List of Famous people born in January

Joan Jonas is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jonas' projects and experiments were influential in the creation of video performance art as a medium. Her influences also extended to conceptual art, theatre, performance art and other visual media. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.

Richard A. Muller is an American physicist and emeritus professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In early 2010, Muller and his daughter Elizabeth founded the group Berkeley Earth, an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit aimed at addressing some of the major concerns of the climate change skeptics, in particular the global surface temperature record.

Robert Ellsworth Wise Jr. is an American politician. A Democrat, Wise served as the 33rd Governor of West Virginia from January 2001 to January 2005. He also served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 until 2001. In 2005 Wise became the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit organization that focuses on reforming the nation's high schools. In 2015, North Carolina State University honored Wise with the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation's Friday Medal which recognizes significant, distinguished and enduring contributions to education through advocating innovation, advancing education and imparting inspiration.

Ngila Beryl Dickson is a costume designer from New Zealand.