List of Czech Americans


This is a list of notable Czech Americans.
Many people on this list are not ethnically Czech but rather born in Bohemian/Moravian territory, of German and/or Jewish extraction.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Czech American or must have references showing they are Czech American and are notable.

Business

Creative writing

  • Miles J. Breuer, trained as physician, an early science fiction writer
  • James Thomas Flexner, of Bohemian ancestry, one of American foremost men of letters, especially noted for his four-volume Biography of George Washington
  • Patricia Hampl, writer; one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center
  • Arnost Lustig, notable writer of the Holocaust
  • Frederic Prokosch, novelist and poet
  • Joanie Holzer Schirm, writer, Global Ebook Award Winner, Best Biography 2013, Czech WWII stories, Father was Czech-American physician
  • Charles Sealsfield, author of romantic novels with American backgrounds and travelogues.
  • Clifford Donald Simak, American science fiction writer
  • Nicholas Sparks, internationally bestselling American novelist and screenwriter
  • Joseph Wechsberg, free-lance writer associated with the New Yorker magazine
  • Franz Werfel, famous novelist, playwright, and poet, known especially for his novel, Song of Bernadette

Dramatic art

Exploration

  • Eugene Cernan, of Czech mother, astronaut; was last man of Apollo to leave his footprints on the moon.
  • Jim Lovell, astronaut; was command module pilot of Apollo 8, man's first flight around the moon.

Government and politics

Humanities and social sciences

  • Francis Dvornik, Moravia-born, authority on Byzantine history, Slavic history and civilization.
  • Saul Friedländer, Prague-born, award-winning historian, currently a professor of history at UCLA.
  • Ales Hrdlicka, founder of American physical anthropology.
  • Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, of Moravian ancestry, founder of modern empirical sociology.
  • Richard Neustadt, of Bohemian ancestry, political scientist at Harvard; first director of J.F. Kennedy Inst. of Politics.
  • Beardsley Ruml, of Czech immigrant father, economist, devised plan to collect taxes at their source by means of a payroll deduction system, on a pay as you go basis.
  • Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Moravia-born, notable economist at Harvard University.
  • Jan Švejnar, Prague-born, notable economist.
  • Frank William Taussig, of Czech ancestry, economist and educator, credited with creating the foundations of modern trade theory.
  • Vlasta Vraz, of Czech ancestry, worked for Czech war relief and other Czech causes in Prague and US
  • René Wellek, of Czech father, founder of literary criticism and comparative literature.
  • Max Wertheimer, Czech-born psychologist who was one of the founders of Gestalt psychology.

Law

  • Louis D. Brandeis, son of Czech immigrant, Justice of US Supreme Court.
  • Paul Freund, of Bohemian ancestry, lawyer; professor of law at Harvard University; authority on public law and understanding the Supreme Court.
  • Hans Kelsen, Prague-born jurist and legal philosopher; one of the most important legal scholars of the 20th century.
  • James F. Matousek, an American lawyer born to Czech immigrants.
  • John Roberts, Chief Justice of US Supreme Court.

Music

Media and publishing

Medicine

  • Jan Klein, immunologist, best known for his work on the major histocompatibility complex.
  • Karl Koller, Bohemia-born ophthalmologist, a discoverer of using cocaine as a local anesthetic for eye surgery.
  • Bohdan Pomahač, plastic surgeon, he led the team that performed the first full face transplant in United States and the third overall in the world.
  • Helen Repa, nurse, hero of the SS Eastland Disaster of 1915.
  • Peter Safar, Austrian physician of Czech descent, who is credited with pioneering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
  • Helen Taussig, granddaughter of Czech immigrant, medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University who alerted physicians of the dangers of thalidomide.

Military

Pioneer colonists

  • Joachim Gans from Prague, metallurgist, member of the first English colonization effort in America
  • Augustine Herman one of the earliest immigrants in America from Bohemia; creator of first accurate map of Maryland and Virginia
  • Frederick Philipse descendant of Bohemian aristocratic family, wealthiest person in New Amsterdam

Religion

Science and technology

  • Alfred Bader, son of Czech immigrant, founder of Aldrich Chemical Company, art collector, philanthropist.
  • Thomas Cech, of Czech ancestry, Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry.
  • Carl Cori, Prague-born Nobel Prize laureate.
  • Gerty Cori, Prague born Nobel Prize laureate.
  • John C. Dvorak, of Czech ancestry, columnist and broadcaster in the areas of technology and computing.
  • Abraham Flexner, son of Czech immigrant, reformer of American medical education, founder of Institute of Advanced study, Princeton.
  • Simon Flexner, son of Czech immigrant, pathologist, founder and first director of the Rockefeller Institute.
  • Václav Hlavatý, noted Czech-American mathematician, who solved some very difficult equations relating to Einstein's Unified field theory.
  • Lilli Hornig, scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project.
  • Aleš Hrdlička, physical anthropologist of note; founder and the first curator of physical anthropology of the U.S. National Museum.
  • Josef Allen Hynek, of Czech ancestry, astronomer, professor, and ufologist.
  • Karl Jansky, of Czech ancestry, discoverer of radio astronomy.
  • Frederick Jelinek, pioneer of statistical methods in computational linguistics.
  • Gustav Lindenthal, Brno-born, notable civil engineer who designed the Hell Gate Bridge among other bridges.
  • Frank Malina, of Czech parents, aeronautical engineer who designed the first U. S. rocket to break the 50-mile altitude mark, becoming the first sounding rocket to reach space.
  • James Pustejovsky, Czech-American computer scientist specializing in theoretical and computational modeling of language.
  • Mila Rechcigl, biochemist who pioneered early studies on enzyme synthesis and degradation; one of the founders and long-time President of SVU.
  • Oldrich Vasicek, mathematician, author of several financial models including Vasicek model.
  • Paul Zamecnik, of Czech ancestry, a biochemist of note, who played a central role in the early history of molecular biology.
  • Charles Zeleny, Czech-American zoologist, and professor at the University of Illinois, who made important contributions to experimental zoology, especially embryology, regeneration, and genetics.
  • John Zeleny, physicist.

Sports and acrobatics

Visual art

Recreation