List of Famous Educators

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Updated October 14, 2018 41.0K views982 items

List of famous educators, with photos, bios, and other information when available. Who are the top educators in the world? This includes the most prominent educators, living and dead, both in America and abroad. This list of notable educators is ordered by their level of prominence, and can be sorted for various bits of information, such as where these historic educators were born and what their nationality is. The people on this list are from different countries, but what they all have in common is that they're all renowned educators.

List ranges from Bill Cosby to Marshall McLuhan, plus much more.

From reputable, prominent, and well known educators to the lesser known educators of today, these are some of the best professionals in the educator field. If you want to answer the questions, "Who are the most famous educators ever?" and "What are the names of famous educators?" then you're in the right place. {#nodes}
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  • Bill Cosby
    William Henry Cosby Jr. (; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, musician, author, and convicted sex offender. He held an active career for over six decades before being convicted and imprisoned for sex offenses in 2018. Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic at the hungry i in San Francisco during the 1960s. He then landed a starring role in the television show I Spy, followed by his own sitcom The Bill Cosby Show, which ran for two seasons from 1969 to 1971. In 1972, using the Fat Albert character developed during his stand-up routines, Cosby created, produced, and hosted the animated comedy television series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids which ran until 1985, centering on a group of young friends growing up in an urban area. Throughout the 1970s, Cosby starred in about a half-dozen films, and occasionally returned to film later in his career. In 1976, he earned his Doctor of Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His dissertation discussed the use of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a teaching tool in elementary schools. Beginning in the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in the television sitcom The Cosby Show, which aired from 1984 to 1992 and was rated as the number one show in America for 1985 through 1989. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family. Cosby produced the spin-off sitcom A Different World, which aired from 1987 to 1993. He also starred in The Cosby Mysteries from 1994 to 1995 and in the sitcom Cosby from 1996 to 2000, and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things from 1998 to 2000. Cosby's reputation was tarnished during the mid-2010s by numerous women who made sexual assault accusations against him; the earliest accusations date back decades. More than 60 women have accused him of either attempted assault, rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct, which he had denied, and the statute of limitations had by then expired in nearly all cases. Cosby was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault and sentenced to three to ten years in prison in September 2018.
  • Newt Gingrich
    Newton Leroy Gingrich (; né McPherson, June 17, 1943) is an American politician, author, and historian who served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 6th congressional district from 1979 until his resignation in 1999. In 2012, Gingrich was a candidate for the presidential nomination of his party. A professor of history and geography at the University of West Georgia in the 1970s, Gingrich won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1978, the first Republican in the history of Georgia's 6th congressional district to do so. He served as House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995. A co-author and architect of the "Contract with America", Gingrich was a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional election. In 1995, Time named him "Man of the Year" for "his role in ending the four-decades-long Democratic majority in the House".As House Speaker, Gingrich oversaw passage by the House of welfare reform and a capital gains tax cut in 1997. Gingrich played a key role in several government shutdowns, and impeached President Clinton on a party-line vote in the House. The poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 Congressional elections, a reprimand from the House for Gingrich's ethics violation, pressure from Republican colleagues, and revelations of an extramarital affair with a congressional employee 23 years his junior resulted in Gingrich's resignation from the speakership on November 6, 1998. He resigned altogether from the House on January 3, 1999. Political scientists have credited Gingrich with playing a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States, and hastening political polarization and partisanship.Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and worked as a political consultant. He founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation. He has written or co-authored 27 books. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election, but ultimately endorsed front runner Mitt Romney, who won the nomination.
  • Charlie Korsmo
    Charles Randolph Korsmo (born July 20, 1978) is an American lawyer and former child actor.
  • will.i.am
    William Adams (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced ‘Will-I-am’), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, record producer, actor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist; best known as a founding and lead member of the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas. As a solo artist, will.i.am has released four solo albums, beginning with Lost Change, released in 2001 through Atlantic Records. His second solo outing, Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. The track "Go!" was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. The third album, Songs About Girls, was released on September 25, 2007. He released his fourth studio album, #willpower, in 2013. As a music producer, will.i.am has produced with other artists including Cheryl, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Kesha, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, David Guetta, U2, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Usher, Justin Timberlake, A. R. Rahman, Nicki Minaj, 2NE1, and Baby Kaely. In collaborations and with the Black Eyed Peas, he has a total of 41 top-40 entries on the UK Singles Chart since 1998, and has sold 9.4 million singles in the UK.
  • Booker T. Washington
    Booker Taliaferro Washington (c. 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington was a key proponent of African-American businesses and one of the founders of the National Negro Business League. His base was the Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Tuskegee, Alabama. As lynchings in the South reached a peak in 1895, Washington gave a speech, known as the "Atlanta compromise", which brought him national fame. He called for black progress through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to challenge directly the Jim Crow segregation and the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. Washington mobilized a nationwide coalition of middle-class blacks, church leaders, and white philanthropists and politicians, with a long-term goal of building the community's economic strength and pride by a focus on self-help and schooling. But, secretly, he also supported court challenges to segregation and restrictions on voter registration.Black militants in the North, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, at first supported the Atlanta compromise, but later disagreed and opted to set up the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to work for political change. They tried with limited success to challenge Washington's political machine for leadership in the black community, but built wider networks among white allies in the North. Decades after Washington's death in 1915, the civil rights movement of the 1950s took a more active and militant approach, which was also based on new grassroots organizations based in the South, such as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Washington mastered the nuances of the political arena in the late 19th century, which enabled him to manipulate the media, raise money, develop strategy, network, push, reward friends, and distribute funds, while punishing those who opposed his plans for uplifting blacks. His long-term goal was to end the disenfranchisement of the vast majority of African Americans, who then still lived in the South.
  • Bill Nye
    William Sanford Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science communicator, television presenter, and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the PBS and syndicated children's science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998), the Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World (2017–present), and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing Corporation in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes. In 1986, Nye left Boeing to pursue comedy, writing and performing jokes and bits for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he would regularly conduct wacky science experiments. Nye aspired to become the next Mr. Wizard and with the help of several producers successfully pitched the children's television program Bill Nye the Science Guy to KCTS-TV, channel 9, Seattle's public television station. The show—which proudly proclaimed in its theme song that "science rules!"—ran from 1993 to 1998 in national TV syndication. Known for its "high-energy presentation and MTV-paced segments," the program became a hit for both kids and adults. The show was critically acclaimed and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning nineteen. Following the success of his show, Nye continued to advocate for science, becoming the CEO of the Planetary Society and helping develop sundials for the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Nye has written two best-selling books on science, including Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation in 2014 and Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World in 2015. Nye has made frequent media appearances, including on Dancing with the Stars, The Big Bang Theory and Inside Amy Schumer. Nye starred in a documentary about his life and science advocacy titled Bill Nye: Science Guy, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2017, and, in October 2017, was chosen a NYT Critic's Pick. In 2017, he debuted a Netflix series, entitled Bill Nye Saves the World.