List of Famous people who born in 1939

John O'Keefe, is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist and a professor at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and the Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College London. He discovered place cells in the hippocampus, and that they show a specific kind of temporal coding in the form of theta phase precession. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014, together with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser; he has received several other awards. He has worked at the University College London for his entire career, but also held a part-time chair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the behest of his Norwegian collaborators, the Mosers.

John Robert Taylor is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his B.A. in mathematics at Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 with thesis advisor Geoffrey Chew. Taylor has written several college-level physics textbooks. His bestselling book is An Introduction to Error Analysis, which has been translated into nine languages. Taylor was designated a Presidential Teaching Scholar in 1991. He has also received an Emmy Award for his television series Physics 4 Fun (1988–1990).

Giorgio La Malfa is an Italian politician.

Ileana Cotrubaș is a Romanian operatic soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was much admired for her acting skills and facility for singing opera in many different languages.

Jane Hyatt Yolen is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 350 books, of which the best known is The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella. Her other works include the Nebula Award−winning short story "Sister Emily's Lightship", the novelette "Lost Girls", Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, the Commander Toad series and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight. She has collaborated on works with all three of her children, most extensively with Adam Stemple.

Stanislav Vasilyevich Moskvin is a retired Russian cyclist and cycling coach. He competed at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympics in the 4000 m individual and team pursuit. In 1960 he won a bronze medal in the team competition; in 1964 he finished in fifth place, both individually and with a team, and in 1968 his team finished fourth.