This is an ongoing project I’ve been working on, to list fictional and real-life people who have spent time studying in other countries. I try to restrict myself to those who traveled specifically for the purpose of study (as opposed to immigrating with family) but I'm not always consistent. If you see any errors or want to suggest anyone I've missed, get in touch!
Academia
Art, Design & Architecture
- Louise Breslau
- Mary Cassatt
- Dale Chihuly
- Albrecht Dürer
- Milton Glaser
- Deborah Nadoolman Landis
- Amedeo Modigliani
- I.M. Pei
- Zac Posen
- Bill Reid
- Augusta Savage
- Sandy Skoglund
- Vera Wang
- James Abbot MacNeill Whistler
- Jason Wu
Business/Non-Profits
- Mary Cunningham Agee
- Adam Braun
- Maria Eitel
- Melanie Healey
- Reid Hoffman
- Lee Kun-hee
- Indra Nooyi
- Edward Pressman
- Sophia Siskel
- George Soros
- Akio Toyoda
- Frank Wells
- Niklas Zennström
Civil Rights, Peace, Environmentalism & Activism
- Lucy Burns
- Angela Davis
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- Mohandas Gandhi
- Wangari Maathai
- D’Arcy McNickle
- Alice Paul
- David Suzuki
- Desmond Tutu
- Raoul Wallenberg
Fictional Characters
- Liz Lemon [30 Rock]
- Emily Bennett [American Girl series]
- Jerry Mulligan [An American in Paris]
- Heather [American Pie 2]
- Flip Young [And Both Were Young]
- Jess and Jules [Bend it Like Beckham]
- Brenda Walsh and Donna Martin [Beverly Hills 90210]
- Amy Farrah Fowler [The Big Bang Theory]
- Unnamed Foreign Exchange Student [Can’t Hardly Wait]
- Joan Ostrowski-Fox [Cedar Rapids]
- Jane Marple [many stories by Agatha Christie]
- Julie Andre [Daddy Long Legs]
- Niles and Frasier Crane [Frasier]
- Alex, Joel and Laura [French Postcards]
- Sunshine Corazon [Glee]
- Rory Flanagan [Glee]
- Sandy Olsson [Grease]
- Jay Gatsby [The Great Gatsby]
- Lemuel Gulliver [Gulliver’s Travels]
- Hamlet [Hamlet]
- Penny Hartz [Happy Endings]
- Alex Kerkovich [Happy Endings]
- Fleur Delacour [Harry Potter series]
- Randy Taylor [Home Improvement]
- Dr. James Wilson [House]
- Sara Crewe [A Little Princess]
- Amy March [Little Women]
- Shannon Rutherford [LOST]
- Cady Heron [Mean Girls]
- Natalie Teeger [Monk]
- Pierre [My Name is Earl]
- Ashoke Ganguli [The Namesake]
- Andy Bernard [The Office]
- Gabe Lewis [The Office]
- Juliet O’Hara [Psych]
- Sabrina Fairchild [Sabrina]
- Bart Simpson [The Simpsons]
- Didier Revol [Son of Rambow]
- Giovanna Screti [Sweet Valley Twins]
- Fez [That 70s Show]
- Lara Croft [Tomb Raider]
- Princess Zara [Utopia, Limited]
- Will Bailey [The West Wing]
- Jed Bartlet [The West Wing]
- Josh Lyman [The West Wing]
- Fox Mulder [The X-Files]
- Charles Xavier [X-Men]
Food
Government & Diplomacy
- John Quincy Adams
- Kofi Annan
- Michelle Bachelet
- Bill Bradley
- Ralph Bunche
- Jeb Bush
- Maria Cantwell
- Charles Carroll of Carrollton
- Wesley Clark
- Adrienne Clarkson
- Nick Clegg
- Bill Clinton
- Elizabeth Dole
- Russ Feingold
- J. William Fulbright
- Timothy Geithner
- Gabrielle Giffords
- Kirsten Gillibrand
- Alexander Hamilton
- Bobby Jindal
- Nancy Johnson
- Anthony Kennedy
- Christine Lagarde
- John Atta Mills
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
- Caroline Love Goodwin O’Day
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
- Seretse Khama
- Janet Napolitano
- Jawaharlal Nehru
- Edith Nourse Rogers
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- H. Norman Schwarzkopf
- Sargent Shriver
- David Souter
- George Stephanopoulos
- Nancy Wake
- Francis Walsingham
Journalism, Radio & Television
- Christiane Amanpour
- Jacques Bailly
- Wolf Blitzer
- Melissa Block
- Gretchen Carlson
- Anderson Cooper
- Roger Ebert
- Thomas Friedman
- Bill Hemmer
- Joan Lunden
- Tyler MacNiven
- Rachel Maddow
- Bill O’Reilly
- Sylvia Poggioli
- Guy Raz
- Andrea Seabrook
- Richard Simmons
- Ida M. Tarbell
- Krista Tippett
- Neda Ulaby
- Sandy Ungar
- Ruth Westheimer
Linguistics
Literature
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Dan Brown
- Raymond Chandler
- Agatha Christie
- J.M. Coetzee
- Rita Dove
- T.S. Eliot
- Jonathan Franzen
- Khalil Gibran
- Bette Greene
- Joseph Heller
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- John Irving
- Madeleine L’Engle
- Lois Lowry
- Alexander McCall Smith
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Scott O’Dell
- Sylvia Plath
- J.K. Rowling
- Marjane Satrapi
- Susan Sontag
- Alice Walker
Performing Arts
Acting
- Candice Bergen
- Julie Bowen
- Emma Caulfield
- Bradley Cooper
- Darren Criss
- Geena Davis
- Jose Ferrer
- Mark Feuerstein
- Gael García Bernal
- Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Sessue Hayakawa
- Allison Janney
- Famke Janssen
- Kristen Johnston
- Ashley Judd
- Yunjin Kim
- Melissa Leo
- James Lesure
- John Lithgow
- Susan Lucci
- Dolph Lundgren
- Jack McBrayer
- Matthew McConaughey
- Tia Mowry
- Becki Newton
- Cynthia Nixon
- Michael Nyqvist
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Anna Paquin
- Holly Robinson Peete
- Chris Pine
- Jeremy Piven
- Oliver Platt
- Paul Robeson
- Paul Rudd
- Kristin Scott Thomas
- Amanda Setton
- Donald Sutherland
- George Takei
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas
- Kathleen Turner
- Sam Waterston
- Emma Watson
- Billy Zane
Dance
Directing
Music
- Burt Bacharach
- Hector Berlioz
- Julian Casablancas
- Aaron Copland
- Philip Glass
- Kris Kristofferson
- Freddie Mercury
- Anna Moffo
- Brian Molko
- Cole Porter
- Sister Souljah
- KT Tunstall
Philosophy & Religion
- Thomas Aquinas
- Alain de Botton
- Desiderius Erasmus
- John Robinson
- George Santayana
- Mother Teresa
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Royalty
- Abdullah II, King of Jordan
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway
- Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan
- Masako, Crown Princess of Japan
- Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway
- Mohammed VI, King of Morocco
- Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden
Science, Technology, Mathematics & Medicine
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Tycho Brahe
- Cady Coleman
- Marie Skłodowska-Curie
- René Descartes
- Ray Dolby
- Albert Einstein
- Dian Fossey
- Stephen Jay Gould
- William Harvey
- Edwin Hubble
- William Kamkwamba
- Dorothea Klumpke
- Sofia Kovalevskaya
- Barbara McClintock
- Mamoru Mohri
- Roger Y. Tsien