The university produced many officers who served in the war, including General George Thomas Anderson (1846C) who fought in nearly every major battle in the eastern theater.

In 1880, Atticus Greene Haygood, Emory College President, delivered a speech expressing gratitude for the end of slavery in the United States, which captured the attention of George I. Seney, a New York banker.

From the 1920s through the 1970s, Emory University established its reputation as a regional institution that offered a solid education in medicine, law, theology, business, and the liberal arts.

Lieutenant Commander James L. Starnes, a graduate of Emory Law, was the navigator of the battleship USS Missouri and served as officer of the deck during the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.

[41] Alfred A. Weinstein, a professor of surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, was a prisoner of war of the Empire of Japan between 1942 and 1945.

His memoir, Barbed Wire Surgeon, is considered one of the finest accounts concerning allied prisoners under Japanese captivity and highlights the abuses of the war criminal Mutsuhiro Watanabe.

[43] Tatsumasa Shirakawa, a Japanese student at the Candler School of Theology, was placed under arrest temporarily until Dean Henry Burton Trimble negotiated his release.

In 1962, in the midst of the civil rights movement, Emory embraced the initiative to end racial restrictions when it asked the courts to declare portions of the Georgia statutes unconstitutional.

In addition to leading universities in the Southeastern United States in the promotion of racial equality, Laney and many of the school's faculty and administrators were outspoken advocates of global human rights and thus were openly opposed to the military dictatorship in South Korea (1961–1987).

On March 30, 1983, Laney's friend Kim Dae-jung, while in political exile in the United States, presented a speech on human rights and democracy at Emory University and accepted an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Laney would later serve as United States Ambassador to South Korea and Emory graduate school, founded in 1919, was named in his honor in 2009.

[44] In 2005, the university presented the President Medal, a rare award conferred only on individuals whose impact on the world has enhanced the dominion of peace or has enlarged the range of cultural achievement, to Civil Rights Movement activist Rosa Parks.

[48] In 2014, at Emory's 169th Commencement, John Lewis, the only living "Big Six" leader of the civil rights movement, delivered the keynote address and received an honorary doctor of laws degree.

In 2015, Emory University School of Law received a $1.5 million donation to help establish a John Lewis Chair in Civil Rights and Social Justice.

[72] Candler School of Theology is grounded in the Christian faith and shaped by the Wesleyan tradition of evangelical piety, ecumenical openness, and social concern.

[107] The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, a collaboration between Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, was ranked 1st in the nation in 2024 by U.S. News & World Report.

[114] In 1947, the university donated 15 acres (6 hectares) of land to the United States Department of Health and Human Services for the construction of the CDC headquarters.

[121] The isolation and treatment facilities at Emory University played a crucial role in ending the 2014 ebola virus cases in the United States.

The center aims to improve the prevention and care of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental health, and injuries in India.

[130] The university also received a $9 million grant over five years from the NIH to support one of three national Centers for Collaborative Research in Fragile X syndrome.

[133] Emory University researchers Dennis C. Liotta, Raymond F. Schinazi, and Woo-Baeg Choi discovered Emtricitabine, a nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) used in the treatment of HIV.

[131] In 2015, Emory received a three-year, $2.2 million grant from the CDC to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, including Ebola, in health-care facilities.

The university has one of the largest inventories by square footage of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified building space among campuses in the United States.

[147] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Cancer Society, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston hospital, and Emory Point are located adjacent to the campus.

[148] The completion of the complex was accompanied by a $1.2 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to advance and modernize the university's chemistry curriculum.

Reasons given for the replacement included inconvenience of food delivery to the dining hall, undersized kitchen facilities, and inadequate fenestration in the Commons.

[178] Emory's 18 varsity sports teams, known as the Eagles, are members of the NCAA's Division III in the University Athletic Association (UAA).

[180][181] Notable alumni include Alben Barkley (BA 1900),[182] 35th Vice President of the United States; Isaac Stiles Hopkins (1859C)[183] and Robert Stewart Hyer (BA 1881, MA 1882),[184] founding presidents of Georgia Institute of Technology and Southern Methodist University, respectively; Young John Allen (1858C),[185] American Methodist Missionary in the late Qing Dynasty, China; Thomas Milton Rivers (1909C);[186] Dumas Malone, Jefferson biographer and director of the Harvard University Press (AB, 1910); Director of the Rockefeller Institute; Ernest Cadman Colwell (1923C, 1927 PhD),[187] President of the University of Chicago; Bobby Jones (Law 1929),[188] the only golfer to win a Grand Slam, founder of the Masters Golf Tournament, and regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time; Ely Callaway Jr. (1940C),[189] Founder of the Callaway Golf Company; Ernie Harwell (1940C),[190] baseball broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers; Arnall Patz (BA 1943, MD 1945),[191] Lee Hong-koo[192] (1959C), 26th Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea; Newt Gingrich (BA 1965),[193] 58th Speaker of the House of Representatives; Sonny Carter,[194] NASA astronaut, Crew member of STS-33 Space Shuttle mission (1969C); Peter Buck, guitarist for the band R.E.M.

;[195] Kenneth Cole (BA 1976),[196] clothing designer and founder of Kenneth Cole Productions; Christopher McCandless (1990C),[197] Alaskan wilderness adventurer and main subject of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild; Fala Chen (2005C),[198] Chinese American Actress; Kirsten Haglund (2013C), Miss America 2008;[199] Duncan L. Niederauer, chief executive officer of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE);[200] Elizabeth Prelogar (BA 2002), 48th Solicitor General of the United States.

[201] Notable faculty include Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States;[202] Sir Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning novelist;[203] Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize recipient;[204] William Foege,[205] tenth Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director; Nathan McCall, New York Times bestselling author;[206] James T. Laney,[207] 17th president of Emory University, United States ambassador to Korea from 1993 to 1997; Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winner;[208] and U.S. poet laureate John L. Coney and Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent.