List of University of Sydney people

• Elizabeth Bannan – educationist awarded the Walter Beavis prize and the Jones medal[1][2]
• Brian L. Byrne – social scientist known for research in psycholinguistics; Emeritus professor at the University of New England
• Beverly Derewianka – Emeritus Professor of linguistics at University of Wollongong
• Ove Hoegh-Guldberg – biologist and climate scientist known as a leading expert in the effects of climate change on coral reefs
• Frank Lancaster Jones – sociologist known for research on social inequality, social stratification, social mobility, and national identity
• Sir Robert Madgwick OBE – first Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England; two-term Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission; Director of the Australian Army Education Service during World War II[3]
• Nicholas Saunders – Former Vice-Chancellor University of Newcastle and former Dean of Medicine Monash University and Flinders University
• Eddie Woo – the most famous mathematics teacher in Australia[4]

• John Andrews – designer of CN Tower, Toronto, Canada, the tallest concrete structure in the world and often listed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world[5]
• Philip Cox AO – founder and principal of COX Architecture[6]
• Eleanor Cullis-Hill
• László Peter Kollar – Hungarian-born former Australian architect and academic (Architecture)[7]
• Andrea Nield[8]

• Noel Pearson[9]
• Charles Perkins AO[10]

• Margaret Clunies Ross – McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature, Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies
• Jill Ker Conway – former Vice-President of the University of Toronto and President of Smith College; Visiting Professor in MIT's program in Science, Technology, and Society; serves on the boards of Nike, Merrill Lynch, and Colgate-Palmolive; chairman of Lend Lease Corporation
• Avani Dias – journalist, radio presenter
• Sandy Edwards – photographer
• Charles Firth – comedian
• Tom Gleeson – comedian, television presenter
• Germaine Greer – feminist, activist
• Michael Halliday – creator of the systemic functional grammar, an internationally influential grammar model
• Andrew Hansen
• Dominic Knight
• Chas Licciardello
• Niall Lucy – writer and scholar, best known for his work on Jacques Derrida and deconstruction
• Julian Morrow
• Timothy Potts – known for his directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Kimbell Museum, and National Gallery of Victoria, and for his writings on the art and archaeology of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean
• Craig Reucassel – comedian, radio and television presenter
• Chris Taylor – comedian
• Georgina Wilson – model, host of Asia's Next Top Model

• John Bell
• Rose Byrne – actor
• Somaratne Dissanayake – Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter and stageplay director
• Jacqueline Fernandez – Sri Lankan actress, model and TV host famous for her work in Bollywood
• John Flaus
• Michael Hannan – composer, pianist, and musicologist[13]
• May Hollinworth – theatre producer and director
• Yvonne Kenny – Swedish actor, filmmaker, and martial artist
• Dolph Lundgren
• Dame Joan Sutherland
• Kip Williams – director of the Sydney Theatre Company
• Roger Woodward – Foundation Director at California State University in San Francisco, School of Music & Dance; pianist and musician

• Alan Atkinson
• Sir Christopher Clark
• John Manning Ward

• Phillip Adams
• Bob Ellis
• Elizabeth Fell
• Robert Hughes
• Clive James
• Paul Kelly – Editor-at-Large of The Australian
• Ray Martin
• Richard McGregor
• Jessica Rowe
• Lillian Roxon
• Adam Spencer

• Millicent Armstrong (1888–1973) – playwright and farmer who wrote primarily about the experiences of country life in early 20th century Australia; graduated BA with first class honours in English in 1910
• Nikos Athanasou
• Clive Stephen Barry
• Bruce Beresford
• Dora Birtles
• Christopher Brennan
• Geraldine Brooks – winner of the Pulitzer Prize for March (2006)
• Jane Campion
• Dymphna Cusack
• Ursula Dubosarsky
• Kate Grenville
• A. D. Hope
• Geoffrey Lehmann
• Jeni Mawter
• Les Murray
• Jennifer Rowe
• Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys)
• Kimberley Starr
• Peter Weir

• Peter Godfrey-Smith
• Wesley Wildman

• John Davies – Judge of the United States District Court
• Marcus Einfeld (born 1938) – Australian former Superior Court Judge
• Geoffrey Robertson – international human rights lawyer
• Charles Waterstreet – criminal defence lawyer, writer and producer

• Ruby Payne-Scott – first to use radio interferometry
• Bernard Mills – developed the Mills Cross Telescope and Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope
• Ron Bracewell – known for nulling interferometry, and the Bracewell probe concept in SETI; Lewis M. Terman Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus at Stanford University
• Edwin Ernest Salpeter – Crafoord Laureate Astronomy 1997, known for the initial mass function and accretion disk model of active galactic nuclei
• Paul D. Scully-Power – first Australian-born astronaut to fly in space
• Greg Chamitoff – NASA astronaut and University of Sydney Lawrence Hargrave Professor of Aeronautical Engineering
• Philip K. Chapman – Apollo 14 Mission Scientist

• Marnie Blewitt – molecular biologist, scientist in the field of epigenetics
• Catherine King – ecotoxicologist, Antarctic researcher
• June Lascelles – microbiologist, pioneer in microbial photosynthesis
• Robert May, Baron May of Oxford – Crafoord Laureate Biosciences 1996
• Roland Stocker – scientist in the field of redox biology

• Arthur Birch
• Sir John Cornforth – winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1975)
• Philip A. Gale
• Noel Hush FRS – winner of the 2007 Welch Award in Chemistry
• Alice Motion
• Elizabeth New
• Sir Robert Robinson – winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1947)
• Peter Rutledge
• Matthew H. Todd
• Anthony Weiss – McCaughey Professor in Biochemistry and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, for discoveries on human elastic materials that accelerate the healing and repair of arteries, skin and 3D human tissue components

• Michael Georgeff – AAAI Fellow, Director of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute
• Rick Jelliffe – inventor of the Schematron schema language
• Rod Johnson – best-selling author; expert in Java/Java EE; founder of the Spring Framework
• John Lions – author of Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code, commonly known as the Lions Book
• Vaughan Pratt – ACM Fellow; pioneer in computer science; Professor Emeritus at Stanford University
• Ross Quinlan – AAAI Fellow; highly cited scholar and a pioneer in decision theory
• Ken Thompson– co-creator of unix; Turing Award recipient[16]
• Andrew Tridgell – co-inventor of the rsync algorithm; author of and contributor to the Samba file server

• Ronald Ernest Aitchison – solid-state physicist and electronics engineer
• Ronald N. Bracewell – known for nulling interferometry, and the Bracewell probe concept in SETI; Lewis M. Terman Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus at Stanford University
• John Bradfield – designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
• Julie Cairney – materials scientist and engineer and Director of the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis
• Graeme Clark – inventor of the bionic ear implant
• Bryan Gaensler – former associate professor of astronomy at Harvard University; ARC Federation Fellow at the University of Sydney
• Robert May, Baron May of Oxford – former Chairman of the University Research Board and Professor of Zoology at Princeton University
• John O'Sullivan – winner of 2009 Prime Minister's Prize for Science; an originator of wireless technology, credited with the invention of WiFi,[17] earning hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties
• Ruby Payne-Scott – first female radio astronomer
• David Skellern – made pioneering contributions to WIFI technology
• Richard H. Small – co-inventor of Thiele/Small parameters
• Neville Thiele – co-inventor of Thiele/Small parameters
• David Warren – inventor of the "black box" (flight data recorder)

• Bruce Bolt – pioneer of engineering seismology; Professor of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley
• Brian O'Brien – physicist and space scientist
• Richard Dowden (scientist) – noted geo- and astrophysicist
• Herbert Huppert FRS – Professor of Theoretical Geophysics and Foundation Director, Institute of Theoretical Geophysics, Cambridge University since 1989; Fellow of King's College, Cambridge since 1970
• Richard Makinson – physicist notable for his contributions to amorphous semiconductors
• Bernard Mills FRS – inventor of the Mills Cross Telescope
• Edwin Ernest Salpeter – known for his contributions to astronomy; Professor of Physics, Emeritus at Cornell University

• William Ian Beardmore Beveridge – Professor of Animal Pathology and Director of the Institute of Animal Pathology at Cambridge University from 1947 to 1975
• Sir Ian Clunies Ross – Chairman Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
• Hugh McLeod Gordon – veterinary parasitologist
• Gordon McClymont – agricultural scientist, ecologist, and educationist; foundation chair of the Department of Rural Science at the University of New England; originator of the term "sustainable agriculture"
• Ross Perry – Australia’s first registered avian veterinarian; first to study and name Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease, for which he was co-discoverer of viral infection agent[21]
• Sanjaya Rajaram – World Food Prize Laureate and the Head of Wheat Programme from 1976 to 2001 at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), once referred to as "the greatest present-day wheat scientist in the world" by Norman Borlaug

• David Gulasi – Australian social media star active in China[28]
• Paul Hockings, anthropologist
• Justine Ruszczyk

The chancellor is elected by the fellows and presides at Senate meetings. In 1924, the executive position of vice-chancellor was created, and the chancellor ceased to have managerial responsibilities. Until 1860, the chancellor was known as the provost.

The vice-chancellor serves as the chief executive officer of the university, and oversees most of the university's day-to-day operations, with the chancellor serving in a largely ceremonial role. Before 1924, the vice-chancellors were fellows of the university, elected annually by the fellows. Until 1860, the vice-chancellor was known as the vice-provost. Since 1955, the full title has been Vice-Chancellor and Principal.