List of Famous people who born in 1961

Nerio Alessandri is an Italian entrepreneur and President and founder of Technogym.

David Nathaniel Spergel, is an American theoretical astrophysicist. He is the Director of the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute and the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Spergel is known for his work on the WMAP mission. Spergel is a MacArthur Fellow. He was a member of the NASA Advisory Council and chair of the Space Studies Board. He was once the W.M. Keck distinguished visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He was part of the team that originated the WMAP mission and designed the spacecraft, and has worked on deciphering the data that it beams back from space. Spergel is playing a leading role in developing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a multibillion-dollar space mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s. He shared the 2010 Shaw Prize in astronomy with Charles L. Bennett and Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. for their work on WMAP. He shared the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize with Marc Kamionkowski "for their outstanding contributions to the investigation of the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background that have led to major breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe".

Henricus Coenradus Nicolaas "Hein" Vergeer is a Dutch former speed skater who became both European and World Allround Champion in both 1985 and 1986 . Hein Vergeer was a dominant allround skater, but after recovering from an injury, he was never able to reach that same level again. Because of this, he was unable to fulfil his wish of winning an Olympic medal – at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Vergeer competed in the 500 m, the 1,000 m, and the 1,500 m, but his best result was a mere fifteenth place. He had also competed in those same three distances at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo four years earlier, but did not do much better than with a tenth place as his best result. Unfortunately for Vergeer, his best years were in between those two Winter Olympics.

Brian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for the films L.A. Confidential and Mystic River. He also wrote and directed the films 42, a biopic of Jackie Robinson, and Legend, about the rise and fall of the infamous London gangsters the Kray twins. His work on L.A. Confidential earned him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

André Hoffmann is a former German Speed skater who made a huge step forwards in the 1987–1988 season and won two 1500 metres races in the World Cup. It was even though highly surprising that he took gold medal in the 1500 m at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary. He beat the American Eric Flaim with six hundreds of a second and set a new world record with 1:52.06.

Maurizio Casagrande is an Italian actor and film and stage director.

Thierry Coquand is a professor in computer science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is known for his work in constructive mathematics, especially the calculus of constructions. He received his Ph.D. under the supervision of Gérard Huet.