List of Peace Corps volunteers
This is a list of notable persons who have served as volunteers in the United States Peace Corps, along with their terms of service. Each volunteer is listed only once.
Activism and aid
- Elaine Jones, American attorney and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
- Sapreet Kaur, executive director of New York Cares and former executive director of the Sikh Coalition
- Cindy Marano, late American economic justice activist
- Carl Pope, former executive director of the Sierra Club
- Gregory Stanton, founder and president of Genocide Watch
- Thomas Tighe, president and CEO of Direct Relief
Art and architecture
- Wayne Chabre, American sculptor
- Jonathan Lemon, English-American cartoonist and former musician, known for his work on the Alley Oop comic strip
- Roger K. Lewis, late American architect, urban planner, and professor of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park
- Martin Puryear, American artist
- Joel Shapiro, American sculptor
Business
- Patricia Cloherty, late American business woman, former chairwoman and CEO of Delta Private Equity Partners and former chairwoman of The U.S. Russia Investment Fund and former Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration
- Bob Haas, Chairman Emeritus of Levi Strauss & Co., son of Walter A. Haas Jr. and great-great-grandnephew of the company's founder, Levi Strauss
- Reed Hastings, co-founder and chairman of Netflix
- Christopher Hedrick, co-founder and former CEO of NextStep, former CEO of Intrepid Learning and Kepler and former country director of Peace Corps Senegal
- Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation
- Michael McCaskey, late American sports executive and former chairman of the Chicago Bears
Education
- Dirk Ballendorf, late American historian and professor of Micronesian studies at the University of Guam
- Suzanne Preston Blier, American art historian and Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University
- Guy Consolmagno, American research astronomer, Jesuit religious brother and Director of the Vatican Observatory
- Bruce Cumings, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History at the University of Chicago
- James H. Fowler, American social scientist and professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego
- Robert H. Frank, Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and professor of economics at Cornell University
- Allan Gibbard, American ethicist and Richard B. Brandt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Michigan
- Clark Gibson, American political scientist and university professor at the University of California, San Diego
- José Gómez, late civil rights and labor activist and former executive assistant to Cesar Chavez
- John Haugeland, late American professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and former chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago
- Charles R. Larson, American literary scholar credited as one of the founders of the study of African literature
- Victor H. Mair, American sinologist and professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania
- William G. Moseley, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography at Macalester College
- Joseph Opala, American historian, university professor at James Madison University
- Kenneth Poeppelmeier, Charles and Emma Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University
- Mavis Sanders, senior research scholar of Black Children and Families at Child Trends
- Michael J. Snarskis, late American professor of archaeology at the University of Costa Rica
- Dorothy Vellenga, American socioloigist, Africanist
- R. David Zorc, American linguist
Government
Cabinet-level officials
- Donna Shalala, 18th United States [Secretary of Health and Human Services|U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services], former U.S. Representative from FL-27, former President of the Clinton Foundation, 5th President of the University of Miami, 5th Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and 10th President of Hunter College
Executive branch
- Drew S. Days III, 40th Solicitor General of the United States and first African American Assistant Attorney General for the United States [Department of Justice Civil Rights Division|Civil Rights Division]
- M. Peter McPherson, served as a special assistant to President Gerald Ford, administrator of USAID
- Timothy Kraft, former White House Director of Political Affairs and retired political consultant
- John T. Morton, former director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- Peter Navarro, former director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, former director of the White House National Trade Council and proponent of the Green Bay Sweep in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election
- Robert Pastor, former member of the U.S. National Security Council
Foreign service
- Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, former U.S. Ambassador to Malta
- Charles C. Adams Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Finland
- Angela P. Aggeler, U.S. Ambassador to North Macedonia
- Frank Almaguer, former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras
- Michael R. Arietti, former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda
- Larry Edward André Jr, former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia, Djibouti, and Mauritania
- Robert Blackwill, former U.S. Ambassador to India and United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq War
- Julia Chang Bloch, former U.S. Ambassador to Nepal and the first U.S. ambassador of Asian descent
- Richard Boucher, American diplomat who served as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Johnnie Carson, former Ambassador to Kenya
- Michael Corbin, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and former Chargé d'Affaires to Syria
- Joseph R. Donovan Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia
- Laurence Foley, American diplomat who was assassinated outside his home in Amman, Jordan
- Robert Gelbard, former U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia and former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia
- Gordon Gray III, former U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia
- Robert E. Gribbin III, former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda and the Central African Republic
- Ken Hackett, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See and former president of Catholic Relief Services
- Christopher R. Hill, U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Poland, and Macedonia, former acting U.S. Ambassador to Albania
- Vicki Huddleston, former U.S. Ambassador to Mali and Madagascar
- Edmund Hull, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen
- Darryl N. Johnson, former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and Lithuania
- John Limbert, former U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania and hostage in the Iran hostage crisis
- Donald Lu, former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, former United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and former United States Ambassador to Albania
- Michael A. McCarthy, former U.S. Ambassador to Liberia
- Larry L. Palmer, former U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States and former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras
- Jonathan Pratt, former U.S. Ambassador to Djibouti
- Stephen Schwartz, former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia
- Kathleen Stephens, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea and former Chargé d'Affaires to India
- J. Christopher Stevens, former U.S. Ambassador to Libya who was killed in the 2012 Benghazi attack
- Victor L. Tomseth, former U.S. Ambassador to Laos and hostage in the Iran hostage crisis
- Mark Toner, former U.S. Ambassador to Liberia and former Spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State
- Kent Wiedemann, former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia
Law
- Daniel Foley, former Judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Palau
- Jim Gray, American jurist and writer, former presiding judge of the Superior Court of Orange County, California and vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party in 2012
- Sarah Parker, former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court
Municipal and local officials
- Chris Beutler, former mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska
- Thomas J. Murphy Jr., former mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Kitty Piercy, former mayor of Eugene, Oregon
- Rodger Randle, former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Peace Corps Directors
- Carol Spahn, 21st Director of The Peace Corps
- Jody Olsen, 20th Director of the Peace Corps
- Carrie Hessler-Radelet, 19th Director of the Peace Corps,
- Aaron S. Williams, 18th Director of the Peace Corps,
- Ron Tschetter, 17th Director of The Peace Corps
- Mark Schneider, 15th Director of the Peace Corps, senior vice president of International Crisis Group
- Carol Bellamy, 13th Director of the Peace Corps, former head of UNESCO, president of World Learning
Governors
- Jim Doyle, 44th Governor of Wisconsin and 41st Attorney General of Wisconsin
- Bob Taft, 67th Governor of Ohio and 49th Secretary of State of Ohio
- Tom Wolf, 47th Governor of Pennsylvania
State legislators
- Jason Carter, former Georgia State Senator from the 42nd district, Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia in 2014, and grandson of President Jimmy Carter
- Michael A. Rice, former Rhode Island State Representative from the 35th district
U.S. Senators
- Christopher Dodd, former U.S. Senator from Connecticut
- Paul Tsongas, former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and candidate for U.S. President in 1992
U.S. Representatives
- Jim Courter, NJ-12 and NJ-13
- Steve Driehaus, OH-01
- Sam Farr, CA-20 and CA-17
- John Garamendi, CA-08, formerly CA-03 and CA-10
- Tony P. Hall, OH-03 and 7th List of [ambassadors of the United States to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture|U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture]
- Paul B. Henry, MI-03 and MI-05
- Mike Honda, CA-15 and CA-17
- Joe Kennedy III, MA-04, former U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, and grandnephew of President John F. Kennedy
- Thomas Petri, WI–06
- Christopher Shays, CT-04
- James Walsh, NY-25 and NY-27
- Mike Ward, KY-03
Journalists
- T. D. Allman, American author, historian and journalist
- Ben Bradlee Jr., American journalist and writer, supervised the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
- Leon Dash, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post
- Peter Hessler, American writer and journalist
- Arnold Hano, late American editor, novelist, biographer and journalist
- Laurence Leamer, American author and journalist
- Maureen Orth, American journalist, author, and special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine
- George Packer, American journalist, novelist, and playwright, known for The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
- Tony D'Souza, American novelist, journalist, essayist, and reviewer
Literature and non-fiction
- Howard Ashman, American playwright and lyricist
- Stefanie DeLeo, American author, playwright, actress, director, and teacher
- Kent Haruf, author of The Tie That Binds, received the Whiting Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation
- George B. Hutchinson, author of In Search of Nella Larsen
- Roland Merullo, author of Leaving Losapas, In Revere, In Those Days, and Breakfast with Buddha
- Charles Murray, American Libertarian political scientist, author, and columnist, known for Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980 and The Bell Curve
- John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Bob Shacochis, author of Easy in the Island, recipient of the American Book Award
- Gene Stone, author of The Bush Survival Bible and The Trump Survival Guide
- Mark T. Sullivan, author of mystery novels, known for collaborations with James Patterson
- Mildred D. Taylor, author of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, awarded the 1977 Newbery Medal
- Paul Theroux, author of Waldo, Jungle Lovers, Mosquito Coast and The Great Railway Bazaar
- Moritz Thomsen, author of Living Poor
- Bruce Watson, author of Freedom Summer and ''Sacco and Vanzetti
- Richard Wiley, author of Ahmed's Revenge and Soldiers in Hiding'', PEN/Faulkner Award recipient
Music
- Kinky Friedman, Texas singer, songwriter, novelist, politician
- Mary Kim Joh, Korean-American music composer, academic and medical research scientist.
Science and medicine
- Joseph M. Acaba, American educator, hydrogeologist, and NASA astronaut
- Lillian Carter, nurse, mother of President Jimmy Carter
- Gene Carl Feldman, oceanographer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- Ina May Gaskin, Certified Professional Midwife, author, known as the "Mother of Modern Midwifery"
- Mae Jemison, American engineer, physician and NASA astronaut
- Carle M. Pieters, American planetary scientist
Television, film, theater, and radio
- Marissa Aroy, Filipino-American director and producer, directed the Emmy award-winning documentary Sikhs in America
- Bob Beckel, late American political analyst and original co-host of The Five
- Taylor Hackford, American film director, former president of the Directors Guild of America, known for directing Ray, An Officer and a Gentleman and The Devil's Advocate
- Judith Dwan Hallet, American documentary filmmaker
- Rajiv Joseph, American playwright and 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist
- Milt Kogan, American actor
- Cy Kuckenbaker, American filmmaker, video artist and professor
- Chyna, late American professional wrestler, bodybuilder, pornographic actress and television personality
- Chris Matthews, American political commentator, retired talk show host, and author, known for hosting Hardball with Chris Matthews
- Richard Sanders, American actor and screenwriter, known for his role as Les Nessman on WKRP in Cincinnati
- Bob Vila, American television show host, known for This Old House
- Marco Werman, American radio personality and host of ''The World''