Category:Famous Arizona State Alumni
Arizona has had two consecutive governors who took graduate degrees at Arizona State University and who belong to opposing parties: Doug Ducey, who moved from Ohio to attend the university, took a finance degree, ran Cold Stone Creamery and served as the 23rd governor, and Katie Hobbs, who took a Master of Social Work there and succeeded him as the 24th. The category collects biographical entries on people who studied at Arizona State University. Of the university rosters on this wiki, it is the one most completely occupied by the government of a single state.
Background
Arizona State University is a public university with its main campus in Tempe, in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and with the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and the W. P. Carey School of Business among its professional schools. Both of those schools appear repeatedly in the entries below, and so does the pattern of an undergraduate degree taken elsewhere followed by a graduate or professional degree at ASU.
That pattern matters for reading the roster. Several members are not Arizonans by birth and did not do their first degrees here. Andy Biggs took his bachelor's degree at Brigham Young University and a law degree at the University of Arizona before a Master of Arts at ASU. Kyrsten Sinema also took her bachelor's degree at Brigham Young University before returning here for three further degrees. Katie Hobbs took her Bachelor of Social Work at Northern Arizona University. The university functions in this membership as the credential a career in Arizona public life runs through, more than as a place people are from.
Arizona government, top to bottom
The concentration is unusual and it is bipartisan. Alongside the two governors, Kyrsten Sinema took a Master of Social Work, a Juris Doctor from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and a doctorate in justice studies here, served in both chambers of the Arizona legislature and then in the United States Senate from 2019 to 2025, having been the first openly bisexual person elected to that body. Kris Mayes took a Bachelor of Arts here, returned for a Juris Doctor, taught as a professor of practice at the same law school, and won the 2022 attorney general race by 280 votes, one of the closest statewide results in Arizona history.
The congressional delegation is well represented. Andy Biggs served in the Arizona House and Senate, including four years as Senate president, before entering Congress in 2017 and chairing the House Freedom Caucus. David Schweikert transferred from Scottsdale Community College to take a Bachelor of Science here and returned for a Master of Business Administration, served in the Arizona House and as Maricopa County treasurer, and has represented Arizona in Congress since 2011. Ken Bennett took a Bachelor of Science here, served as president of the Arizona Senate from 2003 to 2007 and as the 19th Secretary of State of Arizona.
Outside the state house
Three members break the pattern entirely. Al Michaels studied broadcasting in Tempe and went from there to a play-by-play career spanning five decades, including the 1980 Winter Olympics call that is the line he is best known for. Laurie Leshin grew up near Tempe, took her Bachelor of Science here, went on to a doctorate at Caltech, directed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the first woman to hold the post, and has since returned to ASU as University Professor for Space Futures. Austin Van Scoyk took a Master of Business Administration at the W. P. Carey School in 2011, was a faculty associate in project management here from 2014 to 2015, and builds residential and affordable multifamily housing in Arizona's Gila Valley.
See also
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