List of Famous people born in United States of America

Leon Albert Henkin was one of the most important logicians and mathematicians of the 20th century. His works played a strong role in the development of logic, particularly in the Theory of Types. He was an active scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he made great contributions as a researcher, teacher, as well as in administrative positions. At this university he directed, together with Alfred Tarski, the Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, from which many important logicians and philosophers emerged. He had a strong sense of social commitment and was a passionate defensor of his pacifist and progressive ideas. He took part in many social projects aimed at teaching mathematics, as well as projects aimed at supporting women's and minority groups to pursue careers in mathematics and related fields. A lover of dance and literature, he appreciated life in all its facets: art, culture, science and, above all, the warmth of human relations. He is remembered by his students for his great kindness, as well as for his academic and teaching excellence.

Robert G. Roeder is an American biologist. He is known as a pioneer in eukaryotic transcription. He is the recipient of the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2000 and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2003. He currently serves as Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Biochemical and Molecular Biology at The Rockefeller University.

Carl Lee Perkins was an American singer-songwriter who recorded most notably at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Amongst his best-known songs are "Blue Suede Shoes", "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".

Mark Odom Hatfield was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States Senator from Oregon, and also as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. A native Oregonian, he served in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II after graduating from Willamette University. After the war he earned a graduate degree from Stanford University before returning to Oregon and Willamette as a professor.

Samuel Pearson Goddard Jr. was the 12th governor of Arizona, serving from 1965 until 1967. He remained active in politics following his term in office, serving on the Democratic National Committee and as chairman of the Arizona Democratic State Committee.

Henny Backus was a Broadway showgirl in the 1930s whose stage credits include Orson Welles's Horse Eats Hat. She was the wife of actor and comedian Jim Backus.

Sidney Michael Dancoff was an American theoretical physicist best known for the Tamm–Dancoff approximation method and for nearly developing a renormalization method for solving quantum electrodynamics (QED).

Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lecturer of creative writing at Yale University.

William Henry Pickering was an American astronomer. Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory. He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica.

Richard James Codey is an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 53rd Governor of New Jersey from 2004 to 2006. He has served in the New Jersey Senate since 1982 and served as the President of the Senate from 2002 to 2010. He represents the 27th Legislative District, which covers the western portions of Essex County and the southeastern portion of Morris County. Codey is the longest-serving state legislator in New Jersey history, having served in the New Jersey Legislature continuously since January 8, 1974.