African-born Namibian journalist; anti-apartheid activist; founder of The Namibian
• Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw, Afrikaans-language poet, playwright and scholar
• Archie Mafeje, anthropologist and activist who significantly contributed to the decolonization of African identity and its historical past, criticising anthropology's typically Eurocentric techniques and beliefs; also known for the "Mafeje affair"
• Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town, PhD from the University of Cape Town
• Steven Markovitz, award-winning film and television producer
• Ebrahim Patel, held positions as South African Minister of Trade and Industry and as the Minister of Economic Development, on the University Council of UCT; former staffer in the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit in the School of Economics
• André du Pisani, political scientist and professor at University of Namibia
• Nik Rabinowitz, comedian, actor and author
• Mamphela Ramphele, managing director of the World Bank; former Vice-Chancellor of UCT
• Isaac Schapera, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics; leading expert in the anthropology of South African tribesmen
• Nora Schimming-Chase, Namibia's first ambassador to Germany, obtained a teaching diploma from UCT in 1961
• Carmel Schrire, Professor of Archaeology, Rutgers University
• Robert Carl-Heinz Shell, South African author and professor of African Studies
• Lady Skollie, feminist artist and activist
• Lady Kitty Spencer (born 1990), English model
• Andries Treurnicht, founder and the leader of the Conservative Party in South Africa
• Elizabeth Anne Voigt, archaeologist and director of the McGregor Museum
• Mary Watson, 2006 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing

Music

• Richard Cock, conductor
• Cromwell Everson, classical music composer and composer of the first Afrikaans opera
• Ernest Fleischmann, impresario best known for his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic
• Malcolm Forsyth, musician; composer; Canadian Composer of the Year; Juno Award winner; member of Order of Canada
• Hendrik Hofmeyr, composer and music theorist; winner of the 1997 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Composition Prize; Professor of Music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
• Galt MacDermot, composer of the musical Hair
• Melanie Scholtz, vocalist, operas, jazz, pop, r&b, and classical music; graduated from the School of Opera
• Barry Smith, organist, conductor, musicologist, former Associate Professor of Music at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
• Désirée Talbot, operatic soprano and one of the founding members of the UCT Opera Company
• Pretty Yende, operatic soprano

Fine art

• Anne Bean, British installation and performance artist
• Alex Binaris, fashion model
• Breyten Breytenbach, author
• Roger Ebert, Pulitzer Award-winning American film critic and writer
• Kai Lossgott, interdisciplinary artist
• Simphiwe Ndzube, visual artist
• Claudette Schreuders, South African sculptor and painter
• Jonathan Shapiro, South African political cartoonist known as "Zapiro"
• Marjorie van Heerden, South African writer and illustrator of children's books
• Pauline Vogelpoel, arts administrator at the Contemporary Art Society and Tate Gallery

Drama

• Jodi Balfour, actress
• Katlego Danke, actress
• Nadia Davids, playwright, novelist, and author of short stories, and screenplays
• Vincent Ebrahim, known for his role on The Kumars at No. 42
• Richard E. Grant, actor
• Kagiso Lediga, stand-up comedian, actor and director
• Zolani Mahola, lead singer of the South African band Freshlyground
• Zandile Msutwana, actress
• Koleka Putuma, poet and theatre-maker

Sciences

• Professor Allan McLeod Cormack, Medicine, 1979
• Hilary Deacon, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Stellenbosch specialising in the emergence of modern humans and African archaeology
• Emanuel Derman, Goldman Sachs financial engineer and author of My Life As A Quant
• Jonathan M. Dorfan, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
• Professor Mulalo Doyoyo, South African engineer and inventor; known for inventing cenocell, a cementless concrete
• George Ellis, cosmologist; collaborator with Stephen Hawking; winner of the 2004 Templeton Prize
• Tim Hawarden, astrophysicist
• Michael David Kirchmann, architect and developer, founder of GDSNY
• Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1982
• Paul Maritz, former Microsoft executive; VMware CEO
• Magdalena Sauer, first woman to qualify as an architect in South Africa
• Sydney Harold Skaife, South African entomologist and naturalist
• Stanley Skewes, number theorist most famous in popular mathematics for his bound for the point of changeover in magnitude between the number of primes up to a certain number and an important approximation of this, which was for many years the largest finite number ever legitimately used in a research paper
• Edith Layard Stephens, South African botanist
• Willem Van Biljon, former co-founder of Mosaic Software, acquired by S1 Corporation ; founder of Nimbula, a startup funded by Sequoia Capital
• Richard van der Riet Woolley, British astronomer who became Astronomer Royal

Health sciences

• Neil Aggett, South African trade union leader and labour activist who died in custody after 70 days' detention without trial
• Frances Ames, first woman to receive an MD degree from UCT; first female professor at UCT
• Christiaan Barnard, professor, performed the world's first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital
• Enid Charles, statistician and demographer
• Alan Christoffels, bioinformatics scientist, academic, and an author
• David Cooper, theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement
• Tamaryn Green, medical doctor, Miss South Africa 2018 and 1st runner-up at Miss Universe 2018
• Cecil Helman, physician, medical anthropologist and author
• Margaret Keay (1911–1998), plant pathologist
• Bongani Mayosi, cardiologist and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
• Mervyn Maze, anaesthesiologist, medical researcher and academic
• Riaad Moosa, comedian, actor and doctor
• Jean Nachega, physician, infectious diseases doctor and academic
• Gisela Sole, professor of physiotherapy at University of Otago in New Zealand
• Max Theiler, virologist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever
• Louis Vogelpoel, cardiologist and one of the founding members of the Cardiac Clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital as well as a highly regarded horticultural scholar and researcher
• Carolyn Williamson, virologist and microbiologist, professor of medical virology
• Heather Zar, paediatric pulmonologist and Chair Department of Paediatrics

Social sciences

• John Karlin, industrial psychologist whose research led to the rectangular push-button telephone
• Debora Patta, broadcast journalist and television producer
• Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News
• Josina Z. Machel, women's rights activist
• Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, social policy researcher

Law

• David Bloomberg, former Mayor of Cape Town (1973–1975) and defence attorney for Dimitri Tsafendas, who fatally stabbed the Prime Minister, Dr H.F. Verwoerd, in Parliament in 1966
• Sheila Camerer, South African politician; former Deputy Minister of Justice; long-serving Member of Parliament of the main opposition the Democratic Alliance; ambassador to Bulgaria; completed a Bachelor of Law degree at UCT in 1964
• Ryan Coetzee, South African politician; former CEO of the Democratic Alliance and Shadow Minister of Economic Development; chief strategist for Western Cape premier Helen Zille; graduated from UCT in 1994
• Beric John Croome, Advocate of the High Court of South Africa; Chartered Accountant CA (SA); taxpayers' rights pioneer; completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree (1980), Certificate in the Theory of Accountancy (1981) and a PhD (Commercial Law) (2008) at UCT
• Zainunnisa "Cissie" Gool, anti-apartheid political and civil rights leader
• Zuleikha Hassan, Kenyan politician; Kwale County Woman Representative and Member of Parliament
• Stephen Jolly, Australian activist and politician
• Fana Mokoena, South African politician and actor, member of the National Assembly of South Africa and a delegate to the National Council of Provinces
• Ian Neilson, Executive Deputy Mayor of Cape Town
• Dullah Omar, South African anti-apartheid activist; lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; minister in the South African cabinet from 1994 until his death
• Kate O'Regan, former Constitutional Court of South Africa judge
• Albie Sachs, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
• James Selfe, long-serving Member of Parliament with the Democratic Alliance; chairperson of the party's federal council; holds a master's degree from UCT
• Donald Woods, South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist
• Percy Yutar, South Africa's first Jewish attorney-general and prosecutor of Nelson Mandela in the 1963 Rivonia Treason Trial.