List of Famous people who died in 2002

Fr. Joseph Vadakkan was a Christian activist priest of Kerala in India, and the founder of the political party known as Karshaka Thozhilali Party (KTP). Vadakkan organised many agitations and took part in protest marches, satyagrahas, and rallies. He was also arrested and jailed. He was reprimanded by his own Church.

Eva Saxl (1921–2002) was a self-taught manufacturer of insulin and an advocate for people with diabetes. Saxl was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration. During the Kennedy administration he was Secretary of the Army and General Counsel of the Department of Defense.

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American Latina teenager who was murdered in Newark, California. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed. In some contemporary news reports and during the first trial of the perpetrators, Gwen Araujo was misgendered and referred to by her birth name.

John Constantine Unitas was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.

Yves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.

Jonathan Harris was an American character actor whose career included more than 500 television and movie appearances, as well as voiceovers. Two of his best-known roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in the television version of The Third Man and the fussy villain, Dr. Zachary Smith, of the 1960s science-fiction series Lost in Space. Near the end of his career, he provided voices for the animated features A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2.

Alexander Ignatyevich Molodchy was a Ukrainian Soviet long-range pilot who flew over 300 missions on the B-25, Il-4, and Yer-2 during World War II. He was the first person twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union during the war while alive.

Şerif Cırık, popularly known as Aşık Mahsuni Şerif, was a Turkish ashik, folk musician, composer, poet, and author. Aşık is a title used to indicate his position as a respected musician and his relationship with Alevism, a variety of Shi'a Islam.

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, philosopher and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence in several related academic fields. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and the Collège de France.