List of Famous people born in Illinois, United States of America

George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19. He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances. Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music received the American Book Award. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.

Frederic Michael Raphael is an American-born, British screenwriter, biographer, nonfiction writer, novelist and journalist.

Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was famous as the manager of many of the most popular and successful performers of folk and folk-rock music, including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Band, Odetta, Gordon Lightfoot and Ian & Sylvia.

Theodore Thomas Puck was an American geneticist born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago public schools and obtained his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. His PhD work was on the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom and his doctoral adviser was James Franck. During WW II Puck stayed at the University of Chicago. There he worked in the laboratory of Oswald H. Robertson on the study of how bacteria and viruses can spread through the air and on dust particles. After a postdoc position in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco, Puck was recruited in 1948 to establish and chair the University of Colorado Medical School's department of biophysics. He retired from the University of Colorado Medical School in 1995 as professor emeritus, but continued to do laboratory work there until a few weeks before his death.

Brian Kerwin is an American actor who has starred in feature films, on Broadway, and television series and movies.

John Haugeland was a professor of philosophy, specializing in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, phenomenology, and Heidegger. He spent most of his career at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by the University of Chicago from 1999 until his death. He is featured in Tao Ruspoli's film Being in the World.

Harve Bennett was an American television and film producer and screenwriter.

F. Kenneth Iverson was an American businessman. He is credited with transforming Nucor Steel from a nearly bankrupt company in the 1960s into the largest and most successful steelmaker in the United States. Nucor was formed from the Nuclear Corporation of America, which grew out of Reo Motor Company. Ken Iverson joined Nuclear Corporation in 1962 when it bought Vulcraft, a manufacturer of steel joists, where he worked. Iverson quickly rose to president in 1965.

Lars Peter Hansen is an American economist. He is the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a 2013 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Wilfred Jackson was an American animator, arranger, composer and director best known for his work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series of cartoons and the Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria Segment of Fantasia from Walt Disney Productions. He was also instrumental in developing the system with which Disney added music and sound to Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.