University of Arizona alumni

Eloise Jelinek (February 2, 1924 in Dallas – December 21, 2007 in Tucson) was an American linguist specializing in the study of syntax. Her 1981 doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona was titled "On Defining Categories: AUX and PREDICATE in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic". She was a member of the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1981 to 1992.She became particularly known for her Pronominal Argument Hypothesis of syntax based on data from the Navajo language, which holds that in some languages the pronominal affixes on the verb should be considered the syntactic arguments of the verbs, rather than the noun phrases that occur free in the clause, which should only be considered adjuncts.Through her work on many endangered languages she demonstrated that less-studied languages often challenged the theories of generative linguistics, and she worked to develop ways of integrating this data into the generative paradigm. Among the languages that she worked on are the Straits Salish languages Samish and Lummi, as well as Navajo, Choctaw, and Yaqui.

Lela Alston (born June 26, 1942) is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Arizona State Senate representing District 5 since January 9, 2023. She previously represented District 24 from 2019 to 2023, and served in the Arizona House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019, and from 2011 to 2013 in the District 11 seat, and non-consecutively in the Arizona State Legislature from 1977 until 1995 in the Arizona Senate.

Earl John Hindman (; October 20, 1942 – December 29, 2003) was an American actor, best known for his role on the television sitcom Home Improvement, which ran from 1991 to 1999. Hindman played the role of the kindly unseen neighbor Wilson W. Wilson, Jr.; more accurately, Wilson was partially seen, because of a running gag that only the top of his face was visible as he talked to his neighbor from the other side of a tall fence.

George Frederick Senner Jr. (November 24, 1921 – October 6, 2007) was an American Democratic politician from Arizona.

Macario Saldate IV (born December 13, 1941) is an American politician and a former Democratic member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing District 3 from 2013 to 2019.
Saldate previously served consecutively from January 10, 2011, until January 14, 2013, in the District 27 seat.

William Docker Browning (May 19, 1931 – February 26, 2008) was an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Clyde Snow (January 7, 1928 – May 16, 2014) was an American forensic anthropologist. Some of his skeletal confirmations include John F. Kennedy, victims of John Wayne Gacy, King Tutankhamun, victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.

Mario Suárez (1925–1998) was one of the earliest Chicano writers. He was one of five children born to Mexican immigrants to the U.S. state of Arizona, Francisco Suárez and Carmen Minjárez Suárez. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy and served during World War II. In the military, he was stationed off the coast of New Jersey, and also served in Brazil. After the war, he returned to Arizona where he enrolled in the University of Arizona. In 1947, while still an undergraduate, he began writing sketches for Arizona Quarterly magazine. Suárez later went on to become a journalist and a college educator, and publishing in Arizona Quarterly. Most of Suárez's literature takes place in "El Hoyo" (The Hole), the name of the Mexican American barrio in Tucson, Arizona, where he was raised. Often overlooked in the "canon" of Chicano Literature for writers such as Rudolfo Anaya and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Mario Suárez's writing pre-dates the Chicano literature movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of his sketches of Mexican immigrant and working class life were published in the mid- to late-1950s. From an anthropological standpoint, his work should be heralded for telling the Mexican immigrant story and documenting life in El Hoyo before its demise.

Paul Gerhardt Rosenblatt (April 4, 1928 – October 6, 2019) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Alfredo Chavez Marquez (June 30, 1922 – August 27, 2014) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.