The hallmark of an outstanding university is its people—students, faculty, administrators, and alumni—and the impact they make on the nation and the world. And for Penn State, that impact gets bigger and bigger with each passing year. Especially this year.

Consider TIME magazine’s recent issue featuring “The TIME 100: The World’s Most Influential People.” Sure, TIME had the rich and famous —Michelle Obama (profiled by Oprah Winfrey), Rush Limbaugh (profiled by Glenn Beck), and George Clooney (profiled by Bono). Less obvious was TIME’s inclusion of three Penn Staters among “The TIME 100,” grouped under the category “Scientists and Thinkers.” Not too shabby for dear old State. When a single university lands 3 percent of the world’s most influential people—or 15 percent of its scientists and thinkers—in a given year, that’s impact.

The first is alumnus Roland Fryer, who earned his Ph.D. in economics at Penn State in 2002 and, at age 30, became the youngest tenured African-American professor in Harvard University’s history.

The two other Penn Staters on “The TIME 100” were scientists Stephan Schuster, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Webb Miller, professor of biology, computer science, and engineering. Last year, Schuster and Miller reported their successful sequencing of the DNA of the 20,000-year-old woolly mammoth. They and their Penn State research team developed a novel approach for gene studies that reads ancient DNA highly efficiently. The also were the first to achieve the successful sequencing of genes from the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

If you’re looking for evidence of Penn State’s increasing worldwide influence, look no further than “The TIME 100.”

Get all of the information on these outstanding PENN STATERS in the Roger Williams article appearing in the July issue of AlumnInsider.