Lyman W. Porter (1930–2015) was an American academic administrator. He was the dean of the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine from 1972 to 1983. He was the co-author of many books of management, and "one of the primary founders of the study of organizational behavior."
William Horace Marshall (August 19, 1924 – June 11, 2003) was an American actor, director and opera singer. He played the title role in the 1972 blaxploitation classic Blacula and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973), and appeared as the King of Cartoons on the 1980s television show Pee-wee's Playhouse and as Dr. Richard Daystrom on the Star Trek television series. He was 6‘5” (1.96 m) tall and was known for his bass voice.
Edward Oakley Thorp (born August 14, 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack researcher. He pioneered the modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlations for reliable financial gain.
Thorp is the author of Beat the Dealer, which mathematically proved that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting. He also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer.Thorp received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of mathematics from 1961 to 1965 at New Mexico State University, and then joined the University of California, Irvine where he was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982.
X. J. Kennedy (born Joseph Charles Kennedy on August 21, 1929, in Dover, New Jersey) is an American poet, translator, anthologist, editor, and author of children's literature and textbooks on English literature and poetry. He was long known as Joe Kennedy; but, wishing to distinguish himself from Joseph P. Kennedy, he added an "X" as his first initial.
Melanie Thernstrom (born 1964) is an American author and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine who frequently writes about murders and crime.