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! If you’d like to be updated when people are added to the list, you can follow the blog on Tumblr, add the RSS feed to your preferred feed reader or Like my Facebook page.
It takes time and effort to assemble a list like this, so if you are using this information on your blog or website, I would appreciate a link back to this page. Thanks!
Air & Space
- William Boeing
- Tycho Brahe
- Eric Brown
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Bessie Coleman
- Cady Coleman
- Amelia Earhart
- Akihiko Hoshide
- Edwin Hubble
- Dorothea Klumpke
- David H. Levy
- Mamoru Mohri
- Julie Payette
- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
- Kathryn Thornton
Archaeology & Paleontology
- Hiram Bingham III
- James Henry Breasted
- Vere Gordon Childe
- Arthur Evans
- Louise Leakey
- Othniel Charles Marsh
- John Campbell Merriam
- Jørgen Zoëga
Architecture & Interior Design
- Gunvald Aus
- Henry Bacon
- Peter Eisenman
- Charles Garnier
- Michael Graves
- Richard Morris Hunt
- Helmut Jahn
- William LeBaron Jenney
- Albert Kahn
- Daniel Libeskind
- Charles Follen McKim
- Julia Morgan
- I.M. Pei
- John Russell Pope
- Henry Hobson Richardson
- Mary Rockwell Hook
Art & Graphic Design
- Ai Weiwei
- James Carroll Beckwith
- Cecilia Beaux
- Gutzon Borglum
- Brassaï
- Louise Breslau
- Mary Cassatt
- Barbara Chase-Riboud
- Dale Chihuly
- Odile Crick
- Aaron Douglas
- Albrecht Dürer
- Thomas Eakins
- Ed Emshwiller
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard
- Françoise Gilot
- Milton Glaser
- Palmer C. Hayden
- Wassily Kandinsky
- Anna Elizabeth Klumpke
- Stanton Macdonald-Wright
- Amedeo Modigliani
- Archibald Motley
- Vera Mukhina
- Bill Reid
- Diego Rivera
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens
- John Singer Sargent
- Augusta Savage
- Sandy Skoglund
- Tracy Lee Stum
- James Abbot MacNeill Whistler
- Grant Wood
Art History
Biological Sciences
- John Henry Comstock
- Georges Cuvier
- Dian Fossey
- Birutė Galdikas
- Stephen Jay Gould
- Barbara McClintock
- Thomas Young
Business, Finance & Non-Profits
- Mary Cunningham Agee
- Adam Bain
- Matt Berg
- Richard C. Blum
- Adam Braun
- Carlos Brito
- Margaret Chan
- Shaherose Charania
- Eva Chen
- James Compton
- Mark Carney
- Pete Dawkins
- Bill Drayton
- Dina Dublon
- Maria Eitel
- Paul Farmer
- Peter Guber
- Mireille Guiliano
- Kevin Hartz
- Melanie Healey
- Reid Hoffman
- Walter Isaacson
- Andrea Jung
- Muhtar Kent
- Vinod Khosla
- Lee Kun-hee
- Robin Li
- Sylvia Mathews Burwell
- Jim McKelvey
- Robert B. McKnight
- Rupert Murdoch
- James Murren
- Elon Musk
- Indra Nooyi
- Helmut Panke
- Edward Pressman
- Kavita Ramdas
- Peter Sands
- Peer Schneider
- Scott Seamans
- Naveen Selvadurai
- Sophia Siskel
- George Soros
- Sri Mulyani Indrawati
- Kevin Systrom
- Tidjane Thiam
- Akio Toyoda
- Thomas Tusher
- Padmasree Warrior
- Frank Wells
- Niklas Zennström
Civil Rights, Peace & Activism
- Ishmael Beah
- Lucy Burns
- Angela Davis
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- Marian Wright Edelman
- Dorothy Harrison Eustis
- Mohandas Gandhi
- D’Arcy McNickle
- James Meredith
- Inez Milholland
- Alice Paul
- Gloria Steinem
- Mary Church Terrell
- Desmond Tutu
- Raoul Wallenberg
Computer Science
Economics
Engineering & Inventing
- Katharine Burr Blodgett
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel
- Ray Dolby
- Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus
- Roger C. Field
- Monique Frize
- Yuan-Cheng Fung
- Dennis Gabor
- Charles Martin Hall
- William Kamkwamba
- Elsie MacGill
- Elijah McCoy
- Samuel Morse
- Norbert Rillieux
- Frederick Winslow Taylor
Environment
Fashion
- Adrian
- Marit Allen
- Prabal Gurung
- Karl Lagerfeld
- Deborah Nadoolman Landis
- Wendy Pepper
- Zac Posen
- Mario Testino
- Vera Wang
- Jason Wu
Fictional Characters
- Liz Lemon [30 Rock]
- Dr Leo Spaceman [30 Rock]
- Emily Bennett [American Girl series]
- Jerry Mulligan [An American in Paris]
- Nadia [American Pie]
- Heather [American Pie 2]
- Flip Young [And Both Were Young]
- Buster Bluth [Arrested Development]
- George Michael Bluth [Arrested Development]
- Jess and Jules [Bend it Like Beckham]
- Monique [Better Off Dead]
- Brenda Walsh and Donna Martin [Beverly Hills 90210]
- Amy Farrah Fowler [The Big Bang Theory]
- Rajesh Koothrappali [The Big Bang Theory]
- T'Challa [The Black Panther]
- Unnamed Foreign Exchange Student [Can’t Hardly Wait]
- Joan Ostrowski-Fox [Cedar Rapids]
- Anna Foster [Chasing Liberty]
- 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]
- Various characters [Hickory Dickory Dock]
- Tiara Gold [High School Musical 3]
- Randy Taylor [Home Improvement]
- Dr. James Wilson [House]
- Sara Crewe [A Little Princess]
- Anna [Like Crazy]
- Amy March [Little Women]
- Shannon Rutherford [LOST]
- Ho-Jon [M*A*S*H]
- Cady Heron [Mean Girls]
- Miriam Wu [Millennium series (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)]
- Dr. Jeremy Reed [The Mindy Project]
- Natalie Teeger [Monk]
- Pierre [My Name is Earl]
- Ashoke Ganguli [The Namesake]
- Andy Bernard [The Office]
- Gabe Lewis [The Office]
- Father Ray Mukada [Oz]
- Juliet O’Hara [Psych]
- Sabrina Fairchild [Sabrina]
- Bart Simpson [The Simpsons]
- Didier Revol [Son of Rambow]
- Giovanna Screti [Sweet Valley Twins]
- Embelackpo Akimbatunde [Sydney White]
- Fez [That 70s Show]
- Lara Croft [Tomb Raider]
- Reagan Brinkley [Up All Night]
- 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
- Mario Batali
- Anne Burrell
- Julia Child
- Giada De Laurentiis
- Guy Fieri
- M.F.K. Fisher
- Leonard Goodloe
- Dan Gordon
- Katie Lee
- Aarti Sequeira
- Alice Waters
Government & Diplomacy
- John Quincy Adams
- Kofi Annan
- Corazon Aquino
- Vera Atkins
- Aung San Suu Kyi
- Michelle Bachelet
- Jose Celso Barbosa
- Ramazan Bashardost
- Max Baucus
- Cory Booker
- Boutros Boutros-Ghali
- Bill Bradley
- Gro Harlem Brundtland
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Ralph Bunche
- Jeb Bush
- Ben Nighthorse Campbell
- Maria Cantwell
- Charles Carroll of Carrollton
- Chiang Kai-shek
- Shirley Chisholm
- Chung Un-chan
- Wesley Clark
- Adrienne Clarkson
- Nick Clegg
- Bill Clinton
- Chris Coons
- Deng Xiaoping
- Elizabeth Dole
- Tammy Duckworth
- John Foster Dulles
- Jan Eliasson
- Russ Feingold
- Michèle Flournoy
- J. William Fulbright
- Abram Petrovich Gannibal
- Timothy Geithner
- Gabrielle Giffords
- Kirsten Gillibrand
- Austan Goolsbee
- Jennifer Granholm
- Alexander Hamilton
- Michael D. Higgins
- Lou Henry Hoover
- Bobby Jindal
- Eric G. John
- Nancy Johnson
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
- Jomo Kenyatta
- John Kerry
- Zalmay Khalilzad
- Seretse Khama
- Imran Khan
- Chandrika Kumaratunga
- Christine Lagarde
- Lubna Khalid al Qasimi
- Caroline Lucas
- Kamisese Mara
- Constance Markievicz
- Michael McFaul
- Jeff Merkley
- Kenneth Merten
- John Atta Mills
- Mo Mowlam
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
- Janet Napolitano
- Jawaharlal Nehru
- Caroline Love Goodwin O’Day
- Bernardo O’Higgins
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
- Richard Perle
- Ri Sol-ju
- Susan Rice
- Mary Robinson
- Jay Rockefeller
- Edith Nourse Rogers
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Tim Ryan
- Mikheil Saakashvili
- Loretta Sanchez
- Claudine Schneider
- H. Norman Schwarzkopf
- Terri Sewell
- Sargent Shriver
- Soong May-ling
- George Stephanopoulos
- Charles Sumner
- Kenneth D. Taylor
- Pierre Trudeau
- Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
- Nancy Wake
- Francis Walsingham
- Heather Wilson
- Chase G. Woodhouse
- R. James Woolsey
- Zhou Enlai
History
Journalism, Radio & Television
- Christiane Amanpour
- Jacques Bailly
- Wolf Blitzer
- Melissa Block
- David Brancaccio
- Gretchen Carlson
- Alistair Cooke
- Anderson Cooper
- Roger Ebert
- Ghida Fakhry
- Ben Fogle
- Thomas Friedman
- Lourdes Garcia-Navarro
- Barton Gellman
- Joanna Gosling
- Mark Halperin
- Molly Haskell
- Bill Hemmer
- Sari Horwitz
- Nicholas Kristof
- Verity Lambert
- Joan Lunden
- Tyler MacNiven
- David Madden
- Rachel Maddow
- Torey Malatia
- John Moe
- Bill Moyers
- David Muir
- Bill O’Reilly
- Terry Phillips
- Sylvia Poggioli
- Guy Raz
- Fiona Ritchie
- Christine Romans
- Steve Scully
- Andrea Seabrook
- Eric Sevareid
- Anthony Shadid
- Richard Simmons
- Kate Snow
- Ida M. Tarbell
- Krista Tippett
- Neda Ulaby
- Sandy Ungar
- Linda Vester
- Linda Wells
- Ruth Westheimer
- George Will
Law
- Samuel Alito
- Florence Ellinwood Allen
- Lee Bollinger
- Stephen Breyer
- John Marshall Harlan II
- Elena Kagan
- Anthony Kennedy
- Lawrence Lessig
- Frank Murphy
- Ory Okolloh
- Navanethem Pillay
- Albie Sachs
- Antonin Scalia
- David Souter
- Laura Wasser
- Byron White
- John Ching Hsiung Wu
Linguistics & Grammar
Literature
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Lloyd Alexander
- Barry Jean Ancelet
- Margaret Atwood
- Toni Cade Bambara
- Natalie Clifford Barney
- Geraldine Brooks
- Dan Brown
- A.S. Byatt
- Joseph Campbell
- Raymond Chandler
- Barbara Chase-Riboud
- Agatha Christie
- J.M. Coetzee
- Rita Dove
- Jennifer Egan
- T.S. Eliot
- Paul Engle
- Anne Enright
- Jonathan Franzen
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
- Khalil Gibran
- Shirley Graham Du Bois
- Bette Greene
- Joseph Heller
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Muhammad Iqbal
- John Irving
- James Joyce
- Madeleine L’Engle
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- C.Y. Lee
- Harper Lee
- Lin Yutang
- Alain Leroy Locke
- Lois Lowry
- Norman Mailer
- W. Somerset Maugham
- Alexander McCall Smith
- James A. Michener
- Bharati Mukherjee
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Scott O’Dell
- Boris Pasternak
- Sylvia Plath
- David Rakoff
- Luanne Rice
- Rainer Maria Rilke
- J.K. Rowling
- Hank Phillippi Ryan
- Rafael Sabatini
- Marjane Satrapi
- Erich Segal
- Dr Seuss
- Carol Shields
- Susan Sontag
- Armstrong Sperry
- John Updike
- Mario Vargas Llosa
- Alice Walker
- Robert Penn Warren
- Jean Webster
- Thornton Wilder
Medicine
- Gordon Allport
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
- Nancy Coover Andreasen
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Augusta Déjerine-Klumpke
- Carl Djerassi
- Charles R. Drew
- Sidney Farber
- Edna Foa
- Atul Gawande
- Alice Hamilton
- William Harvey
- Ole Ivar Lovaas
- Adam Kuhn
- Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Mary Putnam Jacobi
- Linda Richards
- George Rosenkranz
Performing Arts
Acting
- Alan Alda
- Abhishek Bachchan
- Andrea Barber
- Kate Beckinsale
- Candice Bergen
- Jon Bernthal
- Julie Bowen
- Louise Brealey
- Alison Brie
- Bruno Campos
- Kitty Carlisle
- Emma Caulfield
- Leslie Cheung
- Julie Christie
- Michaela Conlin
- Bradley Cooper
- Darren Criss
- Penelope Cruz
- Jon Cryer
- Josh Dallas
- Blythe Danner
- Geena Davis
- Michael Douglas
- Jose Ferrer
- Mark Feuerstein
- Carrie Fisher
- Isla Fisher
- Joan Fontaine
- Dawn French
- Gael García Bernal
- Paul Giamatti
- Richard E. Grant
- Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Mark Hamill
- Jared Harris
- Sessue Hayakawa
- Glenne Headly
- Russell Hornsby
- Allison Janney
- Famke Janssen
- Jake Johnson
- Kristen Johnston
- Ashley Judd
- Saif Ali Khan
- Yunjin Kim
- Diane Kruger
- Melissa Leo
- James Lesure
- John Lithgow
- Susan Lucci
- Dolph Lundgren
- John Mahoney
- Jack McBrayer
- Matthew McConaughey
- Elizabeth Mitchell
- Tia Mowry
- Bill Murray
- Becki Newton
- Cynthia Nixon
- Michael Nyqvist
- Carroll O’Connor
- Maureen O’Sullivan
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Anna Paquin
- Lana Parrilla
- Holly Robinson Peete
- Chris Pine
- Jeremy Piven
- Oliver Platt
- Franka Potente
- Vincent Price
- Paul Robeson
- Paul Rudd
- Geoffrey Rush
- David Schwimmer
- Kristin Scott Thomas
- Amanda Setton
- Alexander Skarsgård
- Mira Sorvino
- Sebastian Stan
- Donald Sutherland
- George Takei
- Charlize Theron
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas
- Tracie Thoms
- Gene Tierney
- Bree Turner
- Kathleen Turner
- Aisha Tyler
- Christoph Waltz
- Kerry Washington
- Sam Waterston
- Emma Watson
- Michael Weatherly
- Gene Wilder
- Rebel Wilson
- Billy Zane
Comedy
Dance
- Carlos Acosta
- Agnes de Mille
- Katherine Dunham
- Alessandra Ferri
- Derek Hough
- Carrie Ann Inaba
- Jin Xing
- Benjamin Millepied
- Kevin Stea
Directing & Screenwriting
- Darren Aronofsky
- Cary Fukunaga
- George Roy Hill
- Willard Huyck
- Ang Lee
- Terrence Malick
- Richard Marquand
- Mira Nair
- Arthur Penn
- Stephen Sommers
- Julie Taymor
- Ron Underwood
- Joss Whedon
Music
- Burt Bacharach
- Hector Berlioz
- George Bizet
- Julian Casablancas
- Agnes Chan
- Aaron Copland
- Jim Croce
- Joe Dassin
- Renee Fleming
- W.S. Gilbert
- Philip Glass
- Kris Kristofferson
- Fela Kuti
- Sean Lennon
- Johnny Marks
- MC Lars
- Freddie Mercury
- Anna Moffo
- Brian Molko
- Babatunde Olatunji
- Itzhak Perlman
- Cole Porter
- Psy
- A.R. Rahman
- Tim Rice
- André Rieu
- Miklós Rózsa
- Sister Souljah
- Arthur Sullivan
- KT Tunstall
- Hans Zimmer
Philosophy & Religion
- Thomas Aquinas
- Bartholomew I
- Pauline Bebe
- Alain de Botton
- Daniel Dennett
- Jacques Derrida
- Timothy M. Dolan
- Emo of Friesland
- Desiderius Erasmus
- Kevin Farrell
- Michel Foucault
- Pope Francis
- Jean-Baptiste Janssens
- Maximilian Kolbe
- José Ortega y Gasset
- Abune Paulos
- Jan Paulsen
- Reginald Pole
- John Robinson
- George Santayana
- Michael Servetus
- Emanuel Swedenborg
- Mother Teresa
- Theodore II of Alexandria
- Bhagat Singh Thind
- Peter Turkson
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Munib Younan
- Huldrych Zwingli
Physical Sciences & Mathematics
- Betsy Ancker-Johnson
- Niels Bohr
- Marie Skłodowska-Curie
- René Descartes
- Albert Einstein
- Mahmoud Hessaby
- Sofia Kovalevskaya
- Benjamin W. Lee
- John von Neumann
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Nate Silver
- Louis Slotin
- Roger Y. Tsien
- Norbert Wiener
- Chien-Shiung Wu
Royalty
- Abdullah II, King of Jordan
- Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Sheikha of Qatar
- Al-Muhtadee Billah, Crown Prince of Brunei
- Andrea Casiraghi
- Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands
- Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
- Charles, Prince of Wales
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine
- Farah Pahlavi
- Felipe, Prince of Asturias
- Felix Yusupov
- Guillaume, Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg
- Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway
- Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
- Jetsun Pema, Queen of Bhutan
- Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan
- Mahidol Adulyadej, Prince of Songkla
- Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark
- Maria Teresa, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
- Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece
- Masako, Crown Princess of Japan
- Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
- Mohammed VI, King of Morocco
- Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia
- Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece
- Rainier III, Prince of Monaco
- Rania, Queen of Jordan
- Rukidi IV, King of Toro
- Sangwan Talabhat, Princess Mother of Thailand
- Sikhanyiso Dlamini, Princess of Swaziland
- Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden
- Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands
- Zara Salim Davidson, Raja Puan Besar of Perak
Sports
- John Amaechi
- Morten Andersen
- Moe Berg
- Manute Bol
- Dan Boyle
- Veronica Campbell-Brown
- John Davies
- Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie
- Rick Fox
- Carl Hagelin
- Kirani James
- Oussama Mellouli
- Douglas Murray
- Dikembe Mutombu
- Steve Nash
- Christian Okoye
- Hakeem Olajuwon
- Heather Petri
- Aron Ralston
- Myron Rolle
- Annette Salmeen
- Patricia Scott
- Detlef Schrempf
- Adam Scott
- Kerri Strug
- Davis Tarwater
- Jesse Williams
- Elizabeth Wright
- Kristi Yamaguchi
This list was last updated: December 21, 2022