On Thursday the University awarded a total of 9,434 degrees. A breakdown of degrees and programs is listed below.

Harvard College granted a total of 2,014 degrees. Degrees from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences were awarded by Harvard College, the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate School of Design.

All Ph.D. degrees are conferred by the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

All figures include degrees awarded in November 2024 and March and May 2025.

Harvard College
2,014 degrees

• 1,947 Bachelor of Arts
• 67 Bachelor of Science

Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
1,357 degrees

• 395 Master of Arts
• 275 Master of Science
• 7 Master of Engineering
• 680 Doctor of Philosophy

Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
881 degrees

• 446 Bachelor of Arts (conferred by Harvard College)
• 67 Bachelor of Science (conferred by Harvard College)
• 7 Master of Engineering (conferred by GSAS)
• 26 Master in Design Engineering (conferred jointly with GSD)
• 79 Doctor of Philosophy (conferred by GSAS)

Harvard Business School
944 degrees

• 802 Master in Business Administration
• 78 Master in Business Administration with Distinction
• 49 Master in Business Administration with High Distinction
• 15 Doctor of Philosophy (conferred by GSAS)

Harvard Divinity School
140 degrees

• 50 Master of Divinity
• 79 Master of Theological Studies
• 10 Master of Religion and Public Life
• 1 Doctor of Theology

Harvard Law School
784 degrees

• 177 Master of Laws
• 602 Doctor of Law
• 5 Doctor of Juridical Science

Harvard Kennedy School
618 degrees

• 78 Master in Public Administration
• 249 Master in Public Administration (Mid-Career)
• 73 Master in Public Administration in International Development
• 206 Master in Public Policy
• 1 Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government (conferred by GSAS)
• 11 Ph.D. in Public Policy (conferred by GSAS)

Harvard Graduate School of Design
393 degrees

• 126 Master of Architecture
• 24 Master of Architecture in Urban Design
• 65 Master in Design Studies
• 55 Master in Landscape Architecture
• 3 Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design
• 45 Master in Urban Planning
• 14 Doctor of Design
• 26 Master in Design Engineering (conferred jointly with SEAS)
• 35 Master in Real Estate

Harvard Graduate School of Education
766 degrees

• 720 Master of Education
• 25 Doctor of Education Leadership
• 21 Doctor of Education/Philosophy

Harvard Medical School
484 degrees

• 82 Master in Medical Science
• 166 Doctor of Medical Sciences
• 236 Doctor of Dental Medicine

Harvard School of Dental Medicine
66 degrees

• 17 Master of Medical Sciences
• 12 Doctor of Medical Sciences
• 37 Doctor of Dental Medicine

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
561 degrees

• 374 Master of Public Health
• 155 Master of Science
• 18 Master in Health Care Management
• 14 Doctor of Public Health

Harvard Extension School
1,360 degrees

• 133 Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
• 1,227 Masters of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies

Jorge Mendoza thought he was only joking when he told his then-girlfriend, now-wife, “Maybe one day I’ll go to school at Harvard.”

Years later, the joke, he’s happy to report, is on him.

“It actually came true!” says Mendoza, who graduated this week with a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts in Extension Studies with a concentration on business administration and management.

Born in Colombia and raised in New York City, Mendoza joined Harvard as a custodial supervisor in 2018. Soon after, he enrolled at Harvard Extension School to pick up where prior college studies left off.

“To see the finish line, it’s unbelievable because it seemed so far,” said Mendoza, a 39-year-old father of two. “I’ve been in management for a very long time, so being able to do my business degree and knowing that this is what I want to do careerwise, it just made sense for me.”

“Jorge was one of those students who just came in and I saw determination to leave no stone unturned.”

Jill Slye

The six-year journey was far from easy. With help from Harvard’s Tuition Assistance Program, Mendoza immediately began to “chip away” at coursework, taking two courses per semester and a few over several summers. Two offerings on public speaking taught by Jill Slye were among his favorites.

Slye, in turn, praised Mendoza for his academic efforts.

“There are always students who tend to give off an energy that they are fully committed, right from the get-go,” she said. “They come into the class dedicated, open-minded, and nothing’s going to get in their way of learning. Jorge was one of those students who just came in and I saw determination to leave no stone unturned.”

Being a full-time employee and part-time student at Harvard offered Mendoza “insider knowledge” in his classes, he said. This spring Mendoza took an architecture class that incorporated a large number of buildings on campus, many of them familiar from his 9-to-5.

“Other people are joining the class from around the world,” he said. “They might be able to see pictures online and take some virtual tours. But to be able to be on campus, walk through or by the buildings, and even manage some of them gives you a unique [perspective],” he said.

Mendoza briefly considered skipping Commencement because it’s typically just another day on the job. “Then I really started getting excited about it.”

The only downside to being an employee who also takes classes is that you might not fully register the joy of being a Harvard student, Mendoza said. In fact, he briefly considered skipping Commencement because it’s typically just another day on the job.

But his mother and sisters told him that they wanted to be a part of the tradition, and his wife challenged his lack of enthusiasm. “Then I really started getting excited about it, and I said, ‘You know what? This is different. This is my Commencement. This is what I’ve worked so hard for,’” he said.

He’s also worked hard to serve as a role model to his kids.

“I want them to be able to say, ‘My dad finished while we were here,’” he said. “’He did it with kids and a family.”’

And that’s one big reason he’s not done yet. Mendoza has his eyes on a new goal: a master’s in liberal arts in sustainability from the Extension School.

“I hope to continue to grow academically, because I love to learn,” he said. “I want to go back to focus on sustainability. It’s a focus of the University and of the world. It is something I want to focus on to grow and develop in my career and to continue to make an impact.”

All he got out was “Welcome,” before the crowd sprang to its feet to give a visibly moved President Alan Garber a standing ovation as he stood at the podium in the opening moments of Commencement. Across the Charles, University lawyers were presenting their case against a Trump administration move to block Harvard from enrolling international students. It was a graduation unlike others in its legal and political context but one that at its core remained deeply and distinctly personal. The blend of hope for the future, gratitude for family, friends, and teachers, and the poignancy of moving on were in evidence throughout the Yard. Here are some snapshots of the day.  

Always remember: You might be wrong

In remarks to students, President Garber delivered a warning about the danger of getting too comfortable.

“The world as it is tempts us with the lure of what one might generously call comfortable thinking,” said Garber, “a habit of mind that readily convinces us of the merits of our own assumptions, the veracity of our own arguments, and the soundness of our own opinions, positions, and perspectives — so committed to our beliefs that we seek information that confirms them as we discredit evidence that refutes them.

“Though many would be loath to admit it, absolute certainty and willful ignorance are two sides of the same coin, a coin with no value but costs beyond measure. False conviction saps true potential. Focused on satisfying a deep desire to be right, we can willingly lose that which is so often gained from being wrong — humility, empathy, generosity, insight — squandering opportunities to expand our thinking and to change our minds in the process.”

Nearing the close of his address, he celebrated graduates as “the hope of this institution embodied — living proof that our mission changes not only the lives of individuals but also the trajectories of communities that you will join, serve, and lead.”

‘Semper Veritas’

Early Thursday morning, tucked in a quiet, grassy nook in front of Holden Chapel, seniors gathered one last time to hear from Rakesh Khurana, the Danoff Dean of Harvard College.

In his final address to students before stepping down as dean, Khurana urged soon-to-be graduates to savor having reached such an important academic and personal milestone in their young lives.

“Enjoy this moment. Think of where you were four years ago, where you are today, and all that came in between, and embrace every second of this special day,” Khurana said.  

He also urged students to use their time and talents to make positive contributions to the world. “Whatever your calling is in life, I encourage you to do good,” he said, later adding: “My fondest hope for all of you — that your education has helped prepare you to be good citizens and citizen leaders for our society. Go forth and make us proud.”

Khurana, who was named dean of the College in 2014, plans to return to the faculty of the Department of Sociology and Harvard Business School.  

“I will miss you dearly, and it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to spend these last four years with you and to serve as dean of Harvard College,” he said. “Semper Veritas!”

Opportunities and inspiration

More than three decades after her own Harvard graduation, Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford, M.D. ’92, beamed as her oldest son Malik Aaron Bradford III ’25 received his degree in biomedical engineering.

“I’m just so proud of him and it’s wonderful to see him accomplish this,” the former Kirkland House resident said. “This place has so many opportunities that he’s been a part of, and he’ll continue to grow from.”

She continued: “He’s really matured quite a bit. It’s been nice to see that evolution. He’s really settled and comfortable in his own skin.”

Alves-Bradford and her husband, Malik Bradford II, said they were excited for their son’s next steps. The new Harvard alumnus already has a job lined up after Commencement, the couple proudly shared. Bradford II shared his hope that Malik’s pursuits can be “applied in a way that’s going to help him feel fulfilled.”

A few feet away, fellow Eliot House parent Linda Erickson shared her excitement at seeing her daughter, Sarah Erickson ’25, accomplish her childhood dream.

“When she was 8 years old, she told me, ‘I want to go to Harvard someday.’ So, to see that dream realized over all these years has been absolutely amazing,” Linda said. “She has pushed herself so hard to achieve that goal and to get to this day has just been inspirational.”

Sarah, who was homeschooled in Cincinnati by her mother before starting high school, received her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. At Harvard, she danced and performed in musical theater with the Harvard-Radcliffe Modern Dance Company and became a staff photographer for the Harvard Crimson.

“She’s not the same girl I dropped off four years ago,” Linda said. “She’s built great memories here with all the people she’s interacted with. It’s been amazing.”

Despite threats, hope for future of higher ed

“Honestly, it still doesn’t feel real,” said Jesse Hernandez, about moving on from life at Harvard. “I’m first-generation too, so there’s a part of me that has trouble imagining what comes next after something like this.”

The College graduate who studied economics, resided in Lowell House, and plans to hunt for a job in finance this summer, was especially grateful his parents and younger brother could make the rare trip from Florida to offer their support. “It feels good to be celebrating with all the people that helped me get here.”

With many close friends who are international students, Hernandez said he’s worried about their future after the Trump administration’s effort to block Harvard from enrolling them.

“Everybody’s nervous. Just when you start to think things can’t get worse,” they do, he said. Despite the circumstances, Hernandez said he’s trying to stay positive.

“I’ve got confidence that we’ll see this through, and that higher education won’t die today.”

3 years after knee tear, starting a new career

Danielle Ray’s journey to Harvard began with a knee injury. The professional squash player born in Calgary, Canada, had competed professionally since graduating from Cornell, but during the 2022 Canadian National Championships, she took an awkward step and tore her ACL, MCL, and meniscus all at once.

“It just got stuck on the floor as I was turning and just collapsed in,” she said. 

Facing the prospect of multiple surgeries and many months out of the sport, Ray looked for something she could do in the meantime that could prepare her for the future. Her now-husband, who had graduated from Harvard with a master’s degree, suggested the Harvard Extension School. 

A month later, Ray was enrolled in a master’s degree in information management systems. “I blew my knee out in June,” she said, “and I started the program in July.” 

The program, Ray found, was a good mix of technical and policy-based courses. Her favorite course, “Fundamentals of the Law and Cybersecurity,” examined the legal, economic, and policy challenges that arise from cybersecurity threats. She found herself especially drawn to the policy components of the program and her work in agile project management — figuring out ways to solve dynamic, complex problems. 

Because she could complete the degree online while taking one or two courses at a time, Ray could also move her life forward in other directions. She recovered from her surgeries, worked through physical therapy, and returned to the professional squash circuit — representing Canada at the international level. She competed in tournaments while pregnant and in January, gave birth to a baby girl. 

Ray says she’s in a place right now “that’s a bit transitional.” She hopes to work herself into a policy-related position in the near future, building off interests she developed at Harvard. She still competes professionally. 

But at Commencement Thursday with her family, she celebrated her accomplishment. “It’s almost three years to the day since I tore my knee,” she said. It would have been hard then to imagine all that would quickly follow.

Giving disadvantaged Detroit youth a boost

“I didn’t see this for myself,” said Courtney Ebonique Smith, a newly minted graduate of the Harvard Extension School with a master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology.

Smith grew up in foster care before being adopted and when she graduated from high school, she was living in a homeless shelter. Her experiences led her to start the Detroit Phoenix Center, a nonprofit in Detroit that provides housing, academic, and workforce support to young people who are experiencing housing insecurity and other barriers to opportunities.

“We provide them with support so they can thrive,” she said, “and maybe even come to Harvard.”

A few years after starting the nonprofit at the age of 25, Smith looked for ways to gain skills that she could immediately use as its CEO. She found the Extension School, which allowed her to take courses both on campus and from home. 

In 2020, she started the Extension School’s Nonprofit Management Graduate Certificate. When she finished, she enrolled in a master’s degree. The flexibility of the program allowed her to work whenever she had time to spare. “I was able to do it at night, on the plane, in the morning, during the day,” she said, laughing. “It’s very convenient.”

Smith said that her skills in fundraising and project management improved after taking classes in both subjects. Overall, she said, the program taught her “how to be adaptable and to juggle a lot of things at once.”

Looking back, Smith is proud of the journey that led to her graduating from Harvard. “I want every person to know that it doesn’t matter where you come from,” she said. “There are opportunities for you to be able to live out the dreams that you have for your life and to thrive.”

A real team guy

Scott Woods II is a person of loyalties.

First on the list of the economics graduate is his House, Cabot.

“I’m a big quad guy — very loyal to the quad,” he said, while toting the Cabot House sign used in the Commencement Exercises across the Yard. “I boast about how great it is, even though it catches a lot of flak.”

Woods said Cabot, which is on the “quad,” is seen by some as less desirable than the other Houses, which are closer to the main campus along the Charles River. And he gets it because he started out that way.

“I remember it vividly,” he said of the moment he got his housing assignment as a first-year. “You could hear a pin drop — no one was excited about it at first. But then as soon as we got out there, we just realized it was all a myth, and we had to make it what it was, which was a good time.”

Besides being a Cabot House booster, Woods is also a Crimson football loyalist, having been a wide receiver on the team.

“Harvard came in with a last-minute offer that changed my life. And since I committed to play here, my life has been on the upward trend,” he said.

Woods said he’s off to the University of Maine next year, where he’ll pursue an M.B.A. Originally from Virginia, he said in all seriousness that Cabot helped make Harvard home.

“The people in Cabot made me feel seen and made me feel comfortable. It made me feel like I had a family,” he said, grinning. “Being all the way out here you don’t really have too many people to interact with.”

Woods was joined on Commencement Day by his mom, dad, brother, and two grandmothers. He said they were proud of their Cabot House mascot.

“They thought I was the man. They wanted to get a picture with me,” he said.

‘It’s surreal’

Jean Filo hustled to meet his parents after the Commencement ceremony, part of a departing wave of other Medical School graduates identifiable by the stethoscopes they wore along with their caps and gowns.

He paused for a moment to reflect on what his graduation meant not only to himself as an immigrant from Syria but also to his parents waiting eagerly to hug their son.

“It’s surreal,” he said. “Today is mostly about my parents and them enjoying this.”

During his time at Harvard Medical School, Filo worked in cerebrovascular research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Brain Aneurysm Institute. He said he’s now heading off to Philadelphia to do a residency in neurosurgery.

But first, he said, rushing off, he had dinner plans with the parents.

Family pride — and impact

Caroline Maynes and Sierra Dorweiler have been watching their son and brother, respectively, for years, and, though they know him well, they’re still impressed. Nicholas Maynes, who graduated with a master’s degree in public administration on Thursday, has been on a yearslong journey that has taken him to war and back.

As the pair watched the Commencement unfold in Tercentenary Theatre, they said that Maynes has been entirely self-driven, starting with his education at West Point.

His Army service as a field artillery officer included deployment to Iraq during the liberation of Mosul. After that, he earned a master’s degree in business administration at the University of California at Berkeley before enrolling at Harvard to study at the Kennedy School.

“Academics has just been his passion,” said Caroline.

Watching her brother couldn’t help but have an impact on her, Dorweiler said. Maynes has always encouraged her to focus on what can be done, not what can’t, she added.

“I’m so proud because he’s been the one who’s pushed me to achieve academically,” she said. “He just makes it seem like pretty much anything is possible.”

Her goal: To help as many people learn as she can

Growing up in India, Devina Neema — who graduated Thursday from the Harvard Graduate School of Education — observed a major disparity between private and public schools. Her school had good classrooms and teachers and 40 hours of class every week. In public schools, students could get four or five hours of instruction, with few books and limited interaction between teachers and parents.

After graduating from college, Neema began teaching in public schools through a nonprofit program. The conditions weren’t ideal. At times, she led classrooms filled with 90 students. “It was a new world for me,” she said. “I realized this is where education needs to happen and get better.”

For different nonprofits, Neema worked across rural and urban areas to understand how students learned at different types of schools. How did they learn their first language? What were the math disparities? Were there any technological solutions?

To explore those questions more thoroughly, and to get a more formal education in teaching and how to change education at a systemic level, Neema looked to the HGSE’s master’s program in Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology.   

At Harvard, Neema explored how people of different ages learn and how technology can augment it. She also studied how learners can develop transferable skills, such as social skills, and apply them to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Having never formally studied education in a university setting, she was struck — and inspired — by the sheer amount of research her professors performed in their areas of expertise. “If you have to truly understand something at heart,” she said, “then you have to broaden your perspective but also narrow down your niche and go deep.”

With her program now complete, Neema plans to stay in the area so she can continue to learn and “build something here,” she said. After studying the education systems in many countries and the workings of international and humanitarian aid, she wants to help as many people learn as she can — with any tools she has.

What’s to come

Like many, College seniors Kylie Hunts-in-Winter and Taylor Larson weren’t quite sure what to expect from Morning Exercises on what is typically a joyful day.  

Given the tensions sparked by Harvard’s legal battles with the Trump administration, they weren’t certain how graduating students would respond to University officials or the celebration.

“Some people were saying on [the social media app] Sidechat that they want to cheer for [President Alan] Garber, and other people. And so, I’m interested to see how this plays out,” said Hunts-in-Winter, a champion martial artist who studied sociology and Ethnicity, Migration, Rights.

The duo stood with Larson’s Adams House colleagues as undergraduates prepared to process into Tercentenary Theatre. Not long after, Garber and other University officials received robust cheers from the assembled crowd as they made their way toward the stage.

For Larson, a history and literature concentrator from Minnesota, the morning was one of conflicting emotions. While it was “exciting,” she confessed to also feeling “overwhelmed by everything that’s to come after this.”

Both identify as first-generation, low-income students. Larson plans to pursue a master’s degree in history in London, while Hunts-in-Winter, whose family is Lakota from the Standing Rock Reservation, intends to remain in the Boston area to pursue public service work with Native American communities.

“I am glad and I’m very grateful for my time,” said Larson. “I met all my best friends here and had a lot of opportunities because of Harvard funding.”

Dunster House ceremony: Lasting friendships

Residents of Dunster House returned to their home of the last three years to gather with parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends, receive degrees, enjoy lunch — and let it all sink in.

Graduate Minsoo Kwon, a Mather House resident, was at Dunster to celebrate her friend Hannah Ahn, whom she met five years ago during a gap year in Korea.

Kwon said the two, who have remained friends throughout college, will both be heading off to law school in the fall — with plans already in the works for frequent visits.

“I’ll be at Yale, and Hannah will be at Columbia,” she said. “Still along the Amtrak line.”

Ahn earned a degree in government while Kwon got hers in neuroscience. She’s interested in drug and healthcare policies that overlap law and science.

Two other friends sharing in the afternoon festivities were Sara Silarszka and Quincy Brunner Donley — first-year roommates who got along so well they stayed together for the next three years at Dunster.

“We were in a double for three years together, and so this is the first year we had our own rooms,” Donley said.

Asked whether they missed sharing the close quarters, Donley said, “I think I did,” followed by a quick “definitely” by Silarszka.

Both roommates made their mark in Harvard athletics — Silarszka, as a field hockey player, now with a degree in integrated biology, and Donley, a Nordic skier with a degree in economics.

Donley said after graduation, she’s moving back to her home state of Alaska to pursue professional skiing.

“At least for the foreseeable future,” she said.

Silarszka, who grew up in Virginia, said she is hoping to visit her old roomie. And she’s taking a gap year before applying to medical school.

“I just love living with my best friends,” she said. “You’ll just never be this close to so many people you love, so that’ll be hard to leave behind.”

Back to the beginning

Chidimma Adinna, a graduating senior from Adams House, left Nigeria at age 6 when her parents immigrated to California. Now she’s set to return, thanks to a fellowship to teach at a high school some of her family members still attend.

While her desire to return to Nigeria stems from her family history, the how and why owe largely to her studies at Harvard. A psychology concentrator, Adinna became interested in climate change during her time as an undergrad. As a fellow in Nigeria, she plans to promote sustainability and help the school take steps to fight the climate crisis. She’ll also act as a tutor and mentor students who want to go to college.

“Since I was younger, I was always trying to be connected to my community in Nigeria,” she said. “This has involved me donating clothes through organizations that I founded with my family, and it’s a mission that I’m trying to continue, even postgrad. It’s been evolving over the years I’ve been trying to give back to my community.”

Connecting flights?

Justin Biassou spent a lot of time in an airplane cabin on the way to his master’s degree.

Starting in 2022, he would occasionally commute from Seattle to Cambridge for in-person classes from Harvard Extension School, where he earned an A.L.M. in international relations.

But Biassou is comfortable in the air. He started flight training at 12 and got his private pilot’s license at 17. Even as he studied, he was working full time leading an air safety team for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Biassou took up his coursework in January 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic still loomed over campuses, classrooms, and airports.

“I took one class per semester, and each one had this incredible group of students with all these different backgrounds — often they were working, too.”

Many of Biassou’s courses did take place online. But person-to-person time in Cambridge was well worth the flight, as were a few intensive January courses crammed into his time off from work.

At a time when “a lot of us just felt isolated, and very uneasy,” Biassou recalled, class “just really brought a lot of us together … These have become lifelong friends.”

The Extension School allowed Biassou a chance to expand his skill set in aviation safety. With new expertise in international relations, he hopes to “harmonize” safety efforts beyond U.S. borders, with authorities like the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization.

His three-year, transcontinental balancing act may have earned Biassou “a lot of gray hairs.”

“But I had a really incredible support system: my significant other Michelle, my parents, my sisters,” Biassou said, as his family stood by. “They allowed me to focus on the things that needed to get done: Yes, 40 hours a week keeping aviation safe, then also working on my classes.”

A child of immigrants gives back

Many faculty and graduates at Commencement ceremonies wore stickers, flowers, and other symbols in support of Harvard’s international students — now facing threats from the Trump administration.

For Daniel Roque-Coplín, J.D. ’25, the cause of safeguarding the rights of newcomers in America is personal — and the focus of his professional goals.

“Both of my parents are immigrants: My mom is from the Dominican Republic; my dad is from Cuba,” Roque-Coplín said, as he and his mother huddled before lunch. “They never in their lives dreamed that their son could go to a school like this one.”

His law school journey was not always easy — particularly at the beginning.

“First year, second year, you spend a lot of time in the library,” he said. “A lot of times, the studying can consume you, because you’re competing with everyone else, in a sense.”

Roque-Coplín said he was driven by a desire to help families like his own, with immigrant pasts and big ambitions in the United States.

Even before the latest tightening of immigration law and enforcement, the law did not always serve those families well, Roque-Coplín said.

He hopes to change that.

“Immigration law is intersectional, right? There are public-health needs, criminal needs, straightforward needs” related to legal status and asylum.

He had already begun that work in Cambridge as a student attorney in family practice with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, which offers free representation to low-income clients in Greater Boston.

Roque-Coplín acknowledged that he enters the legal professional at an acutely difficult moment for the families he hopes to serve. But he and other Law School graduates said they see that field as a chance to do urgent work.

“Through the grace of God, I’ve overcome — I’m here,” Roque-Coplín said. About the fights to come, “I’m nervous, I’m excited, and I feel, honestly, like nothing can stop me.”

A star’s turn

As the official ceremonies of Commencement Day wound down, families gathered on the steps of Widener Library for photographs with their graduates.

Elio Kennedy-Yoon showed particular patience with the many iterations of family pictures on offer: his three siblings, separately and together; his father, then grandfather; his girlfriend; then the whole clan together.

You might credit Kennedy-Yoon’s recent experience with celebrity, as an actor and singer in Din & Tonics, the College a capella group. Just last year, he made a splash online with a viral solo version of Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.” Fan art, mashups, and the group’s world tour ensued.

After Commencement, Kennedy-Yoon wore two sashes: one honoring his Asian American heritage and another for LGBT pride.

Even before that viral moment, the last five years have been transformative for Kennedy-Yoon.

First, a gender transition during the pandemic, and a jarring move from Utah to Cambridge.

“I love Utah, but the people can be very conservative. I really found a community here that’s very accepting, very diverse.” (Among that community was Kennedy-Yoon’s girlfriend, a few years older — and “the love of my life,” he said with a smile.)

Still, as a queer Asian American with some online visibility, it hasn’t been possible to dodge hostility or derision. When Donald Trump was elected president the first time, Kennedy-Yoon was 13. In this tumultuous spring, he said it feels like a long time to have lived in conflict with the country’s political leadership.

That has made the University’s resistance to Trump administration mean all the more.

“In a weird way. I’ve never been prouder to be a Harvard student than right now,” Kennedy-Yoon said. “That we’re standing up for academia, for knowledge, for truth … and against tyranny.”

Ready to start

When Annabeth Tao was an undergraduate at UCLA, she worked as a research assistant for a professor focused on computer game animation. In her year at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, she added to that experience a better understanding of how students learn, which she plans to blend into a startup focused on devising interactive games to help students become more creative in STEM studies.

When she arrived on campus in the fall, enrolled in the Ed School’s Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology master’s degree program, Tao had a vague plan to use the arts to enhance education. Over the course of her studies, she refined that ambition, in part through conversations with fellow students. In fact, some of her best memories of her time at Harvard are the brainstorming sessions with classmates.

She’ll have to find a job while getting the startup off the ground, but said that she’s excited about the chance to help unleash creativity among students and teachers, shaping “a dynamic learning experience for kids.”

A federal judge on Thursday extended a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from terminating Harvard’s right to host international students and scholars. The restraining order was issued last week after the University sued in response to an attempt by the government to revoke Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.

More than 5,000 international students and scholars at Harvard are at risk of losing legal status due to the revocation order, which was first conveyed in a letter from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and has sown fear and confusion among international students and scholars at Harvard and other universities. In its lawsuit, Harvard argues that the government’s actions violate the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. President Alan Garber has described the Trump administration’s efforts as retaliatory.

Responding Thursday to Judge Allison Burroughs’ decision to extend the temporary restraining order, the University noted the contributions of international students and scholars and pledged to continue to fight for its ability to welcome them to campus.

“Harvard will continue to take steps to protect the rights of our international students and scholars, members of our community who are vital to the University’s academic mission and community — and whose presence here benefits our country immeasurably,” a University spokesperson said.

The extension of the restraining order came as students, staff, and faculty celebrated Commencement in Harvard Yard. Garber received a standing ovation when he began welcoming remarks that included a nod to the University’s global community.

“Welcome members of the Class of 2025 — members of the Class of 2025 from down the street, across the country, and around the world,” he said, adding: “Around the world just as it should be.”

Elsewhere in the Yard and around campus, students, alums, and others welcomed Harvard’s success in court.

International students are “part of what makes Harvard one of the best universities in the world,” said Kevin Pacheco, an instructor at the Medical School. Caleb Thompson ’27, co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate Association, agreed.

“I’m obviously very happy about the news,” Thompson said. “International students are a part of all our lives. I’m not the first person to say this, but Harvard isn’t Harvard without international students … these are some of the most talented, intellectually capable students on our campus.”

He added: “For me it’s personal even though I’m a domestic student: I have eight international suitemates. They’re the most important people in my life.”

---

Sy Boles of the Harvard Staff contributed to this report.

Abraham Verghese underscored the vital role of immigrants in the life of the nation at Harvard’s 374th Commencement Thursday at Tercentenary Theatre. He was speaking from experience.

Born in Ethiopia to expatriate teachers from India, Verghese, a doctor and writer, began his medical studies in Addis Ababa but had to interrupt them as the country descended into civil war in 1974. After completing his medical studies at Madras Medical College in India, he arrived in Johnson City, Tennessee, as an infectious disease specialist in the mid-1980s, the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

Verghese, who teaches at Stanford, was the principal speaker at Commencement, which unfolded as a federal judge in Boston extended a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s revocation of Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars. That action and others by the government were on Verghese’s mind as he delivered a passionate defense of immigrants and international students living, studying, and working in the U.S.

“When legal immigrants and others who are lawfully in this country, including so many of your international students, worry about being wrongly detained and even deported, perhaps it’s fitting that you hear from an immigrant like me,” he said.

He also spoke directly to the contributions of foreign-born doctors at hospitals across the country.

“We were recruited here because American medical schools simply don’t graduate sufficient numbers of physicians to fill the country’s need,” said Verghese, who spent two years early in his career at what is now Boston Medical Center. “More than a quarter of the physicians in the country are foreign medical graduates, many of them ultimately settling in places that others might not find as desirable.

“A part of what makes America great, if I may use the phrase, is that it allows an immigrant like me to blossom here, just as generations of other immigrants and their children have flourished and contributed in every walk of life, working to keep America great.”

Pointing to his experience as a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop — his books include “Cutting for Stone,” “My Own Country,” and “The Covenant of Water” — Verghese credited America for enriching his life as an author. He quoted the novelist E.L. Doctorow: “It is the immigrant hordes who keep this country alive, the waves of them arriving year after year. Who believes in America more than the people who run down the gangplank and kiss the ground?”

He also praised Harvard President Alan Garber for resisting Trump administration demands for viewpoint audits and other measures, even as dramatic funding cuts imperil the University’s ability to carry out its research mission. Harvard deserves support and praise, he said, for “affirming and courageously defending the essential values of this university, and indeed of this nation.”

Closing his remarks, Verghese offered a few pieces of advice to the Class of 2025. First, he urged students to read fiction, because novels offer “powerful lessons about life” and can open a reader’s mind to unfamiliar lives and experiences. He was inspired to become a doctor in part by reading W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage,” he recalled.

“If you don’t read fiction,” Verghese said, “my considered medical opinion is that a part of your brain responsible for active imagination atrophies.”

Verghese also stressed the importance of character and courage: “Graduates, the decisions you will make in the future under pressure will say something about your character, while they also shape and transform you in unexpected ways. Make your decisions worthy of those who supported, nurtured, and sacrificed for you: your parents, your partners, your family, and your ancestors. Make your decisions worthy of this great university and the hardship it must endure going forward as it works to preserve the value of what you accomplished here.”

Lastly, drawing on the lessons he learned from AIDS patients he tended to Tennessee in the mid-1980s, Verghese asked students to take great care with the gift of time. Seeing men in their 30s and 40s face death was heartbreaking, he said, but he found comfort in the fact that many of them, at the end of their lives, cherished the company of family.

“They found that meaning at the end of a shortened life did not reside in fame, power, reputation, money, or good looks,” he said. “Instead, they found that meaning in their lives ultimately resided in the successful relationships they had forged in a lifetime, particularly with family.”

Verghese read to the crowd a letter he had shared many times before. In it, a young man dying of AIDS assures his mother that, having fulfilled many of his dreams, he has no regrets, and is grateful that his illness has allowed him to slow down to spend time with his family.

“I’ve enjoyed a life full of adventure and travel, and I loved every moment of it. But I probably never would have slowed down enough to really appreciate all of you if it hadn’t been for my illness. That’s the silver lining in this very dark cloud …

“If anyone ever asks you if I went to heaven, tell them this: I just came from there. No place could conceivably be as wonderful as where I’ve spent these last 30 years. I’ll miss it. I’ll miss you, mother. I’m so glad we made good use of this time to get to know each other again.”

After reading the last lines, Verghese exhorted students, “Cherish this special day. And above all, make good use of your time.”

Kannon K. Shanmugam ’93, J.D. ’98, a prominent and prolific appellate attorney and alumnus of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, will join the Harvard Corporation as its newest member, the University announced on Thursday. Shanmugam will succeed Theodore V. Wells Jr., J.D. ’76, M.B.A. ’76, who departs the board after 12 years of service.

Citing his “deep devotion to Harvard and to the importance of academic values and academic freedom,” President Alan Garber and Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker announced Shanmugam’s election in a message to the Harvard community on Thursday afternoon.

“Kannon Shanmugam is one of the nation’s most accomplished and admired appellate attorneys, who has also served an array of educational institutions,” said Garber and Pritzker. “Beyond his extensive experience counseling and representing major organizations in complex matters, he is known for his intellectual acuity and curiosity, his remarkable work ethic, his warm and collegial manner, his adroitness in engaging people with varied points of view, and his commitment to academic excellence.” 

Shanmugam has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and more than 150 other appeals in courts across the country, including all 13 federal courts of appeals and numerous state courts. Formerly a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly and a member of the Office of the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice, Shanmugam is now a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he is also the founding chair of the firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Practice, chair of its office in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the Litigation Department.   

Shanmugam has also served a number of educational institutions in advisory and governance roles, including as past chair of the board of trustees of Thurgood Marshall Academy, a public charter high school in Washington, D.C.; current trustee of both the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the University of Kansas Endowment; and past trustee of the Association of Marshall Scholars. 

“It’s an honor to have been asked to serve on the Harvard Corporation, and I look forward to contributing my perspective to the Corporation’s deliberations in the coming years,” said Shanmugam. “My reason for agreeing to serve is simple: I owe everything to Harvard. Harvard gave me opportunities I never would have had, and it exposed me to different people and new ideas.

“Harvard has gone through difficult times and faces substantial challenges, but it does so much good for the world,” he continued. “Harvard is one of our nation’s most important institutions, and when an institution has problems, I believe the solution is to work constructively to fix the problems, while holding true to its foundational commitment to academic excellence. I look forward to doing my part to help Harvard meet those challenges and to make the University a better, stronger place for the future.”

A native of Kansas, Shanmugam’s father was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Kansas after his parents emigrated from India. In 1993, Shanmugam graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, where he concentrated in classics and served as editor in chief of the Harvard Independent. He studied as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where he received a Master of Letters degree in classical languages and literature. Shanmugam was executive editor of the Harvard Law Review before graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1998. 

After law school, Shanmugam clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court. He entered private practice as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis and later served as assistant to the solicitor general in the Department of Justice from 2004 to 2008.

Shanmugam practiced as a partner at Williams & Connolly for more than a decade after leaving the solicitor general’s office, rising to become one of the country’s most sought-after appellate lawyers. He served as co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Committee and as the president of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court — an organization dedicated to advancing the rule of law through example, education, and mentoring. Shanmugam is the only practicing American lawyer who is an honorary bencher of the Inner Temple, one of the four English Inns of Court. He has also taught Supreme Court advocacy at Georgetown University Law Center and is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Federalist Society contributor.

One of six appellate lawyers ranked as a Star Individual by Chambers USA, Shanmugam was a finalist for The American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Year in 2022 and 2024, and he was named Appellate Litigator of the Year by Benchmark Litigation in 2021.

In accordance with the University’s charter, Shanmugam was elected by the members of the Corporation with the consent of the University’s Board of Overseers. He will begin his service on July 1 as Wells departs the board. Garber and Pritzker thanked Wells and noted his service in their message to the community.

“We owe profound gratitude to our colleague Ted Wells, who since 2013 has served the Corporation and the University superbly with his powerful mind, his formidable legal expertise, his strong commitment to academic ideals and principled decision-making, and his humane concern for others,” said Garber and Pritzker. “In Kannon Shanmugam, we are fortunate to have someone well positioned to carry forward and build on Ted’s remarkable legacy, while bringing fresh perspectives and valuable insights to the hard and important work ahead.”

The Harvard Corporation, formally the President and Fellows of Harvard College, was chartered in 1650 and exercises fiduciary responsibility with regard to the University’s academic, financial, and physical resources and overall well-being. Chaired by the president, the 13-member Corporation is one of Harvard’s two governing boards. Members of Harvard’s other governing board, the Board of Overseers, are elected by holders of Harvard degrees.

Growing up in Afghanistan, Muqtader Omari ’25 loved astrophysics, but the political climate of his country led him on a couple of detours — working as a writer and studying government — before he ultimately returned to his scientific roots to focus on artificial intelligence.

After he graduated from high school in Kabul, Omari launched a nonprofit called Talk Science, which aimed to educate young people on social media platforms. But he soon found education had political dimensions he hadn’t anticipated.

“I started noticing all these limitations that exist and was interested in learning more about where these came from,” said Omari, pointing to the barriers faced by Afghan girls seeking an education under Taliban rule. His curiosity led him to write for a newspaper in Kabul, and eventually to pursue higher education in the U.S.

At Harvard, where he is one of nearly 6,800 international students across the University, Omari opted to concentrate in government and in computer science. Throughout his undergraduate years, he sought to learn more about his birth country as the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan’s government. In 2023, the Adams House resident met lecturer in the Modern Middle East Mohammad Sagha through a course dedicated to regional order, U.S. wars, and the politics of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“What makes Muqtader unique is that while he has a compelling personal story, he never relied on that to solely inform his worldview,” said Sagha. “He’s intellectually rigorous and tries to objectively study and understand Afghanistan, its neighboring environment, U.S. foreign policy, and other factors through a balanced scholarly lens — that is rare to find.”

Sagha added: “He is very passionate about what is happening in his country and is eager to make a difference.”

“I preplanned a lot of my life in high school, and none of it worked out. I’ll let myself decide in the moment. I just hope I’m happy and I’m learning.”

Omari’s early intellectual leanings may have been with Afghanistan, but he was determined to push himself to meet students from all walks of life. About filling out his first-year roommate survey, Omari said, “I didn’t want to be with other international or Middle Eastern students. I wanted it to be as opposing to who I am as possible, because that’s what I thought Harvard was all about.”

He joined the Institute of Politics as a study group leader and the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Committee, where he assisted in the production of nonpartisan dialogues on politics, public service, and other affairs. But halfway through his four years, Omari realized that politics wasn’t for him. Missing the rigidity that science offered, he became fascinated with artificial intelligence.

“It’s mind-boggling to me,” he said. “It feels like we’re reaching a new period of human history.”

Omari’s plans after Harvard are unclear. “I preplanned a lot of my life in high school, and none of it worked out,” he said. “I’ll let myself decide in the moment. I just hope I’m happy and I’m learning.”

Eventually, he hopes to return to Afghanistan, although the political situation is too unstable now, he said. His family, including younger sisters, moved to the U.K. after the Taliban takeover. “I could never feel like I’m at home anywhere else but Kabul,” he said.

Sagha is confident Omari will be successful wherever he lands. “He, alongside other gifted Afghan diaspora, can play a positive role in representing their country and enriching our own society and knowledge here in the United States.” 

When Sophia Hunt found out she had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review in February 2024, she texted her family group chat: “What do Barack Obama and I have in common?”

That commonality of course, was being selected by their peers to lead the nearly 140-year-old student publication that has been influential in shaping American law throughout its history.

“The works that we publish can be read by justices, lawyers, professors, and students and can not only shape the law itself but also shape our orientation about what the law can and should be,” she said.

After she graduates with her Juris Doctorate, Hunt plans to enter the world of criminal defense. Once she passes the bar, that is. Her interest, Hunt said, stems from working for the Office of the Federal Public Defender after her first year of Law School.

“That was a really formative experience,” she said. “It was really nice to be able to put legal research and writing to practice.”

Hunt joined Harvard Defenders, a student practice that provides pro bono representation to low-income defendants in criminal show-cause hearings and assists clients looking to seal their records, among other legal issues.

Hunt also took part in the Tenant Advocacy Project at HLS helping represent clients facing issues such as revocation of Section 8 housing vouchers. She also provided representation and legal research assistance to incarcerated people through the Prison Legal Assistance Project.

In her last year at the Law School, she worked with Harvard’s Criminal Justice Institute.

“That was like being a baby public defender, where I visited clients in jail and stood up in court and wrote motions,” she said. “Sometimes it was just talking and listening to someone’s story and being the first person to hear them. That has been incredibly fulfilling.”

“I just find so much meaning in working and advocating on behalf of individual clients.”

Hunt graduated from Harvard College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in history and literature. From there she headed off to Stanford to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology.

But after three years of research and writing at the intersection of law and society and receiving her master’s, she felt a call to law school and took a leave of absence from her Ph.D. program.

“In the back of my head, I’ve thought — is being a lawyer the best way to help the individuals and communities that I care about? Should I be doing more policy-related work, or should I be thinking about academia and putting new ideas out there and trying to change the law from that standpoint?” she said.

“I just find so much meaning in working and advocating on behalf of individual clients,” she added. “It’s the best feeling, getting to tell their stories, and helping a prosecutor, a judge, see someone’s humanity.”

In addition to her course load and participation in groups that brought her into the courtroom, Hunt said she joined Harvard Law Review in her second year at HLS to “further invest” herself in the Law School community and flex her academic muscles.

Hunt went on to be elected by that community to lead the Law Review as its second-ever Black woman president, after ImeIme Umana, who was elected in 2017.

“Just being in the same sentence as her is a complete privilege,” Hunt said. “It was an honor to be in consideration of all these amazing former presidents, including ones who were Black. But for me, I hope that we’re past the hump of having first and seconds. I hope it’s become more normalized at this point — someone being elected because they’re perceived as being the best person for the job.”

Reflecting on her time in the top spot, Hunt said it was challenging and rewarding but overall not as much an exercise in shaping the voice of the Review as an exercise in management.

“When it comes to editorial decisions, what’s really helpful is that our entire body is involved in the articles that we publish,” she said. “I tried to reflect the body’s will and interest in carrying out those decisions. And getting to work so closely on so many brilliant pieces was just phenomenal.”

Maureen Brady, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, said Hunt’s leadership skills should serve her well during challenging times.

“It’s an incredibly important moment in our world,” said Brady, who teaches property law and related subjects. “There’s so much conflict, and there’s incredible polarization. I think law school is about learning a common language that we can use to argue about things and to deeply disagree, but also to, hopefully, reach justice. Sophia is someone who really embodies that, who has led a wide range of people, and who has pursued a really interesting path here, toward justice.”

After she passes the bar, Hunt plans to clerk for a judge in Mississippi.

“Through law school, you read a bunch of judicial opinions and now to switch over and help in the crafting of judicial opinions … it’s going to be interesting to see things on the other side.”

She added: “I’m excited to eat well and meet a bunch of new people, and I think I have to get into college football.”

The University conferred six honorary degrees during Thursday’s Commencement ceremony.

---

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is known world-wide over as one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the game as well as a committed social activist and award-winning writer. As a player, he was the NBA’s all-time leading scorer for 39 years, with 38,387, until his record was broken in 2023 by fellow Laker great Lebron James. Abdul-Jabbar is a six-time NBA champion, and the league’s only six-time MVP. Time magazine dubbed him “History’s Greatest Player” and ESPN and The Pac 12 named him the No. 1 Collegiate Athlete of the 21st Century.

Abdul-Jabbar has a national platform as a regular contributing columnist for newspapers and magazines around the world. He currently publishes on kareem.substack.com, where he shares his thoughts on some of the most socially relevant and politically controversial topics facing our nation. He is a nationally recognized speaker and regularly appears on the lecture circuit.

President Barack Obama awarded Abdul-Jabbar the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest honor for civilians. He has also received The Ford Medal of Freedom, The Rosa Parks Award, The Double Helix Medal, and Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal of Courage. Abdul-Jabbar holds eight honorary doctorate degrees and is a U.S. Cultural Ambassador, a title created specifically for him by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Abdul-Jabbar is a New York Times bestselling author of 17 books, most of which explore the often-overlooked history of African Americans, from the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance to forgotten Black inventors who changed daily life. He currently has several book and film projects in development.

He is an award-winning documentary producer and was twice nominated for an Emmy. He was featured in HBO’s most watched sports documentary of all time, “Kareem: Minority of One,” and he a writer/producer on Season 5 of “Veronica Mars.”

In 2015, the Basketball Hall of Fame created the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar College Center of the Year Award, and in 2021, the NBA created the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award.

Abdul-Jabbar is the California STEM Ambassador because of his commitment to youth education, and also serves on the Advisory Board for UCLA Health. Now 76 years old, he likes to say, “Only my jersey is retired.”

---

Geologist Richard Alley, widely known as one of the best professors at Pennsylvania State University, is an expert who studies the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to predict coming changes in climate and sea level. A 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner (with Al Gore), he has been honored for research, teaching, and service, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society, and has advised top government officials from both major political parties. 

Educated at Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1987, Alley has authored or co-authored than 400 articles for scholarly publications about the relationships between Earth’s cryosphere and global climate change. His research was the first to show  that the last Ice Age ended abruptly and violently rather than as a result of gradual change, suggesting a warning to look to the past before making environmental decisions for the future.

Alley’s “The Two-Mile Time Machine,” a Phi Beta Kappa science book of the year, focuses not on the long-term changes that may have caused the ice ages, but on newly discovered “flickering” climate changes revealed by drilling through Greenland’s ice. The ice core showed sudden, immense climate shifts that have changed the Earth from livable to inhospitably frozen to unbearably hot.

Alley has warned that the U.N.’s “best estimate” of 3 feet of sea-level rise by the end of this century is misleading: “It could be 2, it could be 15 or 20,” he has said. 

“People who study the history of climate desperately need a record,” he told Knowable Magazine in 2022. “I really do think that this understanding of the ice ages, the role of carbon dioxide, has been a key step in the full understanding of the role of carbon dioxide in our climate.”

Alley participated in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and presented the PBS TV miniseries “Earth: The Operators’ Manual,” based on his book of the same name. In it, he wrote, “Science is not the result of dispassionate machines spitting out Truth; it involves passionate humans pursuing truth and fame and next week’s paycheck, while satisfying curiosity at the same time.”

---

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Chaire, Pauvreté et politiques publiques at the Collège de France. Her research seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim of helping design and evaluate social policies.

Duflo has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment and governance, believing that “Evidence-based policies are the key to solving complex social issues.”

Known for the “Randomista Movement,” which uses randomized control trials to study poverty interventions, Duflo says that without these trials poverty reduction efforts do no more than simply hope for the best. From 2000 to 2012 the number of published economic studies relying on randomized controlled studies nearly quadrupled.

Duflo has written, “If you want to understand the root causes of poverty, you have to lookbeyond the symptoms,” which she defines as a lack of cash. “If we want to fight poverty effectively, we must first understand the lives of the poor.”

Duflo’s first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris. She earned a Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1999.

Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes, including 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (with co-laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer), the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences in 2015, the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize in 2014, the David N. Kershaw Award in 2011, a John Bates Clark Medal in 2010, and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship in 2009. 

With Banerjee, she wrote “Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty,” which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages. She also wrote “Good Economics for Hard Times.”

Duflo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

---

Elaine H. Kim is professor emerita of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was also chair of the Ethnic Studies Department, associate dean of the Graduate Division, faculty assistant for the Status of Women, and assistant dean in the College of Letters and Science.

Questions of who is represented and how are central to Kim’s work. At UC Berkeley, believing that, “If something you want does not exist, you can try to create it,” she helped establish the Ethnic Studies Department.

Kim has written, edited, and co-edited 10 books and directed or produced and co-produced three video documentaries, including  “Labor Women” in 2002 and “Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded” in 2011. She received the Asian Pacific American Heritage Lifetime Achievement Award, the Association for Asian American Studies Lifetime Achievement Award, the State of California Award for Excellence in Education, and the Association for Asian American Studies Cultural Studies Book Award.

Drawn to questions of representation by Hollywood stereotyping (“Very early on, everybody was interested in representation and felt the importance of films and television in our fate. And so all the students could relate to the fact that, for men, there was only Charlie Chan. Bruce Lee wasn’t even a possibility because they wouldn’t let him play in the roles. And then for women, it was just as bad — Madame Butterfly and Dragon Lady,” she told the Cal Alumni Association in 2021), she has worked hard to correct misimpressions of the Korean community in the U.S. and Asians more broadly, though she pointedly dislikes hearing one person speak for an entire group. She has served as president of the Association for Asian American Studies and on the National Council of the American Studies Association. She also co-founded Asian Women United of California, the Korean Community Center of the East Bay in Oakland, and Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.

Kim earlier received an honorary doctorate of laws from Notre Dame University, honorary doctorates in human letters from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Amherst College, the Global Korea Award, and a Fulbright Fellowship.

---

Rita Moreno is a triple-threat performer whose legendary performances include roles as Anita in “West Side Story,” for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Louise in “Carnal Knowledge”; Miller in “The Electric Company” (a role in which she popularized the shout “Hey, you guys!”); Sister Peter Marie Reimondo in “Oz”; and recently, Abuelita Toretto in “Fast X.” She is one of only six women to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

She began her career at 9 years old, dancing in New York City nightclubs, and broke into movies two years later by dubbing Spanish-language films. Her first appearance on stage, opposite Eli Wallach, came in 1945, when she was still 13. She broke into movies in 1950 with “So Young, So Bad” and worked steadily in movies and television throughout that era. Her 43 wins and 51 nominations include honors from the American Latino Media Arts, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, BAFTA, Daytime and Primetime Emmys, Grammy, and NAACP Image awards.

Moreno broke barriers for Latines and others. A social activist, she worked with the Civil Rights Movement and was part of the March on Washington in 1963. She has championed racial, gender, immigration, education (she herself attended Public School 132 in Brooklyn but dropped out of high school at age16), and LGBTQ+ rights, and advocated for relief for Puerto Rico, her homeland.

Acknowledging that she was typecast early in her career, even having her skin darkened for her role in “West Side Story,” she believes she owes her professional longevity to her ability “to get up and dust myself off and keep moving forward.” Moreno has said, “No one’s going to tell me how to make my own choices. For too many years, everybody told me what to say and what to do and how to be.”

She has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honor, the Peabody Award, and the Medal for the National Endowment for the Arts. The 2021 Netflix documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” tells the story of her amazing 85-year Hollywood career.

---

Abraham Verghese is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor in the Department of Medicine, Stanford University. He also leads PRESENCE, a multidisciplinary center that studies the human experience of patients, physicians, and caregivers.

He began his medical training in Ethiopia in 1974, but when a military government deposed Emperor Haile Selassie he immigrated to America and worked as a hospital orderly for a year. He has written that that experience made him determined to finish his medical training. He earned his bachelor’s in medicine in India, completed a residency in Johnson City, Tennessee, and a fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine.

Verghese returned to Johnson City in 1985 and was quickly overwhelmed by the rural AIDS epidemic. To tell that story, he attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, writing in 2009, “I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.”

Since 1991 Verghese has published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and elsewhere. His first book, “My Own Country,” was made into a movie directed by Mira Nair; and his novel, “Cutting for Stone,” spent 107 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. “The Covenant of Water,” his latest, was a New York Times bestseller, an Oprah pick, and is currently being made into a series by Netflix and Harpo Productions.

Verghese is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2015 President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, “For reminding us that the patient is the center of the medical enterprise. His range of proficiency embodies the diversity of the humanities; from his efforts to emphasize empathy in medicine, to his imaginative renderings of the human drama.” In 2023, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. This is his seventh honorary doctorate.

Commencement season is a time to celebrate the achievements of graduates, but behind every individual success is a network of parents, family members, and friends whose unwavering support made each diploma possible — or at least easier. Four families shared their stories — and their pride — on the eve of graduation.

Full circle for family 

Gunjan and Gurmeet Batra journeyed from Denver to celebrate their son, Arjun, who is graduating with a concentration in electrical engineering. 

“It’s a very proud moment for our entire family,” said mom Gunjan in a bustling Harvard Yard on Wednesday. “It’s been lovely having him go through the process and through such a prestigious institution. It’s been wonderful. We’re very proud of him.”

Arjun picked electrical engineering because a professor inspired him, but the decision has a special meaning for his family: His grandfather was also an electrical engineer. 

Arjun said his parents supported him every step of the way. “I’d call them every night and complain about a p-set or complain about a class, and they’d help me get through it. I would call them multiple times a day. Having their support in the background, being there always, has been incredible.” 

Gurmeet said it was a bittersweet moment for his son.

“On one hand, he’s graduating and moving on, exploring new ventures,” he said. “On the other hand, he’s going to miss this. College is the place you build memories. He’s going to miss all this.” 

More than a game

Owen Fanning always knew what he wanted: to play volleyball at a top college.

For mom Carolyn, that meant years of driving him to practice and matches during his high school years in Needham, Massachusetts. 

“Without great support, people don’t typically get here,” said Owen, a physics concentrator and outside hitter for the men’s volleyball team, as he thanked his mom for schlepping him to “all those tournaments.”  

But Carolyn deflected the praise. “He got himself here for sure. We were just there to be the car driver.” 

The Fannings enjoyed coming into Cambridge to watch Owen’s matches. Carolyn said the family will miss those outings but are gratified to see how far Owen has come. 

“This was the dream,” she said. “For us, it was worth every effort we put into it.” 

Alongside the Fannings at Class Day, the Diaks were celebrating their own volleyball success story.

Parents Nikki and Bradley were volleyball players themselves, and soon-to-be-graduate Callum grew up playing the game with them on Lake Ontario near their hometown of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. 

“Without them, I definitely wouldn’t be as passionate as I am about this sport,” Callum said. 

Nikki said she was proud of her son for taking the initiative to apply to Harvard as a foreign student, and that playing on a college team taught him about determination and resilience.

“He’s grown so much personally and education-wise,” she said. “We’re so proud of all he’s learned.” 

‘She could have gone to any university, and she decided to come here’

Sandra Villarreal posed for a photo with daughter Ayleen in front of one of the most recognizable landmarks on campus: the statue of John Harvard.

For Villarreal and husband Sergio, who immigrated from Mexico before Ayleen was born, watching their daughter earn a Harvard degree was a milestone decades in the making. The couple and 15-year-old son Dylan made the trip from El Paso, Texas, to attend Commencement.

“I feel fortunate to have been able to bring my family here and to have been able to give her the opportunity to go to whatever university she wanted and follow her dreams,” Sandra said in Spanish. 

Ayleen spent four and a half years in the U.S. Air Force before coming to Harvard and is graduating with a concentration in government and a secondary in global health and health policy. She plans on working in politics for a few years before going to law school. 

“At Harvard, I found my love for the law,” she said. “I believe that laws, regulations, and policies affect a human being’s everyday life all the way to their biological cells. … I’m very, very thankful for Harvard academics, because I’ve learned a lot in the government department, and I’m very grateful to the professors. I will take everything they gave me and go and keep serving the United States.” 

Ayleen said her path was different than most of her classmates, as a Mexican American, a first-generation student, and a female veteran at the College — at one point, there were only five others. But she hopes her experience will show others that difference is not an insurmountable barrier.

“I want females in my hometown, in El Paso, Texas, or in Texas in general, to know that it is possible to achieve your dreams despite being a minority in the United States,” she said. 

“I feel very, very proud of her for everything she’s done. It’s a very great pride,” her father Sergio said in Spanish. “She took every opportunity. She had a lot of options for university; it wasn’t just one or two. She could have gone to any university, and she decided to come here. We’re very happy with her choice.”

In early 1956, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood next to his bombed-out house in Montgomery, Alabama, and urged angry supporters to recommit to nonviolence, reassuring them that “if anything happens to me, there will be others to take my place.”

On Wednesday, basketball hall of famer, writer, and social justice champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said that he counts Harvard University and President Alan Garber among “the others willing to take Dr. King’s place.” Then he asked the Class of 2025 whether he can count on them.

“When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures the way Rosa Parks defied the entire weight of systemic racism in 1955,” said Abdul-Jabbar, addressing grads during Class Day ceremonies at Tercentenary Theatre. “As I look out over the crowd of eager faces today who are ready to launch their lives of successful careers, I wonder how many of you will also be among the others willing to take Dr. King’s place.”

Abdul-Jabbar’s 20-minute speech was the centerpiece of the two-hour Class Day ceremony, which is hosted by graduating seniors. The event also featured a farewell address from Danoff Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana, who is departing his post after 11 years of service.

Reflecting on his own journey as an undergrad, which took him first to the State University of New York at Binghamton and then to Cornell University, Khurana recalled his time at Cornell as a major turning point — the moment when he stopped trying to be the person others wanted him to be and instead explored who he was, reading deeply and beginning to understand his own values. It was then, he said, that he realized education was more than just memorizing facts and getting good grades, but an experience that helps you appreciate life’s long journey.

In the next chapter of your life, he told students, you will be faced with choices about new jobs and challenges, choices between opportunities that are transformational and those that are merely transactional.

“Wherever you go next, the important question isn’t where you go now, but who you’re going to be,” he said. “May your road be a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.”  

Abdul-Jabbar, who followed up his record-breaking 20-year NBA career by becoming a successful writer, received standing ovations at the beginning and end of his speech. He said that his passion for social justice and civil rights stems from the Cleveland Summit, a meeting organized by a group of Black athletes and activists to interview boxer Muhammad Ali after Ali refused to participate in the Vietnam War draft. The group’s aim was to determine whether Ali’s claim to be a conscientious objector was sincere.

Ali convinced them that he was, but not everyone agreed: He was soon convicted of evading the draft and sentenced to five years in prison, a fine, and a three-year boxing ban. (The Supreme Court would overturn the conviction in 1971.) The episode, combined with King’s assassination, left Abdul-Jabbar shaken, prompting him to turn down an invitation to the 1968 Olympics. Civil rights, he said, felt like “a fading dream.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to become a smiling symbol of the promise of the United States to be a multiracial democracy when it was doing everything it could to not fulfill that promise,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

Choosing justice, Abdul-Jabbar said, usually comes with risk. Sometimes the risk is financial, he said; sometimes it’s physical. In any case, the stakes are always high.

“You have to decide whether you’re part of the old-timey fire brigades passing buckets of water down a long line of people trying to put out a fire or if you’re content to stand by and let it burn,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

And one victory is not enough, he said, urging grads to commit themselves to a lifelong fight.

“It is a never-ending battle that must be fought over and over,” Abdul Jabbar said. “After seeing so many cowering billionaires, media moguls, law firms, politicians, and other universities bend their knees to an administration that is systematically strip-mining the U.S. Constitution, it is inspiring to me to see Harvard University take a stand for freedom.”

In addition to remarks by Abdul-Jabbar, Khurana, and incoming HAA president Will Makris, Class Day included a moment of silence to remember two classmates: Luke Balstad, who died in November 2022, and Ryan Murdock, who died after a brief illness in October. Byron Gonzalez and Talia Levitt received the Richard Glover Ames and Henry Russell Ames Awards, which recognize graduating seniors for unsung service to the community.

Even in the face of near-constant opposition, have the confidence of your convictions and stand up for the truth, Harvard President Alan Garber urged 19 soon-to-be graduates on Wednesday during the annual joint Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commissioning ceremony.

Gathered with loved ones watching in Sanders Theatre, the Army, Air Force, and Navy cadets swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution and were pinned with two gold bars marking their elevation to military officer ranks. Each received their first salute as a newly minted officer from a family member, friend, or mentor chosen for the honor.

In his remarks, Garber recounted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s historic visit to Harvard on Sept. 6, 1943, to accept an honorary degree at a critical juncture of World War II. Churchill had long warned about the danger Adolf Hitler and Germany posed to the world but was met with skepticism and even ridicule “by those who chose to blind themselves to the truth that was unfolding before their eyes,” Garber said.

“Despite being dismissed as paranoid and pushed to the margins, Churchill had the courage to persist, to keep his eyes open and unblinking. His confidence even in the face of near-constant opposition offers a powerful and enduring lesson for anyone who seeks to stand up for the truth,” he said. “I hope that you will carry this lesson with you as you support and defend the Constitution.”

Garber presented a biography of Churchill by William Manchester (“The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940”) to each student and a coin featuring Memorial Hall on one side and on the other, a Veritas shield and 1916 — the year Harvard first welcomed ROTC to campus.

The students will embark on a wide range of duties next. Some will undergo basic officer leader courses at military bases around the country, while others will begin training to become intelligence officers, members of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, pilots, and a missile and nuclear operations officer.

Lt. Gen. Joseph P. McGee of the Army, the keynote speaker and an adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the world is undergoing “significant geopolitical shifts” in Europe, across the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, and that the U.S. military is rapidly evolving to meet the changing landscape.

Many of the graduating students have a STEM education, McGee noted, a critical tool that will become even more essential as AI, drone warfare, nanotechnology, robotics, and cyber are “redefining the future of warfare and what it looks like.”

What hasn’t changed, McGee said, is the diversity of people who make up the military.

“You’re going to join a military community that represents every single element of American society,” he said. “It is still the true melting pot of the United States. Your success is going to depend on hard work, leadership, peer leadership, and your ability to relate to your fellow Americans and have them prevail in the face of daunting challenges.”

As future military leaders, McGee said, “It’ll be your job to bring this unique group of individuals to realize their potential, build cohesive, high-functioning, and lethal teams, and lead them into the future.” United by a sense of common purpose and love of country, “You will all be amazed by what you can accomplish in the years ahead.”

Army grads were Matthew Fitch, Eytan Goldstein, Chloe Hansen, Conner Huey, Morgan Kim, Carly Lehman, Andrew Lim, Matthew Sau, Jack Schwab, and Isaac Tang. Sworn in for the Navy was Jasmine Zhang. Air Force graduates were Sarah (Sally) Barksdale, Caitlin Beirne, Blake Chen, Emily McCallum, Jenny Peters, Elizabeth Sasse, Faith Schmidt, and Charles Whitehead.

Alexandra Petri ’10, formerly a Washington Post columnist, is currently a staff writer for The Atlantic. She won the 2025 Thurber Prize for American Humor for her book “Alexandra Petri’s U.S. History: Important American Documents I Made Up.” 

OK, Harvard graduates. Listen. Many of you want to be doctors and lawyers and researchers and benefit the world in some large way. I’m not talking to you. But the odds are non-zero that somebody currently graduating will be the one guy who makes a ludicrous, cartoonish amount of money and the world worse (that’s zeugma! I was an English concentrator). This is addressed to him, just on the off chance that he is reading the Harvard Gazette. I want to answer the question I am sure is already plaguing him: After the cataclysmic Event happens that unravels society and sends me scurrying to my luxury bunker, how do I keep my guards loyal?

Great question! Let’s dive in.

Okay, you have your luxury bunker with its hydroponic garden, its decontamination chamber, and its secure boundary patrolled by guards. How, once money ceases to be a concept with any relevance to human interactions, do you keep those guards in their place? Remember, before, they were your employees. But now you are alone in your bunker, after the Event! Money no longer matters to them, and they are much stronger than you! Much stronger than anyone! That is why you hired them as guards.

What is it that people do for other people? Make them laugh? Bake them pies? Remember what interests them and ask them about it? Tell stories? Give good foot rubs? Yes! Better!

Oh, you weren’t thinking about that, were you? The special technology you invented to give billionaires a second, bonus set of teeth that descends in front of their original teeth, like a curtain, at the press of a button (I don’t know what billionaires want) may have lined your pockets back in the day, but now you’re alone in that bunker, and you have to justify why you should still be in charge. No algorithms here! No stock exchanges! It’s just you and that strong man you hired, that man whose name is almost certainly Greg (but what if you’re wrong? Can you afford to be wrong? Remember, your money is no good any longer!).

Now it is just you and Greg. You and Greg, and, I hope, his family. You did remember to pick up his family, didn’t you? When you all piled into the helicopter and came rushing here? That’s the first thing I would have recommended.

Society is over. Bang! You created a lot of value for your shareholders, enough value that you were able to commission a yacht too big for even God to lift, have yourself surgically enhanced to look more like the vampire Lestat, and purchase this glorious bunker on a small island. Now large swaths of the planet aren’t livable, for reasons that people would probably say are your fault, if they had survived the Event. You are going to be stuck in this bunker for a while. And unfortunately, your money is no good any longer. Which is a shame because you had such a lot of it! Some of it was even bitcoin. Not that that matters. You can try telling Greg (Is it Greg? Maybe it’s Jeff!) that you have some bitcoin for him and see what he does. Maybe it will make him laugh. Maybe that can be the start of something.

Think hard about your guards! What do they love more than anything in the world? Maybe you can stash some of it in the bunker! But what if it runs out? There’s no way to get more, because society (as previously stated) is over. After you have disposed of the last box of Jeff (Greg?)’s favorite cereal, what will you do? The factory where it used to be made is under the ocean, or possibly being overrun by some sort of Mad Max situation. What it is not doing is making cereal.

Think! Think! What do people love? The warmth of sunshine on their skin? Fresh fruit? The smell of the top of a baby’s head? Doritos? Laughter? Joy? The feeling of being seen? No, no! These answers are all wrong. It needs to be something that you can access after the Event! Something that you can stockpile in advance and store in a vault, to be released at intervals to your guards only if you enter a code that indicates you are still unharmed.

Or, wait. What is it that people do for other people? Make them laugh? Bake them pies? Remember what interests them and ask them about it? Tell stories? Give good foot rubs? Yes! Better! Maybe you can invent a machine that does that and sell access to it in the bunker, using a special coin of your own devising?  

No, never mind, we are back to money again. Remember, money doesn’t exist anymore!

What is the thing that you have to offer others? What about you is worth preserving? Don’t tell me it’s absurd that you should have to justify your worth in this transactional way. Don’t tell me you are valuable simply because you are a human being who exists. I know that. But does Greg (Jeff?)?

Maybe you should have thought about that before you made all that value for shareholders and triggered the Event. You should have thought about that before you let the cereal factory sink under the sea. I am begging you to think about it. 

Failing that, try getting really, really buff.

Grant M. Jones was around 10 years old when he first contemplated becoming a psychologist. A curious child who loved to read and was being raised by his mother, aunt, and grandmother in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, he noted it in his journal.

Later he concentrated in psychology and began practicing meditation to cope with stress as a Harvard undergraduate. Now a doctoral candidate in psychology at Harvard, Jones reflects on how this personal practice became the focus of his professional life.

“Slowly over time, the impact the meditation practice had in my life really made it clear to me that I wanted to center meditation as a core part of not only my personal life, but also my professional life,” said Jones. “Clinical psychology became a practical way to center the study of contemplative practices in my career and to be able to bring those tools to others.”

As part of the research for his dissertation, Jones developed music-based mindfulness interventions that aim to decrease stress and anxiety among underserved populations. Jones, who grew up listening to artists such as Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child, Usher, and Tupac, calls music “one of my first spiritual practices.”

“Like mindfulness, music is a clear conduit toward being present, being centered, being grounded. A lot of people within the Black community, and a lot of people in general, don’t really find mindfulness very compelling or inviting for a lot of reasons. Music is so intuitive. It is a potential vehicle that folks could use to access the practice of mindfulness to heal.”

Inspiration for Jones’ research was nurtured in classes on songwriting and performance that he took with Grammy-award winning jazz musician esperanza spalding, who doesn’t capitalize her name. Spalding, who was professor of the practice in the Music Department from 2018 to 2023, taught courses that helped Jones enhance his singing and songwriting skills. As a result, Jones was invited to be part of spalding’s album “Songwrights Apothecary Lab,” a collaboration between neuroscientists, psychologists, spiritual leaders, and music therapists that was “part songwriting, part guided research,” in spalding’s words, and a testament to her aspiration to heal through music.

In some ways, those courses inspired Jones to produce, as part of his dissertation, music-based mindfulness interventions as method of decreasing stress and anxiety in the Black and other disadvantaged communities. Spalding, Matthew Nock, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, and leading Black Buddhist contemplative Lama Rod Owens, M.Div. ’17, offered mentorship and support throughout his project, but spalding’s influence was crucial, said Jones.

“Esperanza was truly one of the best forces to ever enter into my life. It was like a fairy tale moment where a hero of mine invited me to be a part of a work that was devoted to using research to support the composition of songs with healing practices and intentions. In terms of our personal journeys, there was a lot of overlap.”

In a voice message, spalding credited Jones’ research for “bridging music and mental wellness as therapeutic support tools for people struggling with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges.”

“I deeply appreciate and recognize what a rare combination of qualities it is to have someone who can be very rigorous in the scientific research angle,” said spalding, “and Grant can also bring his poetic and musical sensibility to bridge the gap between those epistemologies, those ways of understanding how our bodies and beings are supported by music.”

Spalding became a musical collaborator in Jones’ dissertation project, which will include an album with music-based mindfulness interventions by Jones and guided meditations from Owens. A release date is in the works.

After graduation, Jones plans to work as a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, but eventually he would like to start his own lab focused on meditation, music, and other contemplative tools, including psychedelics, to help improve mental health and wellness among disadvantaged populations. He sees his work as part of a longstanding belief among African Americans in the healing power of music, a tradition that includes gospel music, freedom songs, the blues, jazz, and rock.

“For Black folks, so many musicians and artists have been influential in holding community and providing a guiding light in dark times for our community,” said Jones. “My work strives to be of service to Blacks but also to any communities that can benefit from it. It is open to anyone who feels supported by music.”

Melissa Shang had planned to become a disability rights attorney and had set her sights on studying sociology on a prelaw track. Once at Harvard, she quickly found a new possibility.

“My whole reason for wanting to go into disability rights law was to be able to support people with disabilities,” said Shang, who has a degenerative nerve disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. “I realized I could do that within the field of psychology.”

Switching her concentration allowed the Waltham, Massachusetts, native to take a deep look at the barriers faced by more than 70 million Americans who report one or more disability. Her senior thesis, which draws upon a deep well of original survey data, tested the hypothesis that experiencing what social scientists call “minority stressors” is associated with increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts for people with disabilities.

Shang argued that the link between minority stressors and suicidal behavior was brought on by “greater perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness.” She also set out to prove that greater “positive disability identity and community engagement” had the power to weaken the effect.

According to thesis adviser Mina Cikara, the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society, Shang identified a “major gap” in the field’s research and literature. “It’s incredibly important work,” Cikara said.

Upon landing at Harvard, Shang immediately set about forging her own campus community. First up was co-launching the Harvard University Disability Justice Club. The officially recognized student group, initiated during Shang’s first semester, has since grown to 140 active members.

“I always thought advocacy work to be a bit of a lonely experience, but being able to have this community has been really powerful,” said Shang.

“I always thought advocacy work to be a bit of a lonely experience, but being able to have this community has been really powerful.”

Melissa Shang

The Leverett House resident subsequently fell in love with the Harvard Noteables, a student-run, non-audition Broadway show choir, after attending a single rehearsal her first year.

“Then I went to more rehearsals, and I realized that it was an accepting space and so different from the environment that I was exposed to back at my high school,” Shang said. “The sense of inclusion, accessibility, and community that this club brought — that allowed me to rekindle my passion for singing — has been really incredible.”

In the classroom, Shang’s early years were spent seeking answers to important questions within the field of disability studies. “I started learning more about what the mental health system was for people with disabilities and how inaccessible it could be,” Shang explained. “It can be extraordinarily difficult to find providers who are disability-informed, and many people are denied mental health services because of their disability needs.”

She also learned how little attention the problem has received from academics. “When I looked into the research that’s been done about systemic barriers for people with disabilities, I found very little to no research about it,” she recalled.

As a sophomore, Shang enrolled in Cikara’s research methods course. It proved to be a pivotal decision. The course introduced Shang to Cikara’s work, which later helped Shang identify a set of minority stressors to investigate in her thesis, including discrimination, internalized stigma, and identity concealment.

Cikara initially counseled Shang against her “incredibly grand plan” of reaching out to various disability organizations for help distributing surveys to those they serve. But Shang could not be dissuaded. In the end, the strategy enabled her to survey hundreds of Americans with disabilities about their mental health experiences.

“This is a testament to her character,” Cikara observed. “She just did it. She pounded the pavement over and over again. She collected over 200 responses from people all over the country, many of whom have a wide variety of disabilities. That was no small feat.”

Ultimately, Shang’s findings only somewhat supported her theory that stigma experienced by people with disabilities relates to suicidal behavior. Shang noted that “internalized stigma” was one factor that was found to be associated with suicidal behavior. But the project still marks an essential contribution, Cikara said.

“What she’s done is seed the field with this incredible pilot dataset which she could spend years building,” she said.

Shang’s next chapter brings her to a clinical psychology doctorate program at Oregon State University. She plans to continue researching people with disabilities, their encounters within the mental health system, and the many barriers they face.

“Because people with disabilities are so valuable in society,” Shang said, “it’s important to keep conducting research that gauges their experiences and mental health — and to make an active effort to better support them and improve the way they’re treated.”

When Lilian Smith left Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to attend Harvard, she was eager for new experiences and a fresh start in a bigger city. She didn’t expect to ever look back. But during her junior year, a religion course on nationalism prompted her to re-examine her hometown from a new perspective.

“I didn’t learn much about it growing up,” Smith said, “but I feel it’s a history that could really benefit people in the town — so as to not repeat history. It’s important to talk about things that make people uncomfortable sometimes.”

Smith, a history concentrator with a secondary in chemistry, wrote her senior thesis on the establishment of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, a grassroots organization that has been instrumental in the fight against white supremacy in Idaho. It started as a group of concerned citizens who came together in opposition to the Aryan Nations, a neo-Nazi, white supremacist hate group that was headquartered just outside her hometown from 1978 to 2000.

Smith’s interest in the topic began in “Religion and Nationalism in the United States,” a course with Catherine Brekus, Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America.

“From the very beginning, when Lilian first considered doing a project about Coeur d’Alene, she has been absolutely fearless,” said Carleigh Beriont, assistant director of undergraduate studies for the Committee on the Study of Religion, who advised Smith’s thesis. “Willing to dig into the darker recesses of the past to better understand why and how ideologies like that promoted by the Aryan Nations continue to resonate in her home community, happy to sit down with anybody and everybody who might have a story to tell, regardless of their political ideology or party affiliation. She has been resolute in her desire to portray Coeur d’Alene and its residents with nuance and care, challenging national media portrayals of her community and underscoring how shallow portrayals of the region have served as a draw for white supremacists.”

“From the very beginning, when Lilian first considered doing a project about Coeur d’Alene, she has been absolutely fearless.”

Carleigh Beriont

Smith did research in the archives of North Idaho College and Gonzaga University, and conducted formal interviews with locals, including the town’s former mayor, former and current members of the Task Force on Human Relations, leaders at the Human Rights Education Institute, a former member of the Aryan Nations, a police officer, an FBI agent, and a Republican Party leader in Kootenai County.

Her thesis describes how the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations grew from a few concerned citizens into a unified front of businesses, schools, churches, law enforcement, and politicians, working together to stop the spread of hate in the community. They offered victim support to residents who experienced religious or race-based harassment or violence from the Aryan Nations, advocated for state laws against malicious harassment, and raised $35,000 for human rights organizations during an Aryan Nations parade.

“Silence gives consent” became one of their biggest slogans, Smith said.

“These people really care about this work,” Smith said. “Many of these leaders saw the best in people in a way that I might not have, and that really shifted my perspective on my town.”

Even after Aryan Nations was bankrupted by a lawsuit in 2000 and vacated their property near Coeur d’Alene, the Task Force and its sister organization, the Human Rights Education Institute, continued to promote human rights more broadly, through education and diversity programming, awareness events, an annual human rights banquet, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.

Even so, Smith’s research showed how national media narratives have continued to portray her hometown as a haven for intolerance. She believes this had a self-fulfilling prophecy effect, attracting an influx of residents who are now pushing back against the work of the Task Force.

“One of the themes of my thesis is the powerful role media narratives play in shaping the evolution of towns,” Smith said. “The town that exists today is not the town that existed in the ’70s, and it’s made the work of the Task Force and the Human Rights Education Institute increasingly difficult.”

On campus, Smith also worked in Roy G. Gordon Professor of Chemistry Eugene Shakhnovich’s biophysics lab, led tours for the Admissions Office, and served on the business board of The Crimson. She also founded Harvard Undergraduate SWAN, a nonprofit for students pursuing careers in public service.

After commencement, Smith will move to Washington, D.C., to pursue her longtime dream of becoming a teacher with the Teach for America corps.

Her feelings about not returning to Coeur d’Alene after commencement are complicated. Through her thesis research, Smith grew increasingly concerned about America’s deepening political polarization — fueled, she believes, by a trend of people moving to areas that better align with their political values, reinforcing ideological echo chambers.

“This is a national trend that young people are leaving their hometowns when they feel their values don’t align,” Smith said. “Many don’t return to reinvest in their communities. It’s really concerning.”

Nearly every Coeur d’Alene resident Smith interviewed for her thesis asked if she planned to return home after graduation. While she is excited for her next chapter in Washington, D.C., Smith said she couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt each time she told them no. “That pushed me to think more critically about the fact that I was leaving and consider the possibility of returning someday,” Smith said. “It’s disheartening that so many people tend to leave rather than stay and work to address the issues impacting their community. Realizing the strength of those who’ve remained in the community for so long gave me a deep respect for them.”

In celebration of the city of Cambridge and of the country’s oldest university, neighboring churches and institutions will ring their bells in recognition of Harvard’s 374th Commencement.

For the 38th year the bells will begin to ring at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, just after the sheriff of Middlesex County declares the Commencement Exercises adjourned. They will ring for approximately 15 minutes.

Bells of varying tones hold a place in history, as they summoned students from sleep to prayer, work, or study. The deep-toned bell in the Memorial Church tower, for years the only bell to acknowledge the festival rites of Commencement, will be joined by the set of bells cast to replace the original 17-bell Russian zvon of Lowell House that was returned in 2008 to the Danilov Monastery near Moscow. The Harvard Business School bell will be heard across the river. The historic 13-bell “Harvard Chime” of Christ Church Cambridge, the Harvard Divinity School bell in Swartz Hall, and the bells of the Church of the New Jerusalem, First Church Congregational, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, First Baptist Church, St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, University Lutheran Church, Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church, and St. Anthony’s Church will ring for the graduates.

Bells were already in use at Harvard in 1643 when “New England’s First Fruits,” published in London that year, set forth some College rules: “Every Schollar shall be present in his tutor’s chambers at the 7th houre in the morning, immediately after the sound of the bell … opening the Scripture and prayer.”

Three of the 15 bells known to have been in use in Massachusetts before 1680 were hung within the precincts of the present College Yard, including the original College bell and the bell of the First Parish Church.

Of the churches participating in the joyful ringing on Commencement Day one, the First Parish, has links with Harvard that date from its founding. The College had use of the church’s bell, Harvard’s first Commencement was held in the church’s meetinghouse, and one of the chief reasons for selecting Cambridge as the site of the College was the proximity of this church and its minister, the Rev. Thomas Shepard, a clergyman of “marked ability and piety,” according to the late Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

Another church ringing its bells in celebration is Christ Church Cambridge. The oldest church in the area, it houses the “Harvard Chime,” the name given to the bells cast for the church in anticipation of its 1861 centennial. Two fellow alumni and Richard Henry Dana Jr., author of “Two Years Before the Mast,” arranged for the chime’s creation. The 13 bells were first rung on Easter Sunday, 1860: each bell of the Harvard Chime bears in Latin a portion of the “Gloria in Excelsis.”

Referring in 1893 to the Harvard Chime, Samuel Batchelder wrote, “From the outset the bells were considered as a common object of interest and enjoyment for the whole city, and their intimate connection with the University made it an expressed part of their purpose that they should be rung, not alone on church days but also on all festivals and special occasions of the College, a custom which has continued to the present time.”

The old Russian bells of Lowell House, in place for 76 years, rang on an Eastern scale; the more newly cast bells give out a charming sound, as do the bells of the Cambridge churches joining in concert. A thoughtful student of bells wrote in 1939, “… church bells, whether they sound in a tinkling fashion the end of the first watch in the dead of night, announce the matins a few hours later, or intone the vespers or angelus, have a peculiar fascination. Chimes affect the heartstrings …”

Reaching the tiny settlement, located deep within the Amazon rainforest, required several hours of travel by river boat.

“When we finally got there, we were immediately greeted by the mayor,” recalled Eduardo Vasconcelos ’25, who reached the far-flung municipality as a volunteer delivering medical supplies during the pandemic. “He took us to see the public school and the public health facility, all of which was managed locally. I was just mesmerized. I thought, ‘Wow! This is the most fascinating experiment in self-governance I’ve ever seen.’”

The encounter stuck with the double concentrator in economics and government, stirring old passions and eventually shaping his senior thesis. Vasconcelos set out to investigate what prevents elected officials like the one he met from falling in with illegal gold miners. Brazil’s federal government has banned these black-market operators, who rely on a process that pumps the environment with toxins. But the miners have proven effective at enlisting cooperation from some of the rainforest’s secluded local powers.

“People tend to look at policy in the Amazon as something that is determined by national administrations,” said Frances Hagopian, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government and one of three faculty advising the thesis. “There are those who are more protective of the environment and there are those who lean more toward developing the Amazon’s resources. What Eduardo did that was different was look below the level of national government.”

Vasconcelos, who grew up amid a family of civil servants in Brazil’s federal capital of Brasília, was interested in government from a young age. He was just 14 years old when he started working with teen trauma survivors. A wave of violent threats against the country’s public schools later inspired him to co-found Jovens Líderes pela Paz (Young Peacebuilders), a nonprofit that trains Brazilian students in de-escalation and advancing mental health supports.

Vasconcelos also worked on education issues as a government volunteer while still in high school. During his senior year, a federal scholarship enabled his first visit to Cambridge for the Harvard Model United Nations program. “I immediately fell in love with the institution,” he recalled.

At the time, then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was actively freezing public funding for universities while taking shots at certain humanities and social science disciplines. “That really motivated me to try to come,” said Vasconcelos, whose application was supported by the Jorge Paulo Lemann Fund. “It would allow me to study what I love.”

“When we talk about protecting the rainforest, we don’t always think about how we can better support local governments.”

Eduardo Vasconcelos

As a College first-year, he made his first trip to the rainforest with the nonprofit G10 Favelas, which transported medical supplies to Brazil’s small communities during the pandemic. Inspired by the responsive democracy he saw practiced in a remote Amazon outpost, Vasconcelos subsequently landed spots on two immersions in the region organized by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS).

“I feel like the Amazon is what bonds every Brazilian together,” Vasconcelos said, noting that Brazilian Chief Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, helped him home in on the rainforest as a research focus. “I see an opportunity to rediscover our sense of identity in the Amazon’s conservation and its future.”

Vasconcelos learned that illegal gold mining, on the rise since the early 2000s, contributes not only to deforestation and CO₂ rise. The extractors’ reliance on mercury and cyanide, used to isolate gold from river sentiment, contaminates water and air alike. Widespread mercury poisoning, with its devastating harms to the human nervous system, has been found in corners of the rainforest where unlawful mining is prevalent.

“He became very interested in why some local governments seem to allow this and others don’t,” said Hagopian. “And it turned out that the answer was not as simple as, some municipalities have the gold and others don’t.”

Vasconcelos kicked off his research project by indexing the influence of criminal mining interests over local governments. He focused on 50 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Pará, home to more than half of all illegal gold mining in the Amazon, finding some level of capture in 13. Advising the thesis with Hagopian were Government Professor Steven Levitsky, a Latin America expert, and Rio de Janeiro native Marcia Castro, a demography professor at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In search of deeper understanding, Vasconcelos next turned to assessing a host of political variables in each municipality. “Most political scientists and economists who study illicit economic activity assume that it flourishes where states are weak,” Hagopian explained. “What’s interesting about what Eduardo found is that it’s not the weakest local governments that play host to a lot of this activity. It’s actually local governments with some capacity.

“They have enough trained bureaucrats to give legal license to mine on land reserved for environmental protection or Indigenous nations,” she continued. “They have enough resources to build new infrastructure.”

Instead, one-party rule emerged as the most predictive factor. “The specific result shows us that when there is more diversity of parties, we see a lower likelihood of gold miners running for election or funding campaigns,” Vasconcelos explained, pointing to Brazil’s diverse political landscape with more than 30 parties.

In a separate chapter, the Kirkland House resident and former World Bank intern went deep on the social impacts of this brand of corruption. He found that rates of deforestation doubled in the Amazon’s captured municipalities, while these communities saw decreased investment in education and public health.

“We also see war-level homicide rates — the highest in the country,” Vasconcelos added. “Our data show that this is not a sustainable economic activity. It doesn’t bring better quality of life for the local population.”

The bottom line, he concluded, is that local government is the first line of defense against a profoundly damaging industry. DRCLAS awarded Vasconcelos its 2025 Kenneth Maxwell Thesis Prize on Brazilian Studies this week.

“When we talk about protecting the rainforest, we don’t always think about how we can better support local governments,” said Vasconcelos, a Schwartzman Scholar who will move to Beijing this summer for a one-year, fully funded master’s program in global affairs at Tsinghua University. “I’d like to see more research looking at this intersection.”

Dozens of graduating scholars elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society gathered in Sanders Theatre Tuesday morning.

They were called to order by Karen Thornber, president of the University’s chapter of the venerated honor society, the Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature, and professor of East Asian languages and civilizations.

Thornber noted that students are elected, not merely for their near-spotless GPAs, but for their “depth and breadth” as scholars.

And she set a tone for the two-hour ceremony: commending the more than 200 elected students for this “tremendous honor,” then charging them with a responsibility to “continue your love of learning [and] inspire others to do the same.”

In prayer and oration, poetry and song, the event also acknowledged the troubled moment — notably, the University’s ongoing conflict with the Trump administration.

As he blessed the event, the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, invoked “a spirit of bravery.” And in a hymn with lyrics drawn from Langston Hughes, the Harvard University Choir enjoined graduates “to sit and learn about the world / Outside our world of here and now / Our problem world.”

Seated on the theater’s floor, the graduating members formed a cosmopolitan group: Over their gowns, many sported saris and hijabs, regalia from racial and ethnic affinity groups, and sashes marking home countries from Thailand to Brazil.

On stage were the officers of Harvard’s chapter and the three members of faculty who’d been awarded the chapter’s annual teaching prizes: Remo Airaldi in Theater, Dance & Media, Samantha Matherne in philosophy, and Steven Levitsky in government.

In keeping with traditions that stretch back to John Quincy Adams and Alfred Kazin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Elizabeth Bishop, this year’s newly elected members heard from both a poet and an orator.

The poet was Arthur Sze — the son of Chinese immigrants who first dropped calculus for verse in a lecture hall at MIT over 50 years ago. Against his parents’ better judgment, Sze went on to Berkeley, a National Book Award for Poetry in 2019, and being honored as the first poet laureate of his adoptive hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In brief remarks, Sze called on the graduates to take risks and to attend to the interconnectedness — to neighbors and nature — at the heart of his own poetry. Of juxtaposition, Sze said, it “is more than mere artistic technique,” but “a vision of how to share our world.”

Reading his 2021 poem “Farolitos,” Sze sought to prepare his audience for the setbacks and wrong turns that are sure to mark their lives off-campus:

in this life, you may try, try
to light a match, fail,

fail again and again; yet, letting go, you strike
a tip one more time

when it bursts into flame —

Meanwhile, this year’s oration was delivered by Rakesh Khurana in one of his last acts as the longest-serving dean of Harvard College.

After 11 years leading the college, Khurana — who has dual appointments in sociology and at the Business School — warned that Harvard and other elite universities have a role to play in overcoming a “legitimacy crisis” now facing them.

“[Even] if we teach values of equity, selective institutions are seen as gatekeepers of privilege — hoarding opportunities rather than extending them,” Khurana said. And too often, he added, graduates of exclusive schools fail to use their capacities “in the best interests of the broader society.”

As he wrapped up an address once delivered by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Khurana contemplated the weightier meanings of the University’s motto: veritas.

In a time of deep division, where “confidence substitutes for understanding [and] complexity is flattened by outrage,” Khurana said that “truth — veritas — emerges slowly. It demands humility, skepticism, and the willingness to revise one’s views.”

Khurana cited his own work on efforts to foster “intellectual vitality” at the College as an effort to show veritas in action, as well as President Alan Garber’s resistance to federal demands. (Garber, who was seated onstage, drew a standing ovation at Khurana’s mention.)

As the event wound down, students and their families spilled into the transept of Memorial Hall to take photos and exchange greetings with classmates.

Nicolás Domínguez Carrero, one of the chapter’s four undergraduate marshals, found Khurana’s speech — and the ovation for Garber — “very moving.”

“I feel very proud to be a PBK scholar, and a Harvard student, at this moment,” he said, flanked by family from both Texas and Colombia. “I think Harvard’s doing an amazing job standing up for academic freedom and democracy, writ large. It is a time of crisis, but if there’s an institution that can weather this storm, it’s Harvard.”

Meanwhile, Levitsky, author of the bestsellers “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority,” was humbled by his teaching award.

But, he added, “The most wonderful thing about the ceremony was sitting on stage, watching the faces of the students. In this age of cynicism, I was blown away by how absorbed, how sincere they were… It really renewed my faith.”

In his second Baccalaureate address, Harvard President Alan Garber stressed to the Class of 2025 the importance of education, and those who impart it, for advancing knowledge.

“The best way to acknowledge Harvard — and what this time has meant to you — is to advocate for education,” Garber told students gathered at Tercentenary Theatre on Tuesday afternoon. “Everything we might achieve — morally, scientifically, technologically, and even economically — is grounded in knowledge. Where else are you more likely to find a path to knowledge and all that it unlocks for humanity than in education?”

Garber’s address capped this year’s interfaith ceremony celebrating undergraduates, a tradition dating back to Harvard’s first Commencement in 1642. The president’s plea to stand up for education comes amid funding cuts to the University by the federal government that will affect research across disciplines, including medicine and Garber’s area of expertise — economics.

In his speech, Garber — who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1976 — took a moment to thank the educators in his life who led him to his career path, and he urged the soon-to-be graduates to do the same. In particular, he made note of his resident tutor in Dunster House, Jerome Culp, who told him to switch his concentration from biochemistry to economics.

“That conversation with him changed my life. I still think about it all these years later. Who inspired you? Who gave you the attention and gentle nudging you needed exactly when you needed it? Who kindled your true ambition? Send that note that you have been meaning to send to a mentor who meant more to you than they might realize.”

Throughout the ceremony, faith leaders from across the University congratulated the Class of 2025, and blessed their future endeavors. And, like Garber, a few of the speakers chose to honor the past.

“If you are here today, it’s because you are descended from people from around this globe who have survived deprivations and immigrations and persecutions and liberations, just so you could sit here on this Yard today,” said the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church.

He continued, “You are the answer to your ancestors’ hopes and prayers. You are their dreams come true. It’s not just the past that lives in you — the future does too, because you have your own hopes and dreams and wishes and visions of all that you might be and all that you will become from this point forward.”

The Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, a retired physician and the current Swartz Resident Practitioner in Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School, also reflected on the influence of generations previous, noting marked differences from her own graduation from Harvard College in 1972.

“The relative diversity of your class compared to ours is a compelling indicator that we have been faithful to our callings,” she said. “And because the struggle continues, I want you to know that we are not here to pass our torches to you. Yes, we are old, but no, we are not dead. We are here to stoke the fire of your torch.”

Garber closed out by wishing one final good luck to students before Commencement on Thursday.

“May these final 44 hours, give or take some minutes, be filled with opportunities to celebrate how far you have traveled since your arrival. You have done so much. Rest on your laurels, but not for too long. The world, with its countless magnificent destinations, awaits you.”

On Thursday, three graduating students selected in a University-wide competition will deliver speeches at Tercentenary Theatre — one of the oldest of Harvard’s Commencement traditions.

The student orators are Yurong “Luanna” Jiang, a graduating master’s student at the Harvard Kennedy School who will deliver the Graduate English Address; Aidan Scully, a graduating senior who will deliver the Latin Salutatory; and Thor Reimann, also a senior, who will deliver the Senior English.

---

Growing up in Qingdao, China, Jiang realized that education was a way to change the trajectory of her life. And it did.

High test scores earned her a full scholarship to a high school in Cardiff, Wales. She attended Duke University for her undergraduate education and will represent Harvard Kennedy School as the University’s Graduate Orator.

One of her friends had the same early understanding about education. But while Jiang had plenty of time to study, her friend — the daughter of fishmongers — had to help before and after school at her parents’ shop.

“It’s almost like you’re standing at a railway,” Jiang said, “and you know you have to hop off. Otherwise, your life will always be the same.” Jiang’s path shifted, and her friend’s didn’t.

The disparity got Jiang thinking about a question that would guide her educational journey: “What does it mean to have equality, fairness, and social justice?”

In Cardiff, where Jiang arrived not knowing English, she became interested in economics. “I trace it back to middle school,” she said. “When you see those hardships, why do they happen? What would the solution be?”

She continued studying economics at Duke and became increasingly interested in philosophy and politics, reading the work of thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and William L. Rowe. To Jiang, economics felt like learning to drive a car, and philosophy felt like learning where to take it.

She also hosted a boxing club, having learned the sport growing up. Despite standing at around 5 feet, 3 inches tall, Jiang often prepared for competitions by sparring with men.

“It strengthens your character,” she said. “You have to look at them eye-to-eye and not be scared — because if you close your eyes, you cannot block the punch you can’t see, and you cannot hit a target you cannot see.” 

Jiang worked in private-sector finance after Duke, thinking she might become an economist, but she felt the work was too far removed from the people she wanted to serve. The instinct brought her to the Kennedy School’s two-year M.P.A./I.D. program in international development.

She joined a class of 77 students from 34 countries. As she arrived, she writes in her address, “the countries I knew only as colorful shapes on a map turned into real people — with laughter, dreams, and the perseverance of surviving the long winter in Cambridge.”

She found her fellow students as idealistic as she was about supporting communities across the world — and one another on campus. When classmates lost loved ones or went through other tough experiences, friends from the program came to their aid, making sure they were eating and were not lonely.

“It makes us realize that this kind of empathy or human connection is beyond the countries,” she said.

She also continued studying philosophy, taking a class, and later a tutorial, with Arthur Isak Applbaum, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values. Reading philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s thoughts on recognizing the humanity of those very different from himself helped inspire her, more than 400 years later, to write her own reflection on the topic.

In her speech, Jiang encourages people to listen to one another without judgment, looking for shared beliefs rather than conflict.

“If we still believe in a shared future,” she writes, “let’s not forget: Those we label as enemies, they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own.”

---

When your father is a high-school Latin teacher, “The Aeneid for Boys and Girls” is bedtime story material. At least, that was the case for Scully.

“The story was not in Latin,” he clarified, “but I had ancient history stories floating around from pretty early on.”

When it came time to choose a language at nearby Taunton High School, he remembers his father joking that he was allowed to study whichever one he wanted — as long as it was Latin.

Fortunately, Scully loved it.

“From day one,” he said, “I was hooked.” He took every Latin class the school offered, and when he was done, he continued independent study courses with his Latin teacher, Jessica Ouellette.

With her support, he worked toward publishing a translation of the first poem in Ovid’s “Amores,” from 16 B.C. Though others had translated the text before, he wanted to preserve its original metric playfulness.

“You can read Latin, and it can be an intellectual thing,” he said. “But I think trying to make poetry accessible to people in the way that it would have been 2,000 years ago bridges history in a way that is really exciting.”

Scully, a resident of Adams House, planned to concentrate in classics and government but realized his interests better aligned with a joint concentration in classics and religion. From sophomore year on, he split the bulk of his academic work studying the relationship between politics and religion in the ancient world and how they shape the modern U.S.

His former area of interest led to his thesis about how Romans in Late Antiquity balanced their Roman and Christian identities. While most people accept today that one can embrace both a religious and national identity, many Romans found this inconceivable.

“People at this time are trying to make sense of the fact of, ‘Well, if I am Roman and I am Christian, what does that mean? How are the two different? How do I make sense of the parts where it doesn’t seem like I can be both?’”

He found those fundamental questions relevant to the modern relationship between religion and government in the U.S. While mainstream U.S. history highlights religion’s impact on certain eras — The Great Awakening, the Civil Rights Movement — Scully studied its persistent presence over time.

Learning about evangelicalism and the landscape of Protestantism in the U.S. while studying ancient analogues fascinated Scully.

“This is the intersection I want to work at,” he said, “seeing what comparisons I can draw that maybe people haven’t thought to put in the conversation.”

His studies also affected how Scully approached his own faith and community service.

“Every work of religious scholarship begins with something like, ‘We don’t really know what religion is,’” Scully said, smiling. “It’s not easy to provide a definition that isn’t just a list of examples.” He finds that lack of certainty — and expansive approach — helpful in his volunteer work with queer interfaith communities.

“The lines we’re drawing are almost always arbitrary and usually based on at least one misconception,” he said. “Thinking critically about that leads to more inclusive activism.”

Besides introducing Scully to age-appropriate epics in childhood, Scully’s father, Christopher, also provided an example to Scully in a different way: He was Harvard’s Latin Orator in 1994. Family legend has it that his grandmother showed up not knowing that his father was about to deliver a Commencement address.

This time, though, Scully’s parents will know. He credits his mother, who graduated from Harvard as Elisa Leone in 1996 with a degree in social anthropology, for holding him accountable to reach the goals he set for education, and his life.

“I’ve been truly extremely fortunate to have a family that’s been so supportive of me doing a thing that’s kind of obscure and not, you know, employable,” he said. “The fact that things seem to be working out so far is a testament to them.”

---

Reimann was born and raised in Apple Valley, Minnesota, with parents who encouraged him and his two older siblings to pursue their own interests. It took each on a different path: His sister is a nurse; his brother is a nuclear submarine officer with the U.S. Navy; and Reimann hopes to attend law school and practice environmental law.

As a first-year, though, Reimann’s vision wasn’t quite so clear. In high school, he said, “I loved every subject.” He trusted that he’d find his way to a fulfilling academic experience and, as one of the only openly queer students from his high school, “the personal space to fully explore who I was,” he writes in his English Oration.

At first, Reimann, a resident of Mather House, thought he might concentrate in history and literature or social studies, which would allow him to take a broad range of classes. A general education course he took freshman year shifted his trajectory: “Life and Death in the Anthropocene.”

The course, taught by Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science, encouraged Reimann to think about climate change and environmental problems from a range of academic and personal perspectives.

“They really touch every aspect of human life that’s out there,” he said. “I found myself constantly thinking about it when I would leave class.”

A lover of nature who would go on to join the steering committee for the First-Year Outdoors Program, Reimann decided to pursue a joint concentration in environmental science and public policy and comparative religion. Though he appreciated the technocratic element of environmental studies, the added focus on religion helped him balance policy with a big-picture idea of what he was trying to protect in the first place.

With guidance from Terry Tempest Williams, the Harvard Divinity School writer-in-residence, Reimann developed a deep interest in conservation. His joint major, and his conservation interest, sparked his senior thesis on Bears Ears National Monument, a federally protected area in southeastern Utah.

One of the most culturally dense landscapes in the U.S., the federal monument contains artifacts from different Native American tribes dating back thousands of years. Reimann was interested in how political organizing across different tribes that described the area as “sacred” helped earn it federal protection in 2016 — and how the same idea of “sacredness” was used by different groups to reduce its size the following year.

“The government just doesn’t have the right policy tools to be able to create space to talk about these claims,” he said.

Just as his thesis can be traced to first-year discoveries, so too can his speech. The title, “This World is Not Conclusion,” is borrowed from an Emily Dickinson poem that he read during a first-year seminar.

“I was having this big moment of, ‘Oh gosh, what am I going to do? How do I think about this opportunity?’” said Reimann. “And I think a lot of the poem is about how the circumstances of the day that you’re in right now are going to change. There’s going to be something that comes next.”

He felt especially struck by the final two lines of the poem: “Narcotics cannot still the Tooth / That nibbles at the soul —”

“You can have a lot of money or you can have a lot of power,” Reimann said, “but still, the tooth is going to nibble — so you better listen.”

The poem helped him be comfortable letting his curiosities guide him as he started his undergraduate experience. It also helped him process its conclusion.

“In this time when there’s a lot of uncertainty and fear, I think it can be reassuring that there is something coming next, and we have the agency to go and be a part of creating that,” he said. “It’s not just an end. New things are beginning.”

First-year Ph.D. students at the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences studying in Harvard Medical School’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program are facing an unprecedented challenge as they begin a process that will soon lead to one of the most consequential decisions in their careers: finding the right lab and mentor for their research.

“I’m supposed to be choosing labs, but all of the labs I’m talking to and rotating in, they have no idea what the funding situation is, if they can take students, if they have money for our salaries or the projects we want to do,” said Jason Biundo, a first-year doctoral student. “It feels disappointing.”

The University has been buffeted in recent weeks by a series of Trump administration moves to halt or cut federal research funds, beginning on April 15 when the administration announced it would freeze $2.2 billion in grants. In response, Harvard has filed suit, arguing the government’s actions and demands violate federal law and the University’s First Amendment rights.

Harvard is not the only institution of higher education in the nation losing federal research funds. The administration has targeted at least two dozen others and made at least $11 billion in cuts. Scientists say the losses threaten to upend the government-higher education partnership that has led to medical breakthroughs that saved millions of lives and launched numerous companies in the post-war period.

An integral part of that innovation ecosystem involves ensuring a steady pipeline of up-and-coming researchers.

Graduate students are “the engines in our labs that are generating all these new ideas and all this data,” said Beth Stevens, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. “Their salaries are covered by federal funds. It’s so fundamentally important: the ability to recruit amazing talent, keep amazing talent, and then support them in the next phases of their careers where they’re going to apply for grants. It’s the way we do it.”

Ph.D. students doing work in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) program typically spend their first year rotating between labs, both “auditioning” for long-term research positions and doing their own assessments: Is it a good cultural fit? Would the principal investigator be a good mentor for their personality and career goals? Would they be able to do the kind of research they’re passionate about? By the third year of the program, students’ salaries should be covered by a combination of their own federal grants and work they do to assist their PIs on the PIs’ grants. 

Biundo plans to study spinal cord injuries, a topic that’s deeply personal to him: When he was an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he suffered a serious spinal cord injury that left him partially paralyzed.

“Recently one of the best funders of spinal cord injury research, the Department of Defense’s [Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs], had its funding cut. It was about $40 million, a third of all spinal cord injury funding,” Biundo said. “I think it was already an underfunded condition to begin with, with such a large patient population, and to see that is really disheartening for the future of spinal cord research.”

Postdoc Cherish Taylor fears her funding will be terminated at the end of the current funding cycle because the program falls under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.

The funding uncertainty isn’t just impacting doctoral candidates. Cherish Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher studying environmental risk factors for the onset, progression, and severity of psychiatric disorders, has been funded by the NIH Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience Award (D-SPAN). The program supported graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from diverse backgrounds, including groups that have been under-represented in neuroscience. 

“People of color, even to some extent women, but less so nowadays, and certainly people in the LGBTQ community, we are minorities within the STEM field. You may be the only person that looks like you in your program, in your department. Having this type of grant program is nice for remembering that you aren’t actually the only person who looks like you in the field.” 

Taylor fears her funding will be terminated at the end of the current funding cycle because the program falls under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion programming, which has been a target of the current administration.

“My PI has repeatedly assured me that she will do whatever she can to provide funding for me,” Taylor said. “But it still doesn’t remove that emotional burden of knowing your peers are not in the same place, people you know and care about and want the best for.”

Harvard President Alan Garber announced on May 14 that the University is dedicating $250 million of central funding to support research affected by suspensions and cancellations. 

“We stand behind our thousands of outstanding faculty, postdoctoral, staff, and student researchers,” Garber said. “Together they continue to make revolutionary discoveries, cure illness, deepen our understanding of the world, and translate that understanding into impact and invaluable teaching and mentorship that will produce the next generation of leading scientists and innovators. It is crucial for this country, the economy, and humankind that this work continues.”

Some labs may be able to support junior researchers through philanthropic funding, industry partnerships, or operational adjustments. But uncertainty remains.

“At the beginning of the year, things felt like, you’re starting a new Ph.D. program, and you have a very bright future ahead,” said Biundo. “And then you’re hit with the uncertainty of this career path as a whole.” 

Had it not been for wildfires, Rupen Dajee may never have gone to graduate school.

They’re a seasonal occurrence in his home state of California, where he was a firefighter-paramedic before coming to Harvard Kennedy School and MIT’s Sloan School of Management to complete a dual M.P.A./M.B.A. degree program. He’ll graduate from the Kennedy School this week.

After college, Dajee became a licensed emergency medical technician working on an ambulance in Los Angeles in the area once known as South Central. What started out as a rewarding side job became a passion. So he went to paramedic school and trained as a firefighter, joining a small rural fire department in the mountains outside of the city.

There, Dajee experienced the technology inequities that rural emergency responders like firefighters have to overcome just to do what is already a difficult job.

“I would get sent out to wildfires during the summers and experience communications issues,” he said. “It’s a really tough technological environment to operate within and so, I thought, ‘What can I do to help with that?’”

Dajee started a technology venture called Twisted Kelp that develops tools to help solve some of the field challenges facing wildland firefighting, emergency services, and disaster management.

The infrastructure that enables emergency communications to work can fail under harsh conditions or may be insufficient for the vast expanses and difficult rural terrain, forcing firefighters to make some tough calls.

“You need to start thinking, ‘Do we send people down there, do we not because we’re not able to support adequate communications? Is that a vital area we still have to send people into even if we can’t cover it?’ There can be gaps in areas of opportunity where technology can help to solve those problems, to enable greater capabilities.”

The company produces satellite tracking and communications solutions with an online interface that overlays fire maps and infrared data so firefighters can see where personnel and equipment are positioned or needed. Another product enables emergency radio service using Internet Protocol packets. The company also developed a digitized version of a pocket-size booklet called the Incident Response Pocket Guide that firefighters often carry on them to reference instructions on the fly for an array of scenarios.

Because technology advances for the public sector are often longer-cycle and can affect a much broader scale than the private sector, Dajee said he realized it would take more than an M.B.A. to make his company truly effective. The focus on leadership and problem-solving on a grand scale at the Kennedy School and Sloan’s emphasis on principled business innovation were motivating, he said.

“Leadership and management shouldn’t just be about gross revenue maximization,” Dajee said. “It’s about the people, their context, and the environment,” as well as “trying to push the boundaries of what’s possible and what good that you can bring into the world with business.”

After Commencement, Dajee will return to L.A., where he spent three weeks in January fighting the devastating wildfire in the Pacific Palisades, an area he had lived near for many years.

“I knew almost every street where the fires were burning and had driven up and down those streets for a better part of 10 years,” said Dajee. “It was very surreal seeing these places that I knew, these homes that I had passed by many times and recognized, burned to the ground.”

Dajee said he’s immensely grateful to have had an opportunity to study at Harvard and MIT when so few of his colleagues in emergency services have chosen to attend graduate school. Most have a “deep passion” for what they do but struggle with systemic issues facing emergency healthcare and rural emergency services in the U.S., he said.

“It’s important that the work they do is recognized because they put their lives on the line on a daily basis in the harshest conditions to keep others safe, with long-term consequences that are often unsupported,” he said. “And while it is great that everyone thanks their first responders when they have a need for them, it is also important to remember that the work continues in the background even when they don’t.” 

Six alumni have been newly elected as members of Harvard University’s Board of Overseers, with another six joining the board of directors of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA). The new Overseers will assume their roles on May 30, while the HAA directors will begin their terms on July 1. Five of the new Overseers were elected for six-year terms. The sixth, Anjali Sud, will serve the remaining two years of the unexpired term of Mark Carney.

New members of the Board of Overseers

Mark A. Edwards ’82, cum laude
Co-founder and CEO, Upstream USA; founder and former executive director, Opportunity Nation
Brookline, Massachusetts 

Mary Louise Kelly ’93, magna cum laude
M.Phil. ’95, University of Cambridge, with distinction
Journalist and broadcaster, co-host of “All Things Considered,” NPR
Washington, D.C.

Nathaniel Owen Keohane, Ph.D. ’01
B.A. ’93, Yale University, magna cum laude
President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
New York

Michael Rosenblatt, M.D. ’73, magna cum laude
B.A. ’69, summa cum laude, Columbia University
Advisory partner, Ascenta Capital; senior adviser, Bain Capital Life Sciences and Flagship Pioneering; former executive vice president and chief medical officer, Merck & Co.; former dean, Tufts University School of Medicine
Newton, Massachusetts

Anjali Sud, M.B.A. ’11 (filling Carney’s unexpired term)
B.S. ’05, University of Pennsylvania
CEO, Tubi; former CEO, Vimeo
New York

Courtney B. Vance ’82
M.F.A. ’86, Yale University
Actor, producer, writer; president and chair, SAG-AFTRA Foundation
La Cañada Flintridge, California

A group of seven candidates for the Board of Overseers were nominated by an alumni nominating committee whose 13 voting members are appointed by the Harvard Alumni Association executive committee. An eighth candidate withdrew from consideration. Harvard degree holders cast a total of 39,725 ballots in the election.

The Board of Overseers is one of Harvard’s two governing boards, along with the President and Fellows, also known as the Corporation. Formally established in 1642, the board plays an integral role in the governance of the University, complementing the Corporation’s work as Harvard’s principal fiduciary board. As a central part of its work, the board directs the visitation process, the primary means for periodic external assessment of Harvard’s Schools and departments. Through its array of standing committees, and the roughly 50 visiting committees that report to them, the board probes the quality of Harvard’s programs and assures that the University remains true to its charter as a place of learning. More generally, drawing on its members’ diverse experience and expertise, the board provides counsel to the University’s leadership on priorities, plans, and strategic initiatives. The board also has the power of consent to certain actions, such as the election of Corporation members. Additional information about the board, its members, and its work can be found on its webpage.

Newly elected HAA directors

Theresa J. Chung ’98, magna cum laude, J.D. ’02
Administrative judge, U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board
Dallas, Texas

Colin J. Kegler ’97
Senior software engineer, HealthEdge Inc.
Provincetown, Massachusetts

Victoria “Vicky” Wai Ka Leung ’91, cum laude
M.B.A. ’98, New York University
Managing director and consultant, EC M&A
London

Nicholas J. Melvoin ’08
M.A. ’10, Loyola Marymount University; J.D. ’14, New York University
Elected board member, Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles

Angela M. Ruggiero ’02, cum laude, M.B.A. ’14
M.Ed. ’10, University of Minnesota
Co-founder and chair, Sports Innovation Lab
Weston, Massachusetts

Sanjay Seth, M.P.A. ’19, M.U.P. ’19
B.A. ’12, Goldsmiths, University of London
Former chief of staff and senior adviser for climate and equity, U.S. EPA New England
East Boston, Massachusetts

The new directors were elected for three-year terms. They were chosen from among nine candidates, nominated by the same HAA committee that puts forward candidates for Overseers. Harvard degree holders cast 41,069 ballots in the directors election.

The HAA board, including its elected directors, is an advisory board that aims to foster a sense of community, engagement, and University citizenship among Harvard alumni around the world. The work focuses on developing volunteer leadership and increasing and deepening alumni engagement through an array of programs that support alumni communities worldwide. In recent years, the board’s priorities have included strengthening outreach to recent graduates and graduate school alumni and continuing to build and promote inclusive communities.

As grades were being calculated and the Yard was being transformed into a stage for Commencement, President Alan Garber sat down with the Gazette to reflect on the challenges of a turbulent year and the promise of graduation day.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

---

Students are preparing to graduate in what is always one of the most celebratory and hopeful weeks of the year. You received an economics degree from Harvard College in 1976. Do you remember your state of mind that day — whether you felt a sense of purpose?

At the time, I probably would have told you that I did. I had already decided to pursue both a Ph.D. in economics and an M.D. I was certainly excited about learning economics at a deeper level and becoming a physician. But I had only a vague idea of what would come after I completed my formal studies.

What I did have was a sense that I would be well-equipped to grapple with important health policy issues, with a program of study that was unusual at the time. Above all else, I felt grateful to my fellow students from whom I learned so much, toward the faculty who worked with me, advised me, and inspired me, and toward the institution as a whole for giving me a chance to become part of a great community.

Combining economics and medicine would likely never have occurred to me had I gone to college elsewhere. My path was probably set when I took Ec10, which was nearly a universal course at the time — about three-quarters of Harvard undergrads took it. If not for that, I might have become a doctor of a different kind.

Harvard and higher education have been caught up in a deeply politicized environment, and we’ve seen the federal government cut research funding and launch investigations into institutions. What do you say to members of the community concerned about the University’s future?

We should all be concerned that colleges and universities have increasingly come under attack. But we should not dismiss the criticisms even when they are based on distortions or inaccuracies — we need to look for the underlying concerns that can be embedded in them. For example, many members of our community have been alarmed that students have become increasingly reluctant to speak openly about controversial or uncomfortable topics, especially if they believe their personal views are unpopular. That’s a problem we need to solve, and over the past year and a half we’ve done a great deal to address it. Many of those efforts are described in the report of the working group on open inquiry and constructive dialogue.

Still, we believe that the government overreach and devastating attacks on scientific and medical research are unwarranted and unlawful, and so we have taken legal action to defend the institution.

There are also concerns about the cost of higher education and the value it offers students. In fact, the actual cost of attending Harvard College is much lower than people may think. We offer generous financial aid, so, for most Americans, it would cost less to attend Harvard than a state university. The actual cost of attendance for the average student receiving financial aid — more than half of all undergraduates — is roughly $13,000. And starting with this year’s entering class, Harvard will be tuition-free for children from families earning less than $200,000 per year.

We need to ensure that the public has a better understanding not only of the affordability of the education we offer, but also of the benefits we provide to our students and the public at large. We’re a research university, always striving to expand the boundaries of knowledge. That has large and very tangible benefits for our country, often manifested in contributions to economic growth and to better health. When we look ahead, I am confident that the value of research universities will continue to be widely recognized and that we will be successful for the long term, despite the challenges we’re facing today.

Last week, the University secured a temporary restraining order blocking the federal government from removing F and J visas from Harvard students starting next academic year. Can you talk about the University’s quick response and what’s next?

We needed to move quickly because the consequences of revocation of visas for our international students were dire. These are students who are following their dreams at Harvard. Their contributions to our community are deep and extensive; they bring with them their expertise and insight as well as unique perspectives and experiences, which they share in the classroom, in residences, and everywhere that students can be found. We are doing all we can to ensure that these and future students can successfully pursue their studies at Harvard.

There will be a hearing in court later this week where we will argue that the restraining order should be extended. And even though we were successful last week, we recognize that there will continue to be many questions and concerns. The Harvard International Office is working closely with our international students to help.

How might the unsettled environment for students affect learning? Are there important lessons even in times of conflict?

Learning often advances most rapidly during times of conflict. We gain a new understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. We often learn that we can do what we didn’t think was possible.

As we think about impediments to open dialogue and how we’ve addressed them, I believe that students who are graduating now have gained a deeper understanding of what it means to truly listen to, and speak with, another person. I hope that our students — indeed every member of our community — will have learned that forming close relationships, especially with people who are different from us, is intensely rewarding. Along the way, we will develop greater empathy and learn valuable lessons.

What challenges and opportunities do you see for graduates? It seems safe to say that artificial intelligence counts as both, in significant ways.

It’s too soon to predict how AI will change the lives and careers of graduating students, but knowing how to work with AI is already advantageous in some areas of work and essentially a requirement in others. With the rapid progress in generative AI, we’re seeing that specific skills in its use — say, prompt engineering — can become less important as the technology evolves.

I expect that, overall, the people who will thrive in the economy of the future are those who are adept at using technological tools well. But who will those people be? We have people working on scientific problems whose expertise is in AI, and others whose expertise is in a specific area of science, and many whose expertise is a blend of each. What will be the best mix? We’ll be learning this in many domains of application in the coming years.

I count myself among those who think that basic human skills — empathy, compassion, and interest in other people — will be more important than ever as the reach of AI expands.

How do you balance the demands of hard, time-consuming problems versus those that require a quick decision?

You don’t usually have a choice — you need to deal with both. But even when there are quick decisions to be made, we should always think about long-term consequences. As we approach our 400th anniversary as an institution, we continue to benefit from far-sighted decisions of our predecessors. A long-term perspective enables us to make investments today whose payoffs will be long-delayed but consequential — even transformative. That is the fundamental premise of basic science research, for example, but it applies far more broadly.

You recently announced that the University will dedicate $250 million to support research at the Schools. What can that money do and what can it not do?

The support that we’re providing is intended to facilitate the continuity of our research efforts. It is meant to ensure that we can maintain a strong base of research and minimize the disruption of the research enterprise that comes from the federal denial of research funding. It cannot sustain our research operations for the long term, so we are taking a close look at ways to further lower the costs of conducting research and to diversify the sources of funding. However, the research advances at Harvard and other universities that have led to the scientific pre-eminence of the United States would not have been possible without federal research support. The partnership between universities and the federal government is important for this country’s future scientific accomplishments, not only at Harvard but also at other universities throughout the nation.

When we talk about lowering the cost of research, is that seen as a way to get through a difficult time or might there be changes that spark innovation and lower costs over the long term?

The latter. Our efforts to improve the efficiency of the scientific enterprise may be more intense at a time of financial stress, but we should always look for ways to do more with less money. This won’t be easy. Some of the most important scientific advances are inherently expensive. For example, we’ve made investments in cryo-electron microscopy, a recently developed technology that requires large capital investments but has led to extraordinary scientific advances. Expensive tools, used appropriately, can find answers more quickly and less expensively than the approaches they replace. To keep costs down often means that we need to invest wisely, which sometimes means making a smaller number of large but strategic investments. Our researchers are creative and ingenious. I am confident that they will find new ways to do truly cutting-edge research more efficiently.

Is the endowment being considered as an additional funding source?

The endowment already supports the operating budgets of our Schools, much of it directed toward research activities. About 80 percent of the endowment is subject to restrictions: We can’t use money intended to support a professor of economics, for example, to fund scientists in a molecular biology lab. So, although it’s a critical asset, the endowment — and ours consists of roughly 14,000 endowment funds — can’t be used as a general-purpose fund or, as some people say, as a rainy-day account. In addition, an endowment is intended to be available in perpetuity. Recognizing those constraints, the endowment certainly can be helpful.

If there were to be declines in the value of the endowment — if, for example, the large endowment tax in the House budget bill were passed into law — it would affect all of these activities. The impact would be particularly severe for financial aid, which is heavily supported by endowment funds.

With regard to antisemitism and other forms of bias, how sure are you that the steps Harvard is taking will alter the campus environment?

We’re building on work that we have undertaken over the course of the last year and a half, along with the recently released final recommendations of the two task forces. The Schools and the University are working on implementation of those recommendations. It’s worth reviewing the recommendations to appreciate their scope — they apply to many different aspects of University life.

Some of the interventions we’ve undertaken or planned are quite specifically targeted to improve the lives of Jewish students. Others are intended to educate the University community. The latter areas include orientation programs, training of faculty, and the addition of new courses that relate to the topics of antisemitism and the history of the Middle East. But much of what we are doing involves changing attitudes toward one another, facilitating constructive speech and constructive disagreement, and building bridges across different identities and student groups. It’s a multifaceted strategy intended to change culture on campus.

If that strategy is fully successful, we will have made vital progress in tackling hate and bias, and it will prevent the shunning and other forms of social exclusion reported by Jewish and Israeli students; by Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students; and by other members of our community. There can be no place for hate at Harvard.

As to the effectiveness of the actions we’re undertaking, it may be too early to tell. But reports of a more open and less tense campus atmosphere throughout the academic year that is now ending give me hope that even our early efforts are bearing fruit.

Although we know that Harvard alone will not end antisemitism — it has been a stain on humanity for more than 2,000 years and is pervasive in the world — we need to do all we can to address it with resolve and with humility, knowing that it will require sustained effort.

Similarly, we need to pursue educational approaches, make accommodations for the practice of religion, and build empathy. We have heard a similar set of stories about how Muslim or Palestinian students often feel unwelcome and isolated. Our programs regarding speech and building bridges across differences are designed to help with all forms of hate and discrimination.

That would align with steps the University is taking to encourage viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement?

Yes, these are mutually reinforcing efforts. We want to ensure that our students are exposed to diverse perspectives on the issues that we study, discuss, and research. We often hear complaints that universities like ours have a political monoculture, because politically our faculty and students skew to the left when compared to Americans overall. This means that there is at least a risk — particularly in the social sciences and humanities — that our community will not be exposed to the full range of ideas that should be discussed and debated. Furthermore, people who hold minority views on campus may feel uncomfortable expressing them. Surveys generally confirm these impressions.

Part of the challenge is to ensure that people who bring more diverse views will feel welcome on our campus and free to express their views. We are developing plans to bring respected, rigorous, and compelling voices to campus, including tenured faculty, who will expand our intellectual horizons and bring new insights into many fields, such as those related to policy, government, and law.

An immediate challenge is to nurture an environment of openness and mutual respect that will encourage people who fear that their views are unpopular to feel comfortable expressing them. So, what must we do as an institution to ensure those views can be heard?

This is where our efforts to promote open discourse and constructive dialogue should make a difference. It’s important for faculty to model this behavior in the classroom and create an atmosphere where students feel comfortable expressing views that others may not agree with. We’ve begun that work and will continue to build on it.

It is obviously not a secular university’s role to dictate a set of values, but do you think Harvard students leave campus with a stronger foundation for developing their own?

Encouraging thinking about values is pervasive in the University. It’s in the obvious places, like philosophy and the Divinity School, but it’s also a prominent topic in the Business School. It’s in the humanities in general. Almost all great literature presents situations that provoke thinking about what constitutes ethical behavior, why people knowingly commit wrongs, and the consequences of failing to act according to one’s values.

I doubt that any Harvard College student can graduate without having to grapple with questions about values. Judging from the enrollments in Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course, they don’t want to miss the opportunity. As in so much else, we want to help our students learn how to think about values and how to act on them, but that doesn’t mean that we should tell them which values they should adopt. Except “veritas.” I hope that every graduate embraces the importance of truth and chooses to live by it.

Back in the early 1980s, a few pages of incomplete paperwork were casting a shadow over Susan Dynarski’s future as a Harvard undergraduate.

“My parents got divorced,” Dynarski recalled. “And when I turned 18, my dad refused to fill out the financial aid forms any longer — he said he wasn’t responsible for me since I had come of age.”

That left Dynarski to pay tuition without grants that reflected her true financial need. Her single mother took a few risks — opening new loans, taking a mortgage on their Somerville home — and Dynarski earned her A.B. in social studies in 1987.

Forty years on, Dynarski is now at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, at the front of a wave of scholars working at the intersection of economics and education.

It’s a very different moment. There are well-maintained federal databases tracking how and why students from all backgrounds enroll in college and how they fare once there. And while tuition is markedly more expensive, financial aid is more generous, and administrators are more attuned to the special challenges confronting first-generation college students.

Even still, low-income students — even with sterling academic qualifications — tend to enroll at the nation’s top schools at far lower rates than peers who are similarly qualified.

Dynarski remembers being cash-strapped on campus. But her recent work has focused less on the amount of money available than the process for securing it.

“It’s not that people can’t fill out forms,” Dynarski said. “You could figure it out, but it’s a time cost. And then the whole structure of the financial aid process delays knowing about your eligibility until after you’ve applied, been accepted, and gotten an offer from an institution — it backloads all of that information.”

Starting in 2015, Dynarski proposed an alternative. Along with several colleagues at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, that state’s most selective university, she launched what came to be called the HAIL scholarship program.

Dynarski’s team identified young people who had both the academic credentials to have a chance of admission to the Michigan flagship, and the economic circumstances to attend for free if they enrolled.

The HAIL trial aimed, simply, to let those students know that fact.

In the fall of their senior year, eligible students in the “treatment group” were sent colorful, celebratory packages, including what Dynarski and co-authors call “an early, unconditional guarantee of tuition” for four years. (Their parents and school principals received similar messages.)

The effects were remarkable. Nearly 70 percent of eligible students who received HAIL notices applied to Michigan, compared to 26 percent of those who didn’t. Almost half of those who applied were accepted — much higher than the university’s acceptance rate for all applicants. And 27 percent went on to enroll.

The effects extended to selective schools elsewhere, too. And, perhaps most impressive, those effects were achieved without offering new aid.

“The intervention did not change costs for these students: Rather, it offered an early guarantee of grants for which, in expectation, they were already eligible,” Dynarski and her coauthors noted in a 2018 paper.

It’s a kind of “nudge,” a simple intervention that improves a complex system: simplifying bureaucracy, growing lifetime earnings, and expanding the well-trained workforce.

With that and other findings, Dynarski has marshaled high-level economics to work in the public interest.

“I was always in this, not because I’m into testing economic theories, but because I wanted to make the world better — to advance economic mobility,” she said, pointing out that she was a union organizer for six years before her academic career fully took shape.

And her career, in turn, is almost unthinkable without public support.

In study after study, Dynarski has relied on large, longitudinal datasets that only the federal government could maintain. And she has received millions in research support from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The HAIL program, for instance, would have been much more difficult without federal grants that allowed her to set up a longitudinal data system still running in Michigan.

Just a few years after coming to Harvard, an ongoing symbiosis is now in considerable doubt.

Dynarski has a grant request outstanding with the IES, and — amid the escalating funding fight between Harvard and the Trump administration — assumes it’s dead.

Meanwhile, cuts proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aim to shrink the IES from 100 employees to just three, meaning a near-total elimination of the datasets on which she her built her career.

Dynarski said such a cut could imperil the booming subfield of education economics — closing a window on the progress of American lives and catapulting the country back to where it was when she was a teenager, and families like hers were struggling in obscurity.

“I feel like this administration has attacked just about everything I’ve been working for,” Dynarski said. In the worst-case scenario, she adds, “It’s not just that low-income people won’t be able to get jobs as scientists — there won’t be American science.”

But she’s not yet discouraged. “You just pick where you can make a difference. I advise students. We still have state governments, local governments — I put my hope into them.”

And, just last month, she joined a lawsuit filed by the National Academy of Education against the Department of Education, aiming to block the planned cuts.

Lindsey Chrismon wasn’t satisfied just getting into West Point, the country’s top military college, for her undergraduate degree. She would go on to be selected as the First Captain, the top cadet, in her graduating class of 2014, only the fourth woman to hold the position in the academy’s more than 200-year history.

After graduation, she wasn’t going to hold just any military position — she would fly the top attack helicopter, the Apache, as part of the most elite force in the sky. And when it came time to move on from her military career, she wouldn’t go to just any business school for her MBA. She would go to Harvard.

“I actually wrote in my West Point yearbook that I wanted to go to Harvard Business School 10 years ago,” Chrismon said.

Chrismon is the type to set a goal and make it come true. Becoming a helicopter pilot, for example, was a goal she set in her first year at the academy.

“I remember sitting in my room and an Apache helicopter came down and landed on the parade field, right outside,” she said. “I was like, I want to fly that … it was just a dream from the first moment I saw it.”

She got the grades, scored well on the necessary tests, and after graduation became the first woman in Army history to fly the AH-6 Little Bird helicopter for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

“It’s the same unit that flew the SEALs into the Osama bin Laden raid,” Chrismon said. “It’s the most elite helicopter force on the planet, honestly.”

After flying Little Birds, and then her dream Apaches for almost 10 years, Chrismon started to get, for lack of a better word, bored. It was time for a new venture.

“Every single day was actually pretty great. It didn’t feel like work in that regard, but I did feel at a certain point intellectually capped,” she said. “I also saw where I would be in, say, three years, and I didn’t really want to have my future completely laid out for me. I wanted to experiment and get out in the world and do other things and face different challenges.”

Her husband, Gabe Chrismon, said his wife, who was his West Point classmate, “has never chosen the easy route.”

“HBS was where she was going to go no matter what.”

He added, “If Linds has an idea of what she wants to do, she’s pretty much going to find a way to make sure that happens. And then she’s going to find a way to succeed and be one of the better ones at it — from West Point being the First Captain, to flying Apaches, to flying Little Birds, to going to HBS, to being a female founder and raising money.”

The Chrismons are not just life partners, they’re business partners. They co-founded Oply — an AI-powered tool to help homeowners manage their home systems and maintenance.

Chrismon has spent much of the last year at Harvard raising capital for the company, and many of the last year’s weekends flying to her home city of Nashville to get the business up and running.

“I’ve cold-called her to present her business to very-high-profile investors in my classroom without her knowing it was coming,” said Reza Satchu, senior lecturer in the Entrepreneurship Management Unit at the Business School. “Everyone from senior decision-makers at venture capital firms, to the CEO of Delta, to Kevin O’Leary, to all sorts of people.”

Classes that Chrismon took with Satchu, “Founder Mindset” and “Founder Launch,” both specialize in getting student enterprises up and running.

“She has an ability to just stand up and deliver a compelling value proposition with real conviction around her business,” Satchu added. “Sometimes she’d get beaten up, and she would just continue fighting back. This is a real mark of a founder, which is, yes, you take the advice, but you’ve thought about this problem a lot more than the person you’re talking to and so you don’t wither, you fight back.”

While Chrismon is excited to get back to her life in Nashville, she’s sorry to be leaving the Business School.

“It went really, really fast,” she said. “It’s bittersweet that it’s over. It’s wonderful because then I can focus solely on our venture, but not waking up every day and going to class with my friends — that’s going to be sad to leave behind.”

The professor’s office was wallpapered with declassified U.S. intelligence photos.

“I walked in and the first thing I saw were these floor-to-ceiling printouts of U2 and CORONA aerial imagery,” recalled Shane Rice ’25. “I took one look and thought — maybe there’s something here.”

Rice, 26, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, needed a new scholarly focus. When he first arrived at Harvard from Warrenton, Virginia, he had his sights set on environmental engineering. But the field proved a poor fit for his interests and talents. “So I went on this search,” he recalled. “I got lunch with all these different department heads including integrative bio and environmental science public policy.”

The quest ended in the office of Jason Ur, Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology, with its collection of aerial landscapes. The display resonated with Rice, in part due to his military training. As a mortarman, he frequently worked with maps and satellite imagery over three deployments.

Rice was drawn to Ur’s introductory “Can We Know Our Past?” course. The Cabot House resident, who settled into College life with the help of the Warrior-Scholar Project and other veteran supports, later won a prize for his essay on the clarity he gained during the Gen Ed offering.

The curriculum, he wrote, helped him reconcile a calling to public service with interests in antiquities, procedure, organizing data, and working in places far from home. “Shane wrote very eloquently about how studying archaeology helped him figure out the transition to academia from the military,” Ur said.

“Shane wrote very eloquently about how studying archaeology helped him figure out the transition to academia from the military.”

Jason Ur

Those Cold War-era stills that captivated Rice allow Ur to survey sites in Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Since 2012, the technique has helped Ur scour the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq for traces of ancient atrocities. Rice became the rare undergraduate to join Ur’s fieldwork in the semi-autonomous region. He even applied Ur’s methods to an investigation of scars left far more recently in the area. Rice used declassified satellite reconnaissance to uncover hundreds of lost settlements, all destroyed during Iraq’s suppression of ethnic Kurds.

“In 1987, the Iraqi Army, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, cleared the entire plain where we’re working of its rural Kurdish villages,” Ur said. “The intensive mapping Shane did offers us a great analogy for understanding the distribution and density of rural settlements in the deeper past. But it also stands as a testament to genocidal state actions.”

Visiting Ur during weekly office hours became a new habit for Rice. That’s how he learned of the professor’s fieldwork around the city of Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region. Ur collaborates with researchers there to sift the area for features dating to the Neo-Assyrian Empire (ca. 900-600 B.C.)

“We’re there to test the hypothesis that the Assyrian kings engaged in large-scale deportation,” explained Ur, noting that the rulers’ accounts are corroborated by their victims in the Hebrew Bible.

Also pocking the region’s landscapes is evidence of recent demographic assaults. Hussein was eventually charged with killing tens of thousands of Kurds during the 1988 Anfal campaign. U.S. news coverage has often focused on the government’s use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians but less so on the destruction, a year earlier, of rural farming villages.

“We don’t think of the 1980s as being terribly archaeological,” said Ur, who helped Rice settle on these villages for his thesis topic. “But this was the same tragic story told 3,000 years after the Assyrians. And it really needed some dedicated work.”

Rice was invited to join Ur on the Erbil plain just before his junior year. “I choose my team very carefully, because we’re basically as an extension of American diplomacy when we’re there,” Ur said. “Shane impressed me early on with his extraordinary responsibility and discipline, which I’m sure comes from his military background.”

The archaeology concentrator had been toying with specializing in nomad pastoralists. Rice, who also completed a language citation in Russian, arrived in Erbil after spending weeks with reindeer herders in northern Mongolia. But Ur’s work in the Kurdistan Region felt far more urgent. “They’re racing against the clock with this project,” Rice said. “They’re racing against urban development and sprawl to try to document these sites.”

Upon returning to Cambridge, Rice immediately set about structuring his own research project. Foundational to his approach was Ur’s graduate-level course on archaeological applications of Geographical Information Systems. Rice started searching government databases that semester for declassified intelligence photos that fit his needs in terms of resolution, timescale, and coverage of the 3,000-square-kilometer survey area.

That’s how he discovered a cache of high-resolution landscape images, declassified in 2013, that were collected in June 1980 by the KH-9 Hexagon U.S. photo-reconnaissance satellite. “In a perfect world, you would compare photos taken right before and right after the point of impact,” Rice said. “But 1980 was pretty close to the time we were looking at.”

Matching these satellite captures to contemporary commercial imagery enabled Rice to document hundreds of destroyed settlements. The village of Shakhulan, he found, had been plowed over, appearing in modern images as little more than cultivated fields. Standing in place of other locales were new construction or ruins.

“Sometimes there is literally the footprint of the four walls that once made a building,” Rice said.

The 1980 set also revealed a tightly gridded refugee complex, or mujamma’a, that matched one described in a 1993 Human Rights Watch report. By then, the undergraduate knew the history’s rough contours from his Kurdish collaborators and friends. The Anfal campaign followed years of the Iraqi military forcibly removing Kurds to tent camps like the one he identified 25 kilometers south of Erbil.

“These sites have existed purely in oral tradition and memory,” said Rice, who will begin at Cornell Law School in the fall. “And here we have primary-source evidence of one of these sites that thousands of individuals and families were moved through. To me, that speaks to the real value of doing this project.”

A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students and to sponsor international scholars.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs prevents the government from “implementing, instituting, maintaining, or giving effect” to the revocation. In a message to the community Friday afternoon, President Alan Garber said that a hearing has been set for Thursday to determine whether the restraining order will be extended.

Harvard’s initial complaint on the matter, filed early Friday, called the Trump order “a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act.”

Harvard’s actions were prompted by the Trump administration’s latest escalation in its dispute with the University. In a letter sent Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote that the University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification had been revoked, effective immediately, claiming the action was a result of Harvard’s failure to adequately comply with an April 16 government request seeking records related to international students. The letter and the secretary’s accompanying press release also cited grievances against the University that were unrelated to Harvard SEVP participation, applicable regulations, or Harvard international students.

The motion for a temporary restraining order, filed shortly after the main complaint, sought an immediately halt to the government’s action, arguing that the revocation would inflict irreparable harm on the University and its students. It cites the human costs of no longer being able to sponsor or host thousands of students and scholars, whose lives and work face major disruptions. The action by the Trump administration is “undisguised retaliation,” and “quintessential arbitrary, irrational, and unilateral executive action,” the motion says. “The effects on Harvard’s students — all of its students — will be devastating. Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

In a message sent to the community Friday morning, Garber said that the University has complied with the government’s records request to the extent required by law. He condemned the Noem order and vowed to fight it.

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body,” he said.

“We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action. It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”

International students at Harvard hail from more than 140 countries and make up about a quarter of its student body. In her letter, Noem said the certificate revocation means Harvard cannot host nonimmigrant international students or scholars on F- or J-visas for the 2025-26 academic year. That means current students in those visa categories have to transfer to other institutions in order to maintain their visa status, she wrote.

The order left researchers, fellows, and students shaken and angry — and worried about the implications for the country and the University. Among them was Eduardo Vasconcelos, a senior from Brazil whose family arrived in Boston for Commencement week hours before the Trump administration issued its order.

“It was hard to hold back my tears” when he heard of the Noem letter, Vasconcelos said. “The order from the administration felt like a rejection of the four years that I have spent at Harvard and an attack on the immense work that international students and scholars dedicate to the production of knowledge relevant to the United States and to the world.”

If the action were to take effect, said Vasconcelos, an honors concentrator in government and economics, the country would suffer an “immeasurable” loss of “vitality, of intellectual diversity, and of an opportunity to do good for the world.”

He added: “The federal administration is harming the capacity of America’s oldest educational institution to serve as a staircase open to all. This horrific decision limits the ability of our institution to help address the world’s most pressing challenges, which invariably requires identifying talents and voices from all over the world and bringing them to Harvard.”

Scott Delaney, an epidemiologist at the Harvard Chan School whose research has yielded insights on the health effects of air pollution and other environmental hazards, said that the action by the Trump administration threatens what should be a source of pride for the nation.

“The United States is the global leader in health science research because the best researchers from all over the world come here as students, and then they stay and build their careers,” he said.

“I personally work with students and postdocs from at least five different countries on research to improve the lives of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. If we kick them out just because they were born somewhere else — as the Trump administration is trying to do — then my team simply won’t produce as much high-impact research, and the United States will lose out on their insights and contributions. All of these world-class researchers will just take their talents elsewhere.”

Garber closed his message to the community by directly addressing international students and scholars: “You are our classmates and friends, our colleagues and mentors, our partners in the work of this great institution. Thanks to you, we know more and understand more, and our country and our world are more enlightened and more resilient. We will support you as we do our utmost to ensure that Harvard remains open to the world.”

The world’s most significant medical therapies often spring from surprising sources.

It would have been almost impossible to predict that studying the unique pancreas of an anglerfish might lead to revolutionary medications for diabetes or that the discovery of microRNA in a tiny worm could spur an entirely new class of treatments.

But while the story of any individual breakthrough might seem improbable, the pattern repeats. Basic, fundamental research — often paid for by the government and conducted by university faculty and students — leads to transformative drugs and technology.

With recent cancellations of research grants, experts in medical science worry that the U.S. may lose its long-held advantages in research and development for decades to come.

“If these grants are not restored, it would not be surprising to me if 10 years from now, we see a markedly lower number of therapies coming to market,” said Robert Huckman, the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the Howard Cox Faculty Chair of the HBS Healthcare Initiative. “That’s a real risk.”

Isaac Kohlberg, senior associate provost and the University’s chief technology development officer, agreed.

“If you attack the foundation of the building, the building will collapse,” he said. “Academic innovations are the foundation of many products and services that reach consumers. If we fail to invest in the necessary resources to advance fundamental discoveries, universities’ labs may shrink, and the U.S. innovation ecosystem will decline.”

These problems start from the outset of the innovation pipeline.

“To treat disease, we need to understand how it works,” Huckman said. “And understanding how disease works is a complicated problem.”

By the time a company decides to invest in a clinical trial for a new treatment or intervention, years — or decades — of government-funded research have generally taken place.

“You have to think about it as a building block,” said Kohlberg. “Without basic research, there is no translational research.”

As it stands, few companies are set up to fund this research. While a report from the nonprofit United for Medical Research shows that every dollar of research funded by the National Institutes of Health results in $2.56 in economic activity, companies generally lack the up-front resources — and long-term economic horizons — to fund wide-ranging early stage research.

“It’s not the role of companies to invest in basic research,” Kohlberg pointed out. “Companies are set up to make money, to develop products. It’s more immediate outcomes.”

They do, however, closely monitor government-funded research, the results of which must be released to the public.

A multitude of companies, for example, build off the revolutionary gene-editing technology CRISPR or develop GLP-1 drugs — even though portions of early research behind the technologies took place at Harvard.

“You have to have a model there to take big swings at problems,” Huckman said. “And I think that the relationship between government and academic institutions has historically been one that has allowed those big swings to be taken.”

When money going to early research dries up, so does the opportunity to commercialize promising developments.

“You could begin to see a narrowing of research portfolios that could apply both to the research labs themselves as well as those organizations that hope to commercialize the technologies those labs would have discovered,” said Huckman.

Biotech companies hoping to pursue technologies that could help treat many different diseases might see cuts to basic research and decide to pursue less ambitious goals.

“There’s a chain of activities to get from an understanding of basic science to an approved treatment,” explained Huckman. “If we break or weaken one link in that chain, we compromise the whole process.” 

Kohlberg sees a similar potential spiral: With less research funding, fewer ideas will come out of universities; startups won’t be able to develop those ideas; and larger companies that have traditionally identified, acquired, and funded promising startups will see fewer opportunities to do so.

“It’s like a funnel,” he said. “Eventually the patient’s going to have fewer options.”

And more expensive ones.

Huckman pointed out that if pharmaceutical companies need to take on riskier, early stage research, they’ll have to recoup it when pricing whatever drugs they are able to bring to market.

“If one thinks pharmaceutical prices are high today, it is safe to assume they will become even more so in the face of these funding reductions,” he said. 

For both Kohlberg and Huckman, cutting off the university-government partnerships puts the entire system of American innovation into disarray.

“These cuts mean there is no oxygen going to the research enterprise,” Kohlberg said. “This will completely undercut the future of innovation.”

Results from a randomized controlled trial reveal that vitamin D supplementation helps maintain telomeres, protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that shorten during aging and are linked to the development of certain diseases.

The new report, which is published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is based on data from a VITAL (VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL) sub-study co-led by researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Mass General Brigham and the Medical College of Georgia, and supports a promising role in slowing a pathway for biological aging.

“VITAL is the first large-scale and long-term randomized trial to show that vitamin D supplements protect telomeres and preserve telomere length,” said co-author JoAnn Manson, the principal investigator of VITAL and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School.

“This is of particular interest because VITAL had also shown benefits of vitamin D in reducing inflammation and lowering risks of selected chronic diseases of aging, such as advanced cancer and autoimmune disease,” said Manson.

Telomeres are made of repeating sequences of DNA, or base pairs, that prevent chromosome ends from degrading or fusing with other chromosomes. Telomere shortening is a natural part of aging and is associated with an increased risk of various age-related diseases.

A few short-term, small-scale studies have suggested that vitamin D or omega-3 fatty acid supplementation may help support telomeres, but results have been inconsistent. VITAL is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of vitamin D₃ (2,000 IU/day) and omega-3 fatty acid (1 g/day) supplementation that tracked U.S. females aged 55 years and older and males aged 50 years and older for five years. The VITAL Telomere sub-study included 1,054 of these participants, whose telomere length in white blood cells was assessed at baseline and at Year 2 and Year 4. 

Compared with taking placebo, taking vitamin D₃  supplements significantly reduced telomere shortening over four years, preventing the equivalent of nearly three years of aging. Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation had no significant effect on telomere length throughout follow-up.

“Our findings suggest that targeted vitamin D supplementation may be a promising strategy to counter a biological aging process, although further research is warranted,” said Haidong Zhu, first author of the report and a molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University.

Mass General Brigham-affiliated authors include Nancy R. Cook, William Christen, and I-Min Lee. Additional authors include Haidong Zhu, Bayu B. Bekele, Li Chen, Kevin J. Kane, Ying Huang, Wenju Li, and Yanbin Dong.

---

This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

For the typical high-schooler, math is a plug-and-play activity. You study a problem, figure out how to find the answer, and then apply what you’ve learned to a test. Creativity isn’t part of the process.

That was how Eliot Hodges, a graduating mathematics concentrator in Dunster House, experienced the subject before College. He enjoyed math — and did well on exams — but unlike some of his future classmates, left it behind when he left the classroom.

It was music that held his attention.

The third of four musically inclined siblings, Hodges studied cello — taking lessons, attending summer music programs, participating in youth orchestras, and competing in solo competitions. With his siblings, he founded InTune String Ensemble, a nonprofit that raises funds for different children’s organizations. After collecting door-to-door donations, the group realized they could raise more money playing gigs and busking around Denver. “When we started we were quite young,” Hodges said. “I think that factor helped a lot.”

During his senior year, just as he was deciding that he didn’t want to pursue music professionally, Hodges enrolled in a remote linear algebra class. He didn’t realize it at first, but the course was proof-based — focusing less on pure application and more on theorems and other mathematical statements. “I remember pulling up some practice exercises for the midterm and not knowing how to do a single one,” he said. To study, he ended up copying down the solutions to try to teach himself to write proofs. He liked that sense of exploration.

“You’re not really being taught how to do the problems,” Hodges said. “You really have the opportunity to be creative in how you think about problems, and I really fell in love with that approach.”

During a gap year, he studied as much math as he could and took a few classes through the University of Colorado at Boulder, becoming especially interested in number theory, which is a branch of pure mathematics devoted to the study of whole numbers — and especially prime numbers — and how other numbers can be built by multiplying primes, along with the patterns that emerge from that process.

“In a way, prime numbers are the mathematical atom, which is why they are so ubiquitous,” he explained, “and despite being so fundamental to math, some aspects of the primes are still very mysterious.” He liked how simple questions about the primes opened into complex problems.

“Sometimes you are banging your head against the wall, and then you realize that if you step back and move two feet over you can find an open door.”

Hodges didn’t sleep much during his first year at Harvard, but he did learn a lot of math — including through a number theory class with Gerhard Gade University Professor Barry Mazur. He was struck by the elegance of concepts like Fermat’s last theorem, which an elementary school student could comprehend but required 300 years of mathematical development to prove. “Often, solving problems in number theory requires applying ideas from different mathematical fields,” he said, “And you have to be very creative with how you bring everything together.”

After a grueling first year, he vowed to tone down his quantitative courseload to two math classes, plus research. One of the math classes had to be what Hodges called a “vegetable.”

“A vegetable class is one that is good for me,” he explained. “It would expand my horizons and be very useful later on.” The other kind of class was a “chicken nugget,” where he came in liking the material.

The combination of depth and breadth helped his research. Often, he explained, it’s harder to identify a novel problem than it is to actually solve it. “Once you have a greater understanding of what you want to say about the mathematical objects you’re studying, the work is, one hopes, more straightforward,” he said. “A lot of the hard work is in conceiving your ‘mathematical thesis statement.’”

For one project, his goal was to calculate the distribution of a certain kind of random group with an additional piece of algebraic data called a pairing. “The naïve generalization of known methods for approaching the problem didn’t work,” he said, but once he stopped thinking about the pairing as a function and thought about it as an identification of the group with its dual — a mirror image of the group — he was able to apply known techniques to solve the problem. “Sometimes you are banging your head against the wall, and then you realize that if you step back and move two feet over you can find an open door.”

It helped to have support and guidance from William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics Melanie Matchett Wood, who mentored Hodges for three years and advised his thesis along with Benjamin Peirce Fellow and NSF Postdoctoral Fellow Ashvin Swaminathan.

Hodges also kept the door open to cello, taking lessons with Professor Kee-Hyun Kim of the Parker Quartet and enrolling in “MUS189R: Chamber Music Performance” each semester. Some of his favorite campus memories include playing with his sister Eloise Hodges ’22 and performing end-of-semester recitals with Christian Chiu ’25, his roommate and an accomplished pianist. The two share a background in intense musical study and a desire to focus on having fun playing together. “The recitals feel very triumphant,” he said, smiling, “even if they go badly.”

After graduating, Hodges will pursue a one-year M.A.St. in pure mathematics at the University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar before enrolling in a mathematics Ph.D. at Princeton.

He hopes that his time at Cambridge will help him master techniques from other mathematical fields that he can apply to number theory. The more math he can learn, the more creative he can be. “The most exciting part,” he said, “is that you might discover a connection that other people haven’t thought about before and contribute something meaningful to the field.”

The quest for scientific truth leads Harvard researchers to a wide array of pursuits: sea slugs that steal body parts from other animals, microwave resonator telescopes powerful enough to detect traces of the Big Bang, and lab-grown human kidneys.

These are examples of seven novel research projects that are grant recipients of this year’s Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research.  

The program provides seed funding for Harvard faculty to conduct research in the life, physical, and social sciences. Star-Friedman supports promising research that might not be funded by traditional sources and encourages investigators to explore new directions branching off their previous work.

The program was established in 2013 by a gift from James A. Star ’83 and expanded five years later by support from Josh Friedman ’76, M.B.A. ’80, J.D. ’82, and Beth Friedman. The 2025 winners were recognized in a ceremony at University Hall on Wednesday.

---

Cellular basis of organelle theft

Corey Allard, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School 

Project: How do some species make use of body parts purloined from other animals? New insights may come from sea slugs that have evolved the ability to steal organelles (specialized structures within cells) from other species.

For example, so-called “solar powered” sea slugs from the genus Elysia pilfer the chloroplasts of algae cells and then use them for photosynthesis for up to one year. Other sea slugs from the genus Berghia pilfer the stinging organelles of sea anemones and place them on their own backs to deter predators.

Allard and colleagues will investigate the biological mechanisms that allow these slugs to maintain the stolen organelles.

Goal: The long-term aim of this “slug-inspired” research is to engineer cells capable of maintaining foreign organelles. The work also may offer insights into preventing diseases caused by intracellular parasites such as tuberculosis and malaria.

---

Sensing water and the evolution of terrestrialisation in invertebrates

Josefina del Mármol, Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School

Project: One of the great events in the history of life occurred when aquatic animals colonized land. The del Mármol team will investigate one facet of this mystery: How did ancient invertebrates adapt the sensory organs required for living on terrestrial environments?

Insects — the largest group of species on Earth — are believed to have evolved humidity receptors from organs called ionotropic variant receptors. These organs still exist in aquatic arthropods that have no history of living on land and thus never had the need to monitor air humidity.

This study will examine how these organs function in species still living in water, specifically American lobsters.

Goal: The team seeks to reveal how invertebrates evolved the ability to monitor the humidity of air. The del Mármol lab specializes in studying olfaction in invertebrates, and this new area of research — the neurobiology and evolution of sensory organs in early terrestrial animals — represents a new direction.

---

Shedding light on the Big Bang with a novel microwave resonator

John M. Kovac, Professor of Astronomy and Physics  

Project: The Big Bang is still making waves — and a Harvard research team hopes to detect more of them.

The Kovac group has built telescopes at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station that are capable detecting faint radiation from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago.

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe and contains clues about its history. One theory predicts that primordial gravitational waves have left faint patterns of polarization.

The development of telescopes capable of observing these patterns is a top priority for the scientific fields of high-energy physics and cosmology.

To map the microwave sky, these telescopes must detect slight variations in thermal brightness in an environment billions of times brighter. This requires precise microwave optics cooled to cryogenic temperatures — a steep technical challenge.

Goal: The team proposes a novel use of optical resonant cavities (an arrangement of componentsthat repeatedly reflects the targeted spectrum) to study microwave photons.

 Similar technologies already have been used in other fields: Laser cavities have helped detect gravitational waves and microwave cavities have helped search for dark matter particles.

 The group already has built a promising prototype and hopes to extend this work to a broader range of frequencies and temperatures and to identify the most promising materials.

---

Validating child-friendly measures of global brain energetics to address new questions in the study of obesity, diabetes, and the role of nutrition in healthy brain/cognitive development

Christopher Kuzawa, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology 

Project: The human brain is a greedy organ. In adults, it accounts for only 2 percent of our bodyweight but consumes about one-fifth of our energy. In children, the brain is even more demanding: It consumes about two-thirds of resting energy around age 5.

After the brain has nearly reached full size, the peak energy demand occurs during an intensive phase of creating new synapses and pruning them between ages 4 and 6. During this time, body growth slows and body fat drops to its lowest stage in the human lifespan.

When brain energy demand subsides, children start to regain body fat — a phenomenon known as the “adiposity rebound.” These processes have implications for public health: Kids who experience the rebound earlier tend to become heavier adults.

Better understanding of these dynamics also may shed light on chronic disease such as adult diabetes and long-term outcomes such as schooling and income.

Goal: Investigating these questions requires more “kid-friendly” techniques for measuring brain energy consumption. The preferred technique — PET scans with radioactive tracer dyes — is not practical for children.

Instead, Kuzawa and colleagues propose using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to measure cerebral blood flow as a proxy for brain energy consumption.

But the accuracy of this technique must be validated by comparison to other methods and the investigators propose to do so in a study with 25 adults. If successful, these kid-friendly MRI methods could be used to investigate childhood brain energetics and the implications for public health.

---

Biofabrication of human kidney tissues for therapeutic use

Jennifer A. Lewis, Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Jianming Yu Professor of Arts and Sciences, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science 

Leonardo Riella, Harold and Ellen Danser Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Medical Director of Kidney Transplantation, Massachusetts General Hospital 

 Project: Chronic kidney disease affects more than one in seven U.S. adults, or more than 35 million people. More than 800,000 Americans suffer from end-stage renal disease and require dialysis or kidney transplant. But demand for transplants is about four times higher than the number of kidneys donated per year.

Goal: Lewis and Riella hope to develop a revolutionary new treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease, seeking to engineer lab-grown kidneys from human stem cells.

They will employ induced pluripotent stem cells to fabricate human kidney organoids in the lab then transplant small versions of these human kidneys into mice to study their function.

If successful, these techniques would represent a step towards fabricating kidneys for human patients.

---

How to regenerate a limb? Integrating analyses of metabolism and developmental biology 

Jessica Whited, Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard Stem Cell Institute

George V. Lauder, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Henry Bryant Bigelow Professor, Museum of Comparative Zoology

Project: Salamanders have an enviable ability: They can regrow severed limbs. This remarkable trait is a classic example of regeneration often described in biology textbooks, yet little is known about the energetic costs.

Whited and Lauder seek to understand the molecular and metabolic changes that occur during limb regeneration. Focusing on a species of salamander called axolotls, they aim to answer a fundamental question: How much does it cost to regrow a limb?

The investigators posit that salamanders fuel the generation process by boosting their metabolic rate by autophagy, a process in which cells break down their own components and use the molecules as fuel.

Goal: The work will illuminate the biological regulators of limb regeneration and why they work in some species but not others. The researchers hope the work will generate insights that might be applied to human patients who have lost limbs.

---

Turn the best photovoltaics into new high Tc superconductors; realize unconventional superconductivity in twisted perovskites

Suyang Xu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Ashvin Vishwanath, George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics

Project: Can the most promising photovoltaic materials be turned into high-temperature superconductors? This question drives a new collaboration between a theorist and experimentalist of quantum materials.

Goal: Metal halide perovskites have been demonstrated to be an extremely efficient material for solar cells. Now the two investigators propose using these materials for high-temperature superconductors.

They propose that the twisted bilayer of metal halide perovskite may serve as a platform for high-temperature superconductivity. In their proposal they assert, “This seemingly crazy idea is not only possible … but promising.”

In the partnership, Vishwanath will perform theoretical calculations while Xu will lead the experiments. If successful, this application would be a groundbreaking discovery. The researchers also will test theoretical questions and potentially bridge two emerging fields.

Growing up in a Catholic family in California’s Bay Area, Kelsey Hanson Woodruff’s path from altar girl to Presbyterian minister to scholar of American religion seemed somehow preordained.

“I have always been interested in religion, because to me, the question of why humans are here and how they make meaning is important,” said Hanson Woodruff. “I have always been interested in how religion affects society, and how people’s religious faiths inform how they want society to run, and what kind of a community they imagine.”

Hanson Woodruff’s Catholic upbringing, and the presence of many educators in her tight-knit family helped her foresee a path in which education and religion could be intertwined. The example of her godparents, who are also her uncle and aunt, Eric Hanson, a former Jesuit priest, and Kathleen Hanson, a former Maryknoll nun, looms large in her life, she said. They met after both had left the church and become college professors. “They set an example for me, that your ministry can be lived out in your personal life as well as in the classroom,” she said.

Still, it was only after taking a class in Buddhism at Stanford that Hanson Woodruff fell in love with religious studies. Drawn by Protestant churches’ policy of ordaining women, she became a Presbyterian minister and served congregations in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts in the years before she came to Harvard.

A Ph.D. candidate in religion with a secondary in anthropology in the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Hanson Woodruff studies transformations in American Christianity. Her dissertation, a historical and ethnographic study of post-evangelical feminists, explores the impact of digital technologies and societal changes on faith, and underlines her interest in studying progressive religious people.

“In the United States, we often hear only about conservative Catholics, conservative evangelicals, and conservative Christians,” Hanson Woodruff said. “But there are religious people on the left, and there are progressive people within all religious communities. There’s certainly some scholarship on it, but there should be more; there needs to be more public knowledge about that.”

In her fieldwork, much of which took place during the pandemic, Hanson Woodruff researched a number of digital religious communities led by women who were pushing back against conservative streams within evangelical Protestantism. As a millennial, she was interested in how these women leaders were using digital media, including blogs, social media, and digital forums, to explore their Christian faith.

Among the figures Hanson Woodruff studied were Rachel Held Evans, author of the New York Times best-seller “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” (2012); Sarah Bessey, who published “Jesus Feminist” (2013); and Austin Channing Brown, who wrote the best-selling “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness” (2018).

As progressive Christian authors, Evans, Bessey, and Channing Brown challenged traditional views within the evangelical church on politics, feminism, anti-racism, and LGBTQ issues, said Hanson Woodruff. Held Evans, who died at 37 in 2019, wrote about how she grappled with her conservative upbringing while questioning long-established evangelical views on the role of women. Bessey asked readers to reconsider whether feminism was antithetical to Christianity. Channing Brown wrote about her experience as a Black Christian woman in white conservative evangelical spaces.

“Many of these women authors are advocating for alternative theologies within conservative evangelicalism,” said Hanson Woodruff. “Many of them were raised in churches where women would not be allowed to be pastors or elders or other kinds of leaders. And they’re talking to each other, and saying that that’s not in the Bible, and that’s not what it says. And their readers are reconsidering these things as well.”

Hanson Woodruff’s work will have a significant academic impact, said David Holland, Bartlett Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School.

“Kelsey’s ability to identify the way technology and culture have converged to create these spaces and opportunities for women’s religious leadership in spaces that have traditionally been reserved for male leadership has been a really important breakthrough in our understanding of the religious landscape of our present moment,” said Holland.

After graduation, Hanson Woodruff plans to pursue postdoctoral studies and publish a biography of Held Evans, which she has been working on for the past few years. In the meantime, she has a few words of advice for those students interested in religious studies. “Young adulthood is a wonderful time to consider the most significant questions of meaning: What makes us human? What is our purpose? And how have other people, in other times and other places, understood the answers to these questions?” said Hanson Woodruff. “Religious studies, and indeed all the humanities, can lead us to consider these things.”

Fruit flies, one of the most studied organisms in science, are efficient little creatures, able to navigate their environment with agility. They were also one of the first animals to be manipulated by geneticists.

A new study, published last month by PNAS, exploited these qualities by turning fruit flies into what the co-authors call “living micro-robots,” whose movements can be controlled by sensory clues. The paper was completed at Harvard’s Rowland Institute, dedicated to experimental research across engineering and science disciplines.

“Typically, people think about robots as devices that you build with plastic and metal and the wires and software,” said co-author Aleksandr “Sasha” Rayshubskiy, a fellow at the Rowland Institute. But because fruit flies — aka Drosophilae melanogaster — are so well understood, they can be treated as living robots.

“You can get them to do things that you want them to do,” Rayshubskiy said.

The research team used two methods to manipulate the flies’ movements, the first involving light and a wheel. “We can rotate the light and wheel either clockwise or counterclockwise, and that makes the flies turn,” explained Charles Neuhauser, a postbaccalaureate fellow on the study.

The second method involved scent, again used to get the flies to one side. “We get them to think that they are smelling something either to the left of their body or to the right of their body,” Neuhauser said.

The paper describes how these controls were used to lead flies through a maze and block out phrases like “Hello, world,” a familiar greeting to computer programmers. “We can hack their genes to turn on actions,” said co-author Kenichi Iwasaki, a research associate at the Rowland Institute. “We can hack them the same way that you would hack a conventional robotic system. We have a way of steering a fly like you would a car.”

But do these flies really constitute robots? “Our work pushes that conceptual boundary,” Rayshubskiy said. “I think a robot is a machine that you can get to do useful work for you.”

The project is the result of “two fields that normally don’t interact,” he added. “You have the field of engineering where people build robots. They don’t really see the fly as a player yet in that world. And then you have a field of people who care deeply, very deeply about fruit flies, but they don’t really venture into the robotic field.

“I’ve engineered myself into this bridge between these two fields,” Rayshubskiy said.

Although the fruit fly’s 1 mg, 2.5 mm body is tiny, Rayshubskiy sees multiple possibilities for future applications. “They can carry about their own weight,” he pointed out. “We could not only guide them places, but we can also activate behaviors inside of them where they could do something else.”

He gave a practical example. “It’s actually really hard to clean buildings,” Rayshubskiy said. “They’re covered in junk constantly and it builds up over time. Imagine having a swarm of fruit flies, thousands and thousands of flies, that you could direct onto the face of a building, and they would clean all the dirt that builds up. You could use swarms of flies as cleaning devices.”

A second paper, currently being finalized by the same set of researchers, addresses how fruit flies can be made to interact with foreign objects, essentially exploring their potential as tiny beasts of burden.

“Our work provides a foundation for deploying swarms of natural ‘robots’ that, with further innovations, could transform applications like environmental monitoring and disaster response,” said Rosy Hosking, director of research affairs at the Rowland Institute.

The forthcoming research also gives insight into the workings of the fruit fly brain. “There’s tension between our guidance, which doesn’t know or care about how the fruit fly feels, and the fly’s own feelings about what feels safe to do,” Rayshubskiy said. By studying that tension, and the fruit fly’s responses, he said, “We could tease out the hidden variables about what the fly cares about by forcing it to do certain things.”

We know exercise is good for us — but not exactly why. At Harvard, researchers are trying to pinpoint how exercise impacts our bodies down to the cellular level.

“It’s been known since Hippocrates that exercise is associated with health,” said Robert Gerszten, a professor at Harvard Medical School and chief of cardiovascular medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “But how exercise is beneficial at a molecular level is not well described.”

For decades, Gerszten’s lab has been tackling this question. Notably, he’s been involved in a landmark National Institutes of Health project launched in 1992 known as the HERITAGE Family Study. Drawing on data from more than 650 men and women of varying fitness levels undertaking a 20-week exercise program, the study continues to publish findings.

In 2021, Gerszten helped author a paper using HERITAGE data in which researchers were able to predict with reasonable accuracy whether individuals could improve their cardiovascular fitness, and by how much. The team used pioneering molecular tools to identify blood-based biomarkers linked to fitness and training response. Out of the more than 5,000 proteins his lab studied, Gerszten and his team were able to identify 147 that had strong predictive relationships.

“We began to identify some new biochemicals that hadn’t been described previously in the context of exercise physiology,” Gerszten said.

Building on that work, Gerszten is a part of another NIH-funded project — the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium. His lab is one of the core chemical analysis sites analyzing clinical metrics like blood pressure, VO₂ max (a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness), and muscle strength in more than 2,000 participants. Additionally, the team is taking blood samples and tissue biopsies before and after 12 weeks of exercise to analyze molecular changes compared to baseline samples.

“The HERITAGE study was a prelude for this study,” Gerszten said. “It was the largest exercise study ever done, and it was about 650 people, so about a third of the size of this.”

“The notion is, if you identify some pathway that’s conferring a lot of the benefit of exercise, do you really need the exercise?”

Gerszten noted that this study isn’t comprehensive just because of its size, but also its breadth of patients. There are participants under 18 and over 60. And from each person, about seven blood samples are taken, along with tissue samples, during acute exercise. “Each time,” he said, “before and after training, you get muscle and fat biopsies.”

The researchers are seeking to better understand why some people respond better to different types of workouts, such as running versus weightlifting. They also hope their findings will lead to clinical applications.

“The notion is, if you identify some pathway that’s conferring a lot of the benefit of exercise, do you really need the exercise?” Gerszten said. “You can imagine that for certain individuals, wheelchair-bound, super frail, etc., these types of putative interventions might be particularly helpful.”

Early findings from pre-COVID trials of patients are starting to be released. Though Gerszten said it may be years before all the data is collected and analyzed, an unusual feature of the study is that data is being released publicly on a rolling basis to allow doctors and scientists to use it for their own research.

“This is one of the largest genomic databases,” Gerszten said. “So there’s going to be so many eyes on the data. I would underscore that the real goal is to get this out ASAP for everybody to look at.”

---

This research is supported by the NIH Common Fund and is managed by a program team led by the NIH Office of Strategic Coordination, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Institute on Aging, and by a trans-agency working group representing multiple NIH institutes and centers.

Money can’t buy happiness, but strong relationships can. And having those ties can bring better health, too.

That is the main lesson from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest in-depth studies of physical and mental health among adults, said its director, Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In its 87th year, the longitudinal study represents the world’s longest-running scientific examination of human health and happiness. It began in 1938 with 724 participants and has grown to 2,500, including the wives and descendants of the original participants.

“The lessons aren’t about wealth, or fame, or working harder and harder,” said Waldinger in a 2015 TED Talk that has been viewed nearly 50 million times.

“The clearest message is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period … It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier; they are physically healthier and live longer than people who are less well connected.”

The data collected by the study over decades, consisting of medical records, brain scans, in-person interviews and questionnaires, is a treasure trove of information that can be used for research beyond that of Waldinger’s group.

As of now, the Harvard Study is collaborating with researchers from the Boston Veterans Administration, Northwestern University, University of Malmo in Sweden, and Bryn Mawr College.

One of those collaborations looks at lead exposure in childhood, through air and water, and its potential impact on physical and mental health by using the study’s data on participants and the neighborhoods where they grew up, including lead exposure, and their physical and mental well-being throughout their lives.

This collaborative study also aims to examine whether long-term effects of exposure to lead affect levels of juvenile delinquency, dropping out of school, or developing dementia later in life.

Over the years, the study has been funded primarily by grants from the National Institutes of Health, and since 2003 by grants from the National Institute on Aging.

The Harvard Study has not been affected by the Trump administration’s recent funding cuts, but the cuts pose a threat to long-term research, which can only be supported by government funding, said Waldinger.

“So many foundations will do a pilot grant,” said Waldinger. “But then they don’t want to keep funding something for eight decades, understandably, but the government can take on these longer, big projects. The government is the only funding source likely to do that.”

In the Harvard Study’s case, federal funding has covered participant testing and compensation and salaries of research assistants, who do in-person visits or phone calls, and collect and store data.

But another key benefit of federal-funding projects is that they help train young scientists who will go on to lead research discoveries, said Waldinger.

Longitudinal research, or studying people over time, is a specialized kind of study that requires special statistical techniques. Over the years, dozens of undergraduate students, Ph.D. candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty have been trained by the Harvard Study, he said.  

Critics are concerned the recent funding cuts might discourage young scientists from going into research. Even if the funds are restored in the next administration, the pipeline of researchers will have been disrupted, said Waldinger. Some of his students no longer see research as a reliable career, and many are going into clinical work or business, he added, but the effects on the country’s position as a global leader in scientific research and discoveries are worrisome as well.

“My biggest worry is that we will stop being the premier place for research,” said Waldinger.

“Many of our most important discoveries are discoveries that happen because people were investigating an area that didn’t necessarily have a direct practical application when they started studying it, and then they discovered things that turn out to be hugely important things.”

In addition, much of the research has fueled economic innovation over the decades, and funding cuts also put those advances in jeopardy. “So even if you were just interested in money and not in knowledge and science, you would say, this is a really important thing to continue, and we should never lose this, or we will lose our advantage economically,” he said.

Across the University and the world, Harvard students, staff, and researchers dedicate themselves to documenting, organizing, and restoring items big and small. The tools of the trade could be trowels, tweezers, erasers, microscopes, or 3D scanners, but their goal is the same: to preserve works of literature, art, science, and civilization, and keep them accessible for future generations of researchers, students, and the wider public.

“There are secrets to unlock,” says Brenda Bernier, the Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian and director of Preservation Services for Harvard Library. “I find that the most exciting and exhilarating part of it, and also the most daunting.”

Bernier’s office is near the Weissman Preservation Center on Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. “Anytime you walk through that lab, there’s something that’s gonna knock your socks off,” Bernier said.

The Weissman specializes in handling and treating rare book, paper, and photographic collections. Other departments and museums around campus have their own conservation and archival specialties.

Harvard’s history in preservation and conservation runs deep. In 1928, it established the first art conservation laboratory in the U.S., called the Department of Technical Research, in the Fogg Museum. It’s now called the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies.

Bernier compares the scale of Harvard’s preservation efforts to the Library of Congress. “Harvard has been collecting library materials since the 1600s,” she said. “It’s our responsibility to maintain it into the future.”

What makes Harvard’s collections of books, photographs, recordings, digital media, and ephemera so important? These original items are primary resources, and they can jumpstart new research inquiries. “They hold the witness of the time,” Bernier said. “It could be scientific data. It could be cultural and historical events. Preserving that, that powers research right there. Because it is close to the truth; it’s what actually happened.”

Excerpted from “The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking” by Leor Zmigrod, Visiting Research Fellow ’19

From fascism and communism to eco-activism and spiritual evangelism, ideological groups offer absolute and utopian answers to societal troubles, strict rules for behavior, and an ingroup mentality through dedicated practices and symbols. These features exist across the spectrum of ideological persuasions. Such characteristics can emerge even when the ideology is guided by the sincerest intentions and noblest ideals — even if it claims to protect human dignity or flourishing.

Typically, ideologies are imagined as big visions. Grand and atmospheric. Intangible and out of our personal control. Few of us can outline the precise tenets of pompously uppercased Conservatism, Liberalism, Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, Racism, Sexism, Theism, or Populism, with all their myriad meanings and interpretations. As though from the heavens, these -isms describe the contours of life and prescribe human action, instructing us about the cosmos and how we ought to relate to others within it. For believers, the utopian destiny of an ideology seems carved from the clouds of eternity. A looming force soaring above our heads, meant to be venerated and revered.

The image of ideologies as celestial and static has always troubled me. Ideologies coexist among us, within us, on earth. Not in the skies of history or the towers of political elites. There is no transcendent plane on which they live; no altitudes from which attitudes descend fully formed and holy. Ideologies inhabit individuals. Individual minds convert social doctrines into ideological thinking, a style of thinking that is governed by strict mental rules and carefully regimented mental leaps.

While most definitions perceive ideologies as historical currents and sociological movements, I am interested in examining ideologies as psychological phenomena instead. This psychological lens allows us to ask what an ideology does to its believers and whom it most easily attracts. By spotlighting the processes happening within individual brains, we can probe when an ideology constrains its followers’ mental lives and whether it can ever liberate them.

---

I invite you to sit down on that gray chair — yes, the one at the desk — and make yourself comfortable. I point to the monitor in front of you and say this is where the experiment will happen. Soon, when I leave the room, you will see instructions pop up on the screen.

Please press ENTER when you are ready.

You press ENTER.

Hello! Welcome to the experiment. Today you will play a series of brain games and problem-solving challenges. For the first game, you will be presented with a deck of cards. Each card will be painted with a number of geometric objects of a specific color and shape. For instance, you may encounter a card with three red circles or a card decorated with a single blue triangle.

The game is a “card-sorting task.” A card will appear at the bottom of your screen. Imagine it is painted with four orange squares. You need to decide how to match it to one of four cards already at the top of the screen.

You will hear a happy jingle when you choose the CORRECT match.

You will hear an angry beep when you choose the INCORRECT match.

Please press ENTER if you understand the instructions.

You press ENTER.

Your first card has three green stars.

You try to match it with the card at the top of the screen decorated with the two blue stars. Maybe stars should go together with other stars.

BEEP!

You sigh. You try again. Maybe your three green stars should be paired with the card containing four green circles? Green-on-green?

Drag, press, release, and … happy jingles! You are right!

You shrug proudly to yourself.

Green-on-green. Easy.

Next card in your deck: one red triangle.

You follow the rule: pair color with color. You place red on red and … jackpot! Jingles again.

You like this rule. You apply it on the next round and the next. Green-on-green, red-on-red, orange-on-orange, blue-on-blue.

The habit is oddly fulfilling. Sliding cards to their rightful grouping, you barely need to think.

After five, or ten, or fifteen rounds — repetition blurs the boundaries of time — the next card in your deck has two blue squares. You go for the blue card at the top of the screen.

BEEP!

An angry, unexpected noise is emitted from the speakers.

You feel betrayed. You forgot the game world was capable of such an offensive sound. It’s insulting.

Maybe it’s just a glitch.

You select the blue card again. It’s second nature to you now, blue on blue.

BEEP!

How can this be? The game world’s inconsistency is like an astonishing infidelity. It makes you want to get up and leave the experiment room.

But you are an addict now. The jingle gave you the feeling (the illusion?) of control, of self-possession. It signaled your cleverness.

In a mad rush you drag the two-blue-squared card toward the three-orange-circled card — there is nothing unifying these cards, not number or color or shape, but you don’t care, you are annoyed. BEEP! The noise barely dissipates before you are lugging the card again, this time toward the four-green-starred card. BEEP! Outraged at this rebellion, you move the mouse in fast, frenzied motions. The rules are not supposed to change halfway through the game. You haul the card to the last unexplored option, swearing to yourself that if this isn’t a match, if the jingle doesn’t return, you will storm out of here in protest, you will wave your arm in the air to call the experimenter back in the room and demand answers, you will — jingle! It worked! You strain your eyes to see what the matching card was. It was two red triangles. Two. Two! Hah! The number of shapes on the card was the same as on the card you held. Hallelujah! Maybe order will return once more. Or maybe this iteration of the task was just a bug. A mere hiccup.

Next time a card pops up on the screen, should you obey the old tradition, follow the color code, or try this new pattern, count the numbers and sort anew? Should you stick to your guns — ignore the anomaly — or should you change, explore, adjust, adapt, revise, and realize that …

This is where I step out of the experiment and tell you that your natural reaction to the change can tell me almost everything about you. Your spontaneous response to the fact that the old rule stopped working and you needed to discover a new one to survive is a kind of inadvertent confession. In this simple game of stars and circles, you have accidentally and inevitably exposed your innermost beliefs.

Why? Because there are two of you. There is the participant who notices the change in the rule governing the game and responds by changing in line with the new demands of the task. This version of you is the adaptable, cognitively flexible individual. When the world changes, you may feel surprise, but you have no fear. You change with the times, with the demands of the environment. You are not strongly rule-bound. You are happy to slip between habits. In fact, you don’t mind having no habit at all. You easily switch between modes of thinking; you are fluid; elastic; you adapt.

However, there is another you. In this version of you, you hate the change. You notice the fact that the old rule no longer works, and you refuse to believe it. You will try again and again to repeat the first rule, but it will be in vain. In fact, you will be punished every time you repeat the original habit. The unnerving BEEP will hit you like a slap in the face. But you won’t move, won’t dodge the blow. You will remain immobile, hanging on tightly to the false belief that somehow the wrathful beep will dissipate and be replaced by a jolly melody. The false and nostalgic belief that the environment around you will magically return and so you don’t need to change. You persevere even when it would be faster to sever ties with the past and move on. This is the cognitively rigid version of you.

Which of these copies of you is you? The flexible or the rigid? The adaptable or the stubbornly unmoving?

Maybe you are neither the first nor the second. You could be somewhere in between: sometimes adaptable, sometimes rigid. Maybe your flexibility depends on circumstance. At ease, you are fluid, adjusting calmly to novelty or surprise. Yet in moments of stress, your movements narrow, your thoughts harden. Anxiety solidifies you, rendering you stiff.

What I, the experimenter, the scientist, have discovered is that how you perform in this game can give me clues about your whole approach to life. Your level of rigidity in this neuropsychological test foreshadows the rigidity with which you believe in ideologies in the social and political world. Your perceptual reflexes are linked to your ideological reflexes.

In fact, your brain comes to mirror your politics and prejudices in strange, profound, and astonishing ways — ways that challenge how we understand the tensions between nature and nurture, risk and resilience, freedom and fate. If our ideological beliefs are related to our cognitive and neural patterns of responding, then we must face new questions about how our bodies become politicized and in what ways we are capable of resisting, changing, and exercising personal agency.

When my colleagues and I invited thousands of people to complete cognitive tests of mental flexibility such as this game, called the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, we found that the people who are the most behaviorally adaptable on neuropsychological tasks are the same people who — in the realm of ideologies — are most open-minded, most accepting of plurality and difference. The people with the most flexible minds are the people who acknowledge that the intellectual realm can be separated from the personal realm. They do not viscerally hate their interlocuters — they may hate their opinions but they do not project that hatred onto the persons voicing them. In contrast, the most cognitively rigid individuals, those who struggle to change when rules change, tend to hold the most dogmatic attitudes. They hate disagreement and are unwilling to shift their beliefs when credible counterevidence is presented.

Cognitive rigidity translates into ideological rigidity.

This may seem obvious to some: a rigid person is a rigid person. But in fact these patterns are not obvious. When neuroscientists talk about cognition and perception, we are talking about information processing that deals with simple stimuli, with basic sensory information in neutral contexts. Cognitive tasks are composed of uncomplicated elements — colored shapes and moving black dots — displayed on spare, undecorated screens. Through these tasks, we are not assessing how you deal with emotionally evocative or triggering information — information that genuinely scares you or makes you feel a sour pinch of disgust. We are not studying tasks that are too cognitively demanding or complex — ones that would exasperate you needlessly. When neuroscientists measure cognition and perception, we glean individual differences in how a brain forms decisions, learns from the environment, and responds to challenges or contradictions at the most foundational level.

These individual differences are implicit; we have little conscious access to them or control over their expression. A cognitively rigid person may insist that they are spectacularly flexible, and an adaptable thinker may believe that they lack mental malleability. It is astonishing how rarely we know ourselves.

As a result, the link between mental inflexibility and ideological rigidity reveals a critical insight about how our brains work and how ideologies penetrate human brains. It suggests that our characteristic rigidity, rigidity that is evident when we deal with any information — even orange stars and blue circles — can propagate up to higher-level rigidities that emerge in our ideological choices and actions.

Even when we are not thinking explicitly about politics, the reverberations of our ideological convictions can be felt and measured. Ideological imprints on the brain can be observed when our minds are left to roam and drift, when we imagine and invent, when we observe and interpret even the most neutral of situations. The ideological brain’s rigidities and idiosyncrasies manifest where we least expect them, in our most private sensations and physiological responses, beneath the surface of our public convictions and conscious feelings. The dangers of dogmatic ideologies are therefore not just political — the consequences are neural, individual, and existential.

Published by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 2025 by Leor Zmigrod. All rights reserved.

The Trump administration is attacking climate science on multiple fronts with little regard for federal law, say Harvard experts who worry that the damage will be hard to reverse even if the government eventually loses in court.

“This isn’t normal,” said Jody Freeman, the Archibald Cox Professor of Law and faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program. “No president that I know of in contemporary history has ever issued executive orders that are so reckless in disregard of legal limits. They’re willing to roll the dice or intentionally violate legal requirements and then say, ‘Chase us around and sue us to stop us.’”

In April, the president signed at least two executive orders that threaten climate progress, Freeman said. One instructs the Department of Justice to investigate state climate policies that conflict with the federal government; the other calls for federal agencies to prop up the nation’s fading coal industry.

Freeman spoke at an online briefing sponsored by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. Other speakers were former Obama science adviser and Teresa and John Heinz Research Professor of Environmental Policy John Holdren; Teresa and John Heinz Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy Joseph Aldy; and Mary Rice, the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Respiratory Health.   

“All of this runs the risk of climate change growing faster than it otherwise would have, possibly passing catastrophic tipping points.”

John Holdren

By turning its back on climate change, the U.S. loses more than the trust of its global partners, said Holdren. It loses time in a race with very little margin for error.

“Time lost from advancing solutions is gone forever,” he said. “And all of this runs the risk of climate change growing faster than it otherwise would have, possibly passing catastrophic tipping points.”

Many of the administration’s actions seem designed to undercut our ability to understand, never mind fight, the climate crisis, Holdren said. He cited changes that have weakened the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and the National Science Foundation, along with cuts to work being carried out by nongovernmental organizations and universities. The U.S. and China have been the global leaders of efforts to better address climate change, he said. By slashing climate science, the administration is ceding leadership on an issue of global importance matched only by nuclear arms and pandemic threats, he argued.

Aldy charged that the new administration is seeking a “low information” government, with multiple actions aimed at shrinking government datasets, on climate and other issues. He is bracing for widespread negative effects touching everything from student science projects, to projections for hurricanes, extreme heat, and wildfires, to the ability of insurance companies to understand and incorporate extreme weather risks in setting rates.

“This government is actually making concerted efforts to reduce the amount of data available and reduce the generation of new data and evidence by both government scientists as well as scientists who are supported through government funding,” he said.

Aldy also lamented workforce reductions at federal agencies, including civil servants with scientific and policy expertise who will be hard to replace.

“Implementing policy is hard work,” Aldy said. “It’s critical to have a dedicated team of public servants who have the expertise and are trained in the sciences and law and public policy and public health and engineering and more. You need them to be able to understand what Congress passes, to understand what the White House may say we want to do, and then to be able to work effectively on implementation so that you can actually advance your goals.”

Rice is particularly concerned about cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency, whose research office has been slated for major changes and whose research funding to university scientists has been slashed. Philanthropy can fill some of the holes, she said, but not at the same scale or with the same consistency. Much of the affected work has direct links to human health, she noted.

“In just the past few days, the EPA has canceled hundreds of research grants to universities, to scientists,” she said, adding: “When science is silenced, lives are lost.”

In his role as a business school admissions officer, William Makris, Ed.M. ’00, was guided by a simple principle when interviewing candidates: listen for opportunity.

“What qualities does each person bring with them?” Makris said. “How can we continue to nurture a person’s unique strengths while supporting them as they learn and grow?”

And as he prepares to step into the role of Harvard alumni board president on July 1 — a position that leads the Harvard Alumni Association board of directors and represents alumni worldwide — he is eager to listen and learn how to support and strengthen the growth of Harvard’s global alumni community.

Throughout his career, he has helped coach and advise mid-career professionals pursuing advanced degrees by being present, open to innovative ideas, and unafraid to ask questions — qualities he honed at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Makris has worked in various leadership roles at business schools throughout New England. He served on the admissions committee and as an adviser for the MIT executive M.B.A. program at the MIT Sloan School of Management, as associate dean of M.B.A. admissions at Babson College, and as manager of part-time and executive M.B.A. programs at Northeastern University.

“When someone shares their story, I’m going to take the time to learn deeply about this person,” Makris said. “Being curious and understanding someone’s experience is very important to me and my work with alumni.”

The promise of higher education

Higher education is deeply intertwined with Makris’ family history. The grandson of Greek immigrants who moved to Cambridge with no formal education and a hope for a better life, Makris has always had a deep connection to Harvard.

His grandfather George Culolias founded The Tasty Sandwich Shop — affectionately known as “The Tasty” — a legendary one-room lunch restaurant in Harvard Square that served generations of hungry customers from 1916 until 1997. His grandmother Penio Culolias, who lived to 102, was a driving force for her children and grandchildren to pursue higher education.

As she brought her children to work, Makris’ grandmother walked with them through Harvard Yard. They would stop at the John Harvard Statue, where she would encourage them to study hard in the hopes that one day they could walk through the Yard as students.

Makris’ mother, Helen C. (Eleni) Makris ’50, graduated from Radcliffe College and became a teacher, and her brothers, Nicholas Culolias ’53 and Charles Bradford Ellis ’39, graduated from Harvard College. In a moment of serendipitous timing, Makris’ own graduation from HGSE coincided with his mother’s 50th reunion. His father, George “Moose” Makris, attended Northeastern University on a full football scholarship, where he also played baseball and hockey, returning to his alma mater after his official retirement to work in fundraising for athletic programs.

In today’s tumultuous time for higher education, Makris recognizes its value more than ever. “The opportunity for me to continue the journey that my grandmother envisioned is phenomenal,” he said. “I believe in the promise of higher education. I believe in what it’s done for me, and for generations of people here in the United States and in countries around the world.”

A home at Harvard

Makris, who arrived at Harvard later in life, thinks often of a quote from past HAA President Allyson Mendenhall ’90, M.L.A. ’99, who said: “Harvard comes to you when you’re ready, and you come to it when you’re ready.”

Makris earned his bachelor’s degree in public health from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, followed by an M.B.A. from Northeastern University. Working in finance at a tech company, he pivoted to a career in higher education — finding an atmosphere that provided opportunities to give new ideas a chance, even for someone just starting out — and enrolled in the master’s degree program at HGSE.

He found “an incredible home” at HGSE. “Harvard gave me a new lens to see the world,” he said. “It adjusted my orbit. I learned how to dive deep into a topic, to be thoughtful, and to make decisions informed by data — skills I carry with me today.”

Shortly after his graduation, he was inspired to volunteer after attending an event at the Harvard Club of Boston, where he found a “commonality of intellectual curiosity, sharing, and community” among his fellow alumni across the University.

Makris served for three years as co-chair of the HGSE Recent Alumni Council before joining the Graduate School Alumni Council as co-chair. He was also the appointed director from HGSE to the HAA board for two terms, where he co-led a graduate school alumni engagement initiative and helped develop a training program for new board members. Additionally, he spent three years as vice president of University-wide alumni affairs, representing the graduate and professional Schools, followed by his current term as first vice president of the HAA.

‘Your voice will be heard’

As he approaches his term, Makris feels humbled by the privilege of representing alumni.

He has been working closely with current alumni president, Moitri Chowdhury Savard ’93, whose “warmth, genuine leadership style, and collaborative energy is a gift,” he said.

Makris is building on Savard’s concept of veritates, or many truths — embracing multiple truths in order to connect in dialogue across differences — a turn of phrase Tracy Moore II ’06 helped coin, with a new theme that emphasizes speaking from experience and listening with empathy.

“I want people to activate their Harvard voices,” he said. “If you share your knowledge and experience, it invites others to share their stories. Listening is fostered. Commonalities arise. Identification is discovered. You begin to hear others’ stories with greater empathy. You are motivated to engage in debate and dialogue.”

He wants to ensure that all alumni feel welcome to be part of the community. “Harvard is going to be there for you when you need it, no matter what age you are,” he said. “Whether you’re attending your first event ever or your first event in 20 years, you’ll find your community waiting for you, and your voice will be heard.”

As Savard has reflected on her tenure during a challenging time for higher education, she has appreciated hearing the views of alumni around the country and the world. “Alumni hold multiple truths, but agree on many shared values, including the importance of education and open inquiry,” Savard said.

She is excited to support Makris in his new role. “He understands the significance of alumni voice and brings various viewpoints to the table. His expertise in bringing people together and his positive outlook will be invaluable to the alumni community — we are lucky to have him at the helm.”

How is generative AI shaping academia? Faculty, students, and staff from across Harvard gathered recently to tackle that urgent question.

Speakers at the half-day event, co-sponsored by the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Harvard University Information Technology, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, wrestled with how generative AI is changing the skills students need to succeed. The core message: AI compels higher education to fundamentally re-evaluate its purpose, its methods, and its values.

“This is an incredible opportunity for all of us, wherever we are at Harvard, to imagine how the ways in which we work, the ways in which we teach, the ways in which we learn, and the ways in which we do our research can be fundamentally transformed,” said Karim Lakhani, Dorothy and Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration and founding chair of the Digital Data Design Institute. “Our mission of veritas can actually be enhanced by using these tools.” 

“We need to be clear that access to information is not the same as learning, and it’s certainly not the same as active learning and sustained learning.”

Nonie K. Lesaux, dean of the faculty

Harvard University Provost and Dane Professor of Law John Manning framed the event at Klarman Hall as a “One Harvard” moment. 

The symposium surfaced disagreements about the proper use of AI in academia. Rebecca Nesson, panel moderator and dean for academic programs at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, polled the audience: Is it OK for students to use AI to summarize the readings for a class, instead of doing the reading themselves? Is it appropriate for a professor to use AI to write a letter of recommendation? What about a first-pass assessment of student work? The audience was split.

In a panel on generative AI and the future of learning, the speakers grappled with what it means to genuinely learn something in a world shaped by AI.

“We need to be clear that access to information is not the same as learning, and it’s certainly not the same as active learning and sustained learning,” said Nonie K. Lesaux, dean of the faculty and Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Christopher W. Stubbs, Samuel C. Moncher Professor of Physics and of Astronomy at FAS and senior adviser on generative AI, said FAS faculty vary in their adoption of AI and AI policies in the classroom: Some organize their teaching around it, while others ban it outright. “We have a long way to go in having our colleagues appreciate what this means, to rip down to the studs what it is we want to accomplish in the education we give our students, and then build it back up again,” he said.

Iavor Bojinov, assistant professor and Richard Hodgson Fellow at Harvard Business School, teaches the first AI-native course at that School, “Data Science and AI for Leaders.” Students use AI to prepare for class, answer questions, and build their own companies. “People are very positive about these tools, but it made it so easy for them to cheat. A lot of students came to me and said, ‘I can just copy-paste things, so do I really need to learn these things?’ This is something we’re thinking really hard about.”

Despite these open questions, researchers across Harvard are leveraging generative AI to achieve remarkable advancements. Alberto Cavallo, Thomas S. Murphy Professor of Business Administration and co-director of the Pricing Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute, used it to identify the countries of origin for thousands of products to estimate the impact of tariffs. Rachel Carmody, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at FAS, shared AI research that combed through 40 terabytes of metagenomic data to analyze the possible extinction of certain gut bacteria in developed countries. “It’s a trillion-piece jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “With generative AI, we can get results back in a week, whereas a year ago it would have taken us a year.” 

The symposium is the latest in Harvard’s efforts to elevate teaching, learning, and research through the innovative use of AI. Harvard Business School launched the Digital Data Design Institute in 2022 to be a global research center, providing data-driven insights on the ways AI is transforming work and the economy. In 2023, HUIT, in partnership with the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and faculty and staff from across the University, launched an AI “sandbox” where users can safely play with various large language models. 

The symposium finished with student presentations and a reception featuring hands-on demonstrations of AI applications. FAS, the SEAS, and the Harvard Library also co-sponsored the event. 

Music can be difficult to talk about. But WordSong, which styles itself “Boston’s premier interactive concert organization,” confronts the fraught relationship between music and words directly.

Earlier this month the Mahindra Humanities Center hosted a WordSong performance and discussion centered on William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming.” By commissioning multiple composers to set a single text to music and then inviting discussion about the poem and its varied musical settings, the series invites deeper listening of both poetry and contemporary composition.

The occasion, co-sponsored by Arts and Humanities Dean Sean Kelly, marked the premiere of short pieces by Boston-area composers Elena Ruehr, Howard Frazin, and Tom Schnauber. All three works were performed in Holden Chapel by the local Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Krista River and New England-based Arneis Quartet.

“It’s difficult to talk about music, but we believe that everybody can,” said Schnauber, who founded WordSong with Frazin in 2008.

However, the German American composer added: “It is easier to talk about words than about music.”

With that in mind, the program began with a reading of Yeats’ poem. Its imagery of disconnection and a strange Sphynx-like creature waking as a moment of doom approaches, was written in 1919. That tumultuous time, following the horrific destruction of the first World War as well as Ireland’s struggles for independence, echoes into our own era, as audience members quickly noted.

As attendees chimed in about what the poem evoked for them, Schnauber jotted down themes on a white board. They included politics, disenchantment, and blame as well as religion and Einstein, whose theory of relativity was relatively new when the poem was written. Also brought up was Yeats’ animal imagery (“the falcon cannot hear the falconer”) and the poem’s structure, including its use of repetition.

The three compositions took different approaches to the text.

Schnauber’s setting was performed first. A cappella sections, which left River’s voice exposed, were used to accentuate phrases, as when the soprano mused over the title line. Pizzicato passages played up the disconnection that is a theme of the poem.

Ruehr’s composition took a more lyrical approach. Perhaps in response to the circling falcon of the first stanza, repeated (or circling) motifs gave way to the disruption of harsh staccato passages. The music of the string quartet then turned almost dreamy for the poem’s contemplative second stanza.

Frazin’s piece started with River singing a cappella before a dramatic entrance by the strings, the instrumentals accenting the long, held vocal phrasings. This piece also made use of a few repeated motifs passed between the viola and the cello, the instrument most associated with the human voice.

After the three pieces were performed, the composers invited audience comments. Attendees remarked how different musical settings played up various emotional responses.

At times, the conversation focused on what imagery each musical piece highlighted. When Ruehr noted that the natural imagery was important to her, a listener said that had been clear in the music: “I heard the falcon swooping in yours.”

During the conversation, each piece was performed for a second time, provoking more conversation about what each composer sought to emphasize, and which were the most successful. Comments ranged from technical critiques, with some listeners saying they heard echoes of early religious or Irish folk music in the compositions, to emotional reactions.

When Schnauber and Frazin got to the monstrous “rough beast” of the second stanza, one listener noted, the effect was “cataclysmic.” In Frazin’s piece, that listener said, the effect was more “resigned.”

As the conversation turned once again to the events of Yeats’ time, Frazin emphasized how relevant the poem, and the pieces it inspired, are today.

“We’re living through a time not so unlike his time, and there are very complicated emotional conflicts,” said the composer, who also serves as WordSong’s artistic director. This raises its own questions. “Even if you don’t like something, what you are going to do about it is complicated. We are having to step back and say, how did we get here?”

As the conversation continued well past the event’s scheduled end time, it was clear that neither the text nor the music had left the audience at a loss for words.

“Listeners know a lot more than they think they do,” said Frazin. He credited people’s “intuitive artistic understanding,” an understanding that is aided by the sharing of ideas.

Do well by doing: That’s the attitude Michael Oved, a graduating senior, says he brought to his time at Harvard College.

An economics and history concentrator with a passion for entrepreneurship and Republican politics, Oved says he takes an economics approach to projects, whether academic or extracurricular. At College, that meant identifying an unmet need and then building something new to serve that need and connect people.

“Everything I’ve done at Harvard has been about doing,” said Oved, who grew up in New York City and attended a Jewish high school in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

After a summer job at a startup in Barcelona, Oved wanted to bring some of that same startup buzz to Harvard and to other college students in Boston. A member of the Harvard Venture Capital Club, he envisioned an entrepreneurship summit where young aspiring VCs could meet and hear from real-world experts. Since nothing like that existed, Oved decided he’d just have to start one. Naysayers thought it was too ambitious and costly to pull off, he said, but the conference sold out and has continued for the last three years.

“I’m interested in building, I’m interested in doing, and that’s what the venture capital group was about,” he said. “It was about me using my platform as a sophomore at Harvard, an 18-year-old kid who felt like the world was at his fingertips. How can I do something with that feeling?”

Oved brought that same zeal and drive to the Harvard Republican Club, another group he joined as a first-year student looking to explore as much as the College had to offer.

“I want everyone to experience what I’ve experienced here.”

For a while, Oved kept his political views to himself. But in “Ec10,” a 500-plus student survey course taught by Harvard economists Jason Furman and David Laibson, he started speaking up in class. People took notice.

“I think people had a sense that I was asking questions from a very Republican-leaning perspective. I got dozens of people coming up to me on the street, literally, coming up to me on the street saying, ‘Michael, thank you for asking that question. I had the same question,’” he said.

Furman, Oved’s senior thesis adviser, called him “as brilliant as he is charismatic,” and said he stood out in class for his “openness to debating alternative perspectives.”

Though the cohort of Republican-leaning students on campus was thought to be small, Oved sensed there was a “hunger” for community, but no outlet where they could get together and share viewpoints. “And so, I said, how can we build something to meet that need?”

In late 2023, as president of the Harvard Republican Club, Oved grew the mailing list to 850 members and brought in high-profile speakers like tech investor Peter Thiel and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ’76, now the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

His goal was to move the club from the campus social fringe to the center. He did just that when the club offered its full-throated endorsement of the Republican Party candidate, Donald Trump, in August 2024.

The move turned a bright, national spotlight on the club. Not long after Trump’s victory, Oved penned an essay in The Harvard Crimson, “Being Republican at Harvard Has Never Been Better,” about the need for students from across the ideological spectrum to engage in real life, not argue on the internet. But not all of the attention was welcome.

“It was a very, very difficult time for me when we endorsed,” Oved says now. Though he expected to receive some criticism for the decision, the vitriol from strangers, particularly online, was “difficult to endure.”

Still, that experience hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for being bold and building new things. Drawing on his religious education and family values about the importance of giving back, last year Oved launched the podcast “30 Years in 30 Minutes,” where guests share life lessons from pivotal points in their lives.

“How can I bring world-class speakers that only someone from Harvard would have access to, how can I bring them to the average person?” he said of the podcast’s origin. “I want everyone to experience what I’ve experienced here.”

President Nayib Bukele is both widely popular and highly controversial in El Salvador.

But he was less well-known in the U.S. until his visit to the White House in April to underscore his cooperation with the U.S. government’s plan to send some migrants to El Salvador for imprisonment.

Born to a wealthy family of Palestinian ancestry, Bukele has won supporters in El Salvador due to his widespread crackdown on the nation’s powerful criminal gangs with an “iron fist” policy. Critics say he has also trampled constitutional rights and civil liberties and seeks to curtail press freedoms.

In this edited interview, Professor of Sociology Jocelyn Viterna, who has researched El Salvador for over 30 years, spoke about Bukele’s rise to power and her concerns over his methods.

---

Bukele has jokingly referred to himself as the “the coolest dictator in the world.” How do you describe his political ideology?

Before Bukele ran for president in 2019, he had been mayor of a small suburb near San Salvador and then mayor of San Salvador. He identified himself as a left-wing politician who ran on an FMLN (a former rebel group) ticket, but he grew frustrated with the FMLN just like many people in the country.

By the end of his term as mayor of San Salvador, he had become an independent politician. He formed his own party, Nuevas Ideas, and began adopting a populist image — that he was neither right nor left, but something new. Originally, he framed himself as being heavily invested in the development of El Salvador through people, the economy, and especially through tourism. But since 2022, with a crackdown on gang violence in El Salvador, he’s adopted a much more authoritarian identity.

Can you talk a bit more about what that looks like on the ground? 

Between Bukele’s controversial second term in 2024, which he accomplished after packing the Supreme Court with loyalists who ruled that he could run despite constitutional limits, and the continuing state of exception, we have seen a complete override of democratic checks and balances. That includes attacks on the media, and his willingness to jail people who oppose his policies or whom he sees as not sufficiently loyal.

People now feel a sense of security; they can go out at night, because Bukele has reduced gang violence in El Salvador. But they are also scared to talk freely. I used to do interviews in El Salvador in the late 1990s and early 2000s, shortly after the civil war, and I never found anyone who wouldn’t talk to me frankly about their political beliefs or what they thought about the government. Now, everyone, from doctors to lawyers to politicians, is afraid of saying anything critical of the government.

What also worries me is that the state of exception, which suspended civil liberties and due process, is leading to a lot of other crimes not being reported. For example, reports suggest that police are increasingly using extra-legal violence, yet nobody reports it because nobody wants to be thrown in jail.

“It’s hard to overstate how frustrated the country was with the two main political parties, with the corruption that both of them engaged in, and especially with the very high rates of violence.”

Bukele has an over 80 percent approval rating in El Salvador. Why is he seemingly so popular?

There’s a number of reasons. First, when Bukele ran for president, many people on the left and the right saw him as someone who represented a way forward, different from a traditional politician. It’s hard to overstate how frustrated the country was with the two main political parties, with the corruption that both of them engaged in, and especially with the very high rates of violence.

The second reason why people love Bukele is that he has reduced both gang violence and murder rates in El Salvador. Gangs used to control large swaths of the country and were very brutal; many people lost their lives, their children, and their properties. Now people have safety, security and freedom from the gang violence that they have not had in over two decades.

And the third reason is that Bukele is a master of publicity. He is very adept at using social media, and he’s passed laws that have reduced the ability of media outlets to speak out against him. When you have that kind of complete control of the narrative, you often paint a picture that helps maintain your popularity.

El Salvador had one of the highest murder rates in the continent due to the violent criminal gangs. How did Bukele manage to control them?

There are a lot of unanswered questions, but what our own U.S. Department of Justice has reported is that early in his first presidency, Bukele engaged in illegal negotiations with the gangs to keep the violence down.

Bukele has denied this, but there is some evidence of his dealings with the gangs. One example is that in March of 2022, the gangs allegedly felt that Bukele was not holding up his end of the negotiations and went on a massive killing spree. They killed 87 people in one weekend — the highest number of people killed in El Salvador since the civil war in a single day.

Some media outlets report that this gave Bukele the impetus to crack down on the gangs; he passed a state of exception that was supposed to last 90 days, and it is now in its third year.

In the sweeps that followed, somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 additional people were put into prison in El Salvador and Bukele’ s own government said that at least 8,000 innocent people were caught up in those sweeps. Because of the state of exception and lack of due process, it’s unclear whether and how these individuals will get out of jail.

Why is Bukele cooperating with the Trump administration on immigration?

Bukele has thrived on using a policy of “mano dura,” presenting himself as a strong-handed leader who is going to fix problems quickly and effectively and won’t take no for an answer. I think that to have the opportunity to highlight what he’s done in El Salvador from the White House was something that was difficult to resist for him.

What do Salvadorans think about Bukele’s imprisoning deported migrants from the U.S.?

I’ve been surprised at how positive they have been about it, at least in social media. I find this surprising because the Salvadoran diaspora, mostly those living in the United States, is responsible for holding up the economy that Bukele is running.

I’m very bothered by the fact that Bukele, the first Salvadoran president who’s ever gotten invited to the White House, did not take advantage of the opportunity to ask for an extension of TPS [Temporary Protected Status, which allows immigrants from troubled nations to live and work in the U.S.] or a sort of work-exchange program, or even to advocate for the migrants in the U.S., but instead laughed and made jokes about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was picked up by mistake by ICE and was sent back to El Salvador.

More than half of the average American adult’s calories come from ultra-processed foods, which have minimal nutritional value and often contain artificial additives. A growing body of research suggests that eating large amounts of such foods may raise the risk of various chronic diseases. New evidence links high consumption with greater likelihood of developing features that precede Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, in collaboration with Alberto Ascherio at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, worked with the self-reported diet data from more than 40,000 health professionals, tracked since the mid-1980s. In the 2010s, the participants also answered questions about early nonmotor features associated with Parkinson’s.

Comparing these data points, the team found that people who consumed about 11 servings of ultra-processed foods per day were 2.5 times likelier to develop early nonmotor features than people who consumed about two to three servings.

In this edited conversation, Ascherio explains the significance of the finding and what’s still unknown.

---

Going into this study, what’s the understanding about how diet can affect brain health, particularly neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s?

There’s no question that diet is important. In fact, there’s a consensus that we could delay the onset of many neurodegenerative diseases by being physically active and having a healthy diet. But there is still a lot that we need to understand, particularly when it comes to Parkinson’s, which is a bit of an exception among chronic diseases. For instance, cigarette smoking is associated with a lower risk of Parkinson’s — it’s one of the very, very few diseases in which cigarette smoking doesn’t raise the risk of the disease. With diet, it’d be nice if the diet that delays cardiovascular disease or cancer also contributes to prevent Parkinson’s. But we don’t know yet.

We do know a few things. We’ve previously found that caffeine intake is associated with a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease. There’s evidence that the Mediterranean diet, which is associated with lower risk of many chronic diseases, might do the same for Parkinson’s, but it’s not as clear as with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. And we’ve seen that intake of flavonoid, which is a component of fruits and vegetables, also tends to be modestly associated with lower risk of Parkinson’s. I think we’re still missing something. In this study with ultra-processed food, though, we found much stronger signals than we’ve seen before.

Why did you focus on early symptoms, as opposed to people who developed Parkinson’s? And why ultra-processed food?

Parkinson’s disease really starts at least 10 to 15 years before the diagnosis. If you study individuals with diagnosed Parkinson’s disease, you’re really 15 years late. So we wanted to find out which factors may influence the development of Parkinson’s disease. For this purpose, we created this large cohort in which we assess the presence of what we call prodromal features of Parkinson’s disease, which occur many years before the typical signs and symptoms of the disease.

In terms of the dietary aspect, we’ve been studying nutrient and dietary patterns for many years, but more recently, it became of interest to look at food in terms of the amount of processing and artificial ingredients. Food processing has always been a necessity for preservation and shelf life, but we’re talking about something different with ultra-processed food. This is really an industrial process to make the food more attractive. It goes well beyond what is needed to preserve the food and is more related to the marketing and commercial aspects of the food industry.

Which prodromal features, or early signs, did you focus on?

We had a huge cohort, so we selected from the clinical literature those common prodromal features that are relatively easy to assess with just simple questions or inexpensive tests. One feature was acting out dreams, which we only asked of people who had a sleeping partner who could verify it. Another was hyposmia, or reduced sense of smell. For that, there was a scratch-and-sniff test that we mailed out for people to smell. And also intestinal constipation, a non-specific feature that can be significant when combined with other signs.

Obviously when you look at these features one by one, they are very common, but the combination of three or more is present in only about 2 percent of older adults. We’ve found in past research that people with all three of these features are 23 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

“Will eating less of these foods be sufficient to prevent Parkinson’s? Almost certainly not, but it could be beneficial. So far, the strongest evidence for reducing Parkinson’s risk is for physical activity.”

You found an association, but not necessarily a cause. How likely is it that the ultra-processed food is causing the development of the prodromal features?

It is very challenging. There’s always the risk of reverse causality, where the prodromal features influence the diet, rather than diet influencing the prodromal features. For instance, if you’re constipated, you might eat more fruits and vegetables to offset the constipation. But we tried to address this by looking at diet very early on. We started assessing the prodromal features in 2012, and we found that there’s already an association between those features in 2012 and the diet back in 1986. In other words, if you have high consumption of ultra-processed food in 1986, you’re more likely to have these prodromal features in 2012. If it was reverse causation, you wouldn’t expect an association to be present that early.

The other limitation is what we call confounding: Could the consumption of ultra-processed food be a marker or something else? We try to adjust for other factors, but the adjustment is never perfect or complete. We do not know yet whether there’s something toxic in the ultra-processed food, or maybe, given that they contribute to 50 percent or more of your calories, you’re just missing other components of the diet that are protective.

If ultra-processed food is the cause, what might the mechanism be?

We don’t really know. But there is evidence that some chemicals can cause Parkinson’s disease. The evidence is particularly strong for pesticides and herbicides. It’s clear that they can increase risk; we just don’t know which pesticides do that. This is because we are exposed to combinations of pesticides and herbicides, not to individual compounds.

Here, we are in a similar situation. We can see that this ultra-processed food is associated with a higher frequency of these prodromal features, but we really don’t know which component. And, as I mentioned, it could even be a displacement of nutrients rather than a specific toxic effect.

What should people do with this information?

Well, given the accumulated evidence related to risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic decline, and dementia, there’s no question that we should limit consumption of ultra-processed foods as much as possible. And it seems that Parkinson’s is in the same direction. Will eating less of these foods be sufficient to prevent Parkinson’s? Almost certainly not, but it could be beneficial. So far, the strongest evidence for reducing Parkinson’s risk is for physical activity. I know it’s a bit disappointing to not have a clear answer. It’s a very difficult question to address, but it’s one that we’ll continue to study.

---

This research was funded in part by the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Department of Defense.

Starting in the late 1960s, cardiovascular disease deaths fell and fell. Mortality decreased by 70 percent — from 206 deaths per 100,000 in 1968 to 62 deaths in 2017. The share of all premature deaths attributable to heart disease fell, too.

The trends no longer look so promising. Around 2010, the long decline in cardiovascular deaths began to level off and appear stalled. Some studies find that they’re increasing year over year for the first time since the 1950s.

Scientific innovation hasn’t stopped. Fundamental research has led to new drugs, treatments, and interventions. Public health campaigns warn against smoking, and some of the most powerful drugs to treat high blood pressure and high cholesterol — two major, common risk factors —are widely available and cheaper than ever. Those who actually suffer a heart attack survive more than 90 percent of the time.

But, health professionals say, greater awareness of the urgency of the problem is needed. Too many ignore lifestyle practices like healthy diets and regular exercise, and medical professionals need to be more aggressive about preventive care. In addition, there are deficiencies in the healthcare system itself. Working on all of this, along with continued innovation, is viewed as key to getting the nation back on track.

---

Heart disease is a lifelong struggle. For Rishi Wadhera, a cardiologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), the problems start with young people. “I call it a smoldering crisis,” he says.

Wadhera researches heart health in younger adult populations and finds that they’re putting more stress on their hearts. In a paper published in the journal JAMA, Wadhera and his colleagues found that between 2009 and 2020, people between 20 and 44 saw increases in diabetes (3 percent to 4.1 percent), obesity (32.7 percent to 40.9 percent), and hypertension (9.3 to 11.5 percent).

These risk factors lead to earlier heart attacks. In the European Heart Journal, Wadhera and colleagues reported that heart attacks for people between 25 and 64 rose from 155 per 100,000 people to 161. This cohort of adults also suffered more instances of heart failure (from 165.3 to 225.3 per 100,000) and ischemic strokes (76.3 to 108.1 per 100,000).

Wadhera called the report “alarming.” In lower-income communities, cardiovascular hospitalization rates among younger adults were two to three times larger than in their high-income counterparts. Black Americans fared particularly poorly; about 40 percent of hospitalized younger adults from low-income communities were Black. These disparities did not narrow over time.

Plenty of progress has been made over the last few decades. Of the total number of premature deaths in the U.S., nearly 39 percent of them were heart-disease related in 1980. Today, that number is 20 percent. Overall rates of premature deaths related to cardiovascular disease is down about 70 percent since its 1968 peak.

Still, heart disease remains the leading cause of death for Americans.

---

Cardiologists believe public-health campaigns will be critical to lowering heart disease — from increasing awareness of new treatments, to focusing on prevention, to simply raising awareness of the risk of heart disease in the U.S.

The last factor, says Michelle O’Donoghue, McGillycuddy-Logue Endowed Chair in Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is still not common knowledge. “There’s this misconception that cancer — in particular, breast cancer — is what women need to hear about the most when it comes to conditions that may affect them in their lifetime,” she said. “But in fact, cardiovascular disease remains, unfortunately, the No. 1 killer of both women and men.”

This lack of awareness has downstream effects. O’Donoghue, who is also associate professor of medicine at HMS, has found that women are likely to be undertreated when it comes to heart disease compared to men. They’re also less likely than men to correctly identify symptoms of a heart attack, which can sometimes vary by sex.

The most common symptom in both men and women is chest tightness or heaviness, with women more likely to experience accompanying dizziness, nausea, and fatigue. But even presenting the same symptoms, O’Donoghue says, women are likelier to be ignored.

This lack of attention paid to heart disease in both men and women, O’Donoghue argues, makes it easier for patients — and doctors — to perpetually delay treatment. “Your primary care doctor may say, ‘Your blood pressure is a little high. Let’s check it again next time,’” said O’Donoghue. “And, you know, that inevitably keeps happening.”

That’s if people have access to a doctor at all. Wadhera says there are still significant barriers for preventative screenings. “If you look at Boston right now, it’s very hard to get an appointment to see a primary care doctor,” Wadhera said. “And if you don’t have access to a primary care provider, how are you supposed to receive important preventive screenings and care?”

The barriers continue from there. “Even if you have coverage, copay or deductibles may be high, creating barriers to obtaining testing and treatments that mitigate the risk of developing heart disease, heart attacks, or stroke.” For those who need more powerful drugs than statins, the cost can be insurmountable.

Due to the slow-burn nature of heart disease, the barriers to screenings, and the limited attention paid to preventative care, patients don’t always follow medical advice or use their prescriptions. According to a 2023 paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the use of statins jumped from 11.6 percent in 1999-2000 to 33.6 percent in 2013-2014 by guideline-eligible patients, and have since stagnated.

Today, only about one-third of patients eligible to take statins actually do so. “If we could get that number up closer to 100 percent,” said Wadhera, “we could probably make a huge dent in reducing cardiovascular risk and improving cardiovascular outcomes at the population level.”

“Cardiovascular disease remains, unfortunately, the No. 1 killer of both women and men.”

Michelle O’Donoghue

Most doctors argue that even with new treatments, implementation remains an issue.

“In a large healthcare system, there is just inertia,” says Marc Sabatine, the Lewis Dexter M.D. Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

For Type 2 diabetes, for example, Sabatine notes that many patients remain on older drugs that may control blood-glucose levels but would be better off taking drugs that also have been proven to reduce the risk of adverse heart outcomes.

It can be difficult for a doctor to say, “Even though you feel OK, we have data to suggest that we should change your medical regimen,” says Sabatine — especially because the first time a patient may feel the effects of dealing with risk factors could be sudden cardiac death.

But these sorts of proactive shifts could be crucial to improving heart health. Sabatine points to LDL cholesterol — also known as “bad” cholesterol — as a risk factor that doctors could target more aggressively. While doctors generally consider 100 mg/dL a healthy level of LDL cholesterol in the blood, Sabatine argues the standard should be lowered to about 70 mg/dL, the point at which arterial plaque begins to actually decline.

In all, Sabatine thinks the way the U.S. deals with heart disease is inadequate.

“Periodic visits with a primary care physician is a relatively inefficient way to do it,” he said. Instead of cramming preventative care into a few minutes a year with a physician, argues Sabatine, it has been shown that medical systems can train nurse practitioners and pharmacists to measure patients’ risk factors more frequently and adjust medications as needed under the supervision of physicians.

---

But while doctors see plenty of room to improve with the current, accessible medications, they see promise in the state of drug development.

“It used to be that we had a very small arsenal of drugs available to us,” O’Donoghue said. But the possibilities are growing. GLP-1 receptor agonists — originally developed to treat diabetes — can help people lose weight and improve heart health.

Verve Therapeutics, founded by former HMS professor Sekar Kathiresan, is running Phase 1b trials on gene-editing therapies that could lower cholesterol by rewriting DNA instructions in liver cells that control cholesterol production. New scientific developments carry not only the potential to treat symptoms, but also to address some of the logistical limitations of existing heart-disease treatment.

New scientific developments carry not only the potential to treat symptoms, but also to address some of the logistical limitations of existing heart-disease treatment.

O’Donoghue herself is working on a drug with the pharmaceutical company Amgen that significantly lowers lipoprotein(a) concentration in the blood. Though this form of cholesterol is about 90 percent genetically predetermined — especially high for people of African and South Asian descent, as well as for women after menopause — there is no current treatment.

As a graduate student in Andrew Kruse’s lab, Sarah Erlandson figured out the structure and function of RXFP-1 receptor, which interacts with the hormone relaxin to dilate blood vessels, boost blood flow, break down collagen in the heart, and reduce inflammation — effects that could make it a powerful target for treating heart failure.

After mapping how the receptor functioned, Erlandson teamed up with Kruse, the Springer Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, to design a new therapeutic that mimics the hormone’s beneficial effects but lasts much longer in the body. Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator provided funding and business development support to advance the technology toward commercialization.

With help from Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD), the University patented the new molecule and licensed it to Tectonic Pharmaceuticals, a company Kruse founded. Fewer than five years after the original prototype, Tectonic is now testing an updated version of Erlandson’s molecule in Phase 2 clinical trials.

Other technologies aim to treat other advanced stages of heart disease. With funding support from Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator, stem cell and regenerative biology professor Richard T. Lee and engineering professor Jia Liu are co-developing a flexible, tissue-like device designed to both detect and stop atrial fibrillation — an irregular heart rhythm that can lead to stroke and heart failure. “If you could stop it before it gets going, then you really have something,” Lee said.

“We’ve made good progress,” Sabatine said, “and we should celebrate the progress we’ve made.” But with rates remaining as stubborn as they have been in half a century, Sabatine and his colleagues are committed to searching for novel ways to get better treatment for more people. “We need to continue to drive rates ever downward,” he said.

A new artificial intelligence tool developed by researchers at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School uses a snapshot of a patient’s face to predict biological age and cancer survival time, knowledge that physicians can use to tailor treatments.

“We all know that people age in different ways. A person’s chronological age is based on the day they were born, but it’s not the same as biological age, which is actually a predictor of their physiological health and life expectancy,” said Hugo Aerts, the study’s co-senior author, director of MGB’s Artificial Intelligence in Medicine program, and professor of radiation oncology at HMS. “A person’s biological age is dependent on many factors, like lifestyle, genetics, and other health factors. We had this idea that how old a person looks could actually be a reflection of their biological age.”

Led by scientists at MGB’s Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program, the researchers trained FaceAge, their deep-learning algorithm, on more than 58,000 photos of healthy individuals of known age and on more than 6,000 photos of cancer patients whose age and clinical outcome was known.

The algorithm indicated that cancer patients’ FaceAge averaged five years older than their chronological age. It also found that looking older was associated with worse outcomes for patients suffering from several cancer types.

“We had this idea that how old a person looks could actually be a reflection of their biological age.”

Hugo Aerts

Judging one’s health according to appearance is nothing new, Aerts said. Doctors routinely make a visual assessment — the “eyeball test,” Aerts called it — when they walk in the room. It can encompass things like whether the patient is in a wheelchair, how robust they look, and whether they’re obviously ill.

The research showed, however, that the eyeball test — at least when performed by human physicians — is not a very good predictor of short-term life expectancy.

Published in the journal The Lancet Digital Health in early May, the study, which received funding from the National Institutes of Health, asked 10 clinicians and researchers to predict short-term life expectancy using photos of 100 terminal patients who were receiving palliative radiation therapy.

On average, they performed only slightly better than random chance, even when they knew things like the patient’s chronological age and the status of their cancer. Prediction improved, however, when the physicians were provided with FaceAge information for those patients.

Raymond Mak, a faculty member at the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program, HMS associate professor of radiology oncology, and co-senior author of the study, said having a better understanding of a patient’s biological age and how much time they likely have remaining allows oncologists to better tailor treatments.

He described a lung cancer patient who, though chronologically 86, looked considerably younger. That was a factor in Mak suggesting more aggressive treatment. Today, the man continues to do well at age 90. When Mak used FaceAge to analyze a photo of the patient at the time of treatment, the algorithm put his biological age as 10 years younger than his chronological age.

The opposite can also be true, Mak said, and patients who are frailer than their chronological age might suggest may need less-intensive treatment because that’s what their body can tolerate.

“We hypothesize that FaceAge could be used as a biomarker in cancer care to quantify a patient’s biological age and help a doctor make these tough decisions,” Mak said.

FaceAge has proved effective across several different types of cancer, Mak and Aert said, and they’re exploring its potential usefulness to predict outcomes in other diseases.

The algorithm employs deep learning, which means that it learns as researchers train it on thousands of photographs of people whose outcomes are known.

Researchers, however, don’t know which specific cues draw FaceAge’s focus, Aert said. It’s likely the algorithm is picking up on different things than a doctor might, such as wrinkles, gray hair, and baldness. If that’s true, that would make it particularly useful, he said, because it brings a different perspective to the physicians’ analysis of the patient’s condition.

Aerts and Mak said FaceAge would not be used on its own to determine courses of action but rather would be a tool available to physicians. It could not only help to determine initial treatment, but it could also monitor changes over time, alerting a doctor if a patient appears to be going downhill.

Before it is used in the clinic, however, it needs additional testing on diverse patient populations.

“In the clinic, the impact can be very large, because we now have a way to actually very easily monitor a patient’s health status continuously — before, during, and after treatment — and this could help us to better predict the risk of complications after, for example, a major surgery or other treatments,” Aerts said.

When Boston Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum dropped to the ground and grabbed his right foot in agony during Monday’s playoff game against the New York Knicks, fans feared the worst.

They weren’t wrong to panic. On Tuesday, the team announced that Tatum had undergone surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon. He will miss the rest of the playoffs and possibly all of the 2025-2026 season.

In this edited conversation with the Gazette, George Theodore, a Medical School alum and an orthopedic surgeon at Mass General Brigham, explains why the Achilles tear is the injury that athletes dread most. Theodore is a foot and ankle consultant for Harvard’s men’s and women’s athletics and treats patients on local professional teams, including the Boston Red Sox, for whom he is team physician, as well as the New England Patriots and Boston Bruins.

---

How does an Achilles tendon rupture?

Number one, it’s important to know that it’s the largest tendon in the body, and as a result, it’s very important in sports and in recreation for push-off. When there’s a forceful movement down at the Achilles or the ankle area, such as a dorsiflexion, it can trigger an injury. Also, the area where it ruptures has a low blood supply compared to other areas of the body. So there’s already a low blood supply and then combined with a very forceful flexion of the ankle, these two things injure the Achilles. Often we don’t know why this has happened. Athletes can have risk factors for the injury, but it’s very difficult to prevent.

Tatum seemed fine up until the moment it happened. Is it possible that a small pre-existing injury can contribute to a rupture?

We know that in older patients who get Achilles tendon ruptures — we see this a lot in pickleball and tennis — often there’s longstanding tendon damage. In younger patients, the rupture is usually from a forceful injury. It’s possible that they’ve had some pre-existing issues in there, but that’s not as common as with the older athlete.

A tear can mean everything from a strain — a little stretch — to a partial tear to a complete tear. A rupture is a complete tear. A strain is usually treated with a period of rest followed by rehabilitation. A partial tear is also something that’s usually not treated surgically, but with rest and rehabilitation, and usually with successful return to sport. The rupture is the most serious. That has the most important decision-making over whether to fix it or not to fix it, and then implications for how the patient will do down the line.

How is the Achilles repaired during surgery?

During the surgery, the two ends are brought together and fixed with suture. And this can be done either through an open incision or a mini percutaneous incision: You can use an open incision to bring the two ends together, or sometimes we pass sutures through the skin and then just tie the two ends together under the surface.

Is surgery the only option to repair a rupture?

In certain groups, we can treat ruptures non-operatively with good results. Those tend to be patients whose demand to return to a high-energy, push-off lifestyle may not be as great. It may also be patients who are not healthy enough to undergo surgery. There may be patients who, for example, are only interested in doing normal walking and low-impact activities. They can be successfully treated non-operatively. That involves a different protocol. Sometimes we put them in a cast or a boot with heel lifts, followed by a physical therapy program.

What’s the typical recovery time and protocol for people like Tatum, who had surgery after a complete Achilles tear?

There will be a time where the patient will be immobilized. That is to say, they’ll have a short time and a cast to allow the incision to heal. After that, they’ll be allowed to bear weight in a walking boot, and then they’ll be allowed to start a comprehensive rehabilitation program. The return to sport for someone at his level is approximately nine to 12 months. Studies have shown that 80 percent of elite athletes eventually get back to their previous level of performance.

How does recovery today compare to five or 10 years ago — have there been any significant advances?

I think the three main advances are: 1. More minimally invasive surgery or smaller incisions; 2. A more aggressive rehabilitation program so that people are bearing weight earlier, starting to move the ankle earlier, and getting into physical therapy earlier; 3. Testing that shows what patients’ limitations are, which gives us the ability to see those limitations — functional, physical, and psychological — and get patients back to where they want to be. That involves a lot of resources and a lot of people. It involves the surgeon, the patient, the physical therapist, and the psychologist.

When it comes to the idea that prevention is the best medicine, JoAnn Manson doesn’t mess around.

Since the 1980s, Manson has dedicated her career to teasing out complex threads of human health, with an emphasis on factors under our control: physical activity, diet, sleep, smoking, alcohol consumption, medications such as menopausal hormone therapy, low-dose aspirin, statins, and, most recently, vitamins and other dietary supplements.

“Ever since my early years of medical training, I’ve been astounded by the powerful role of modifiable lifestyle factors as bulwarks against chronic disease,” said Manson, who is the Michael and Lee Bell Endowed Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School. “I became motivated to devote my research career to testing interventions to reduce chronic disease burden, extend years of good health or ‘healthspan,’ and to try to decrease premature mortality.”

“Ever since my early years of medical training, I’ve been astounded by the powerful role of modifiable lifestyle factors as bulwarks against chronic disease.”

A scan of Manson’s publication history — one major database of medical research returns more than 1,800 hits on her name — reads like a list of national health headlines over the past 20 years: menopausal hormone therapy and cardiovascular disease and breast cancer; passive smoking in the workplace; walking versus vigorous exercise in prevention of heart disease; steps per day and cancer risk; pre-pandemic physical activity and COVID severity. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, she is listed by Research.com as the world’s top female scientist based on citation metrics, with more than 369,000 citations and an h-index, which reflects the scope and influence of her work, of 310.

Her tools have been major randomized prevention trials and large longitudinal studies that follow tens of thousands of people over time, gathering health, diet, and behavioral data, often augmented by blood, tissue, and other physical samples that enrich the picture and provide physical evidence of changes reported by participants. Many of these initiatives have received support from the federal government.

Manson’s research began with the landmark Nurses’ Health Study, which launched in 1976, when most study subjects were white males, and sought to fill gaps around women’s health. The decadeslong study, established by Brigham and Harvard investigators to explore links between contraceptive use, smoking, heart disease, and cancer, expanded over time to provide a broad view of lifestyle and health. Manson has been involved with the project since the mid-1980s and has been a principal investigator of the cardiovascular component for 26 years.

In 1993, Manson became one of the initial principal investigators of a National Institutes of Health-backed study called the Women’s Health Initiative, which enrolled 160,000 postmenopausal women in three large, randomized trials, along with an investigation of major causes of chronic disease and mortality in older women, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. Manson leads the study’s clinical center in Boston.

More recently, she has focused on what she has described as the “Wild West” of American healthcare — dietary supplements, whose health claims and distribution are unchecked and unregulated. In the nationwide VITAL randomized trial of 25,000 men and women 50 and older, she and colleagues investigated health claims about vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, reporting in 2018 that omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil were associated with a 28 percent reduction in heart attack. The effect was even higher among those who reported minimal fish in their diet, cutting risk about 40 percent. For vitamin D, there appeared to be little effect on heart disease, but a significant 17 percent reduction in advanced cancer, and a 22 percent reduction in autoimmune diseases.

A more recent randomized trial, COSMOS, the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcome Study, investigated links between cocoa flavanols — the major ingredient in dark chocolate — multivitamins, and health impacts, including effects related to cognition. In 2023 and 2024 it linked the humble daily multivitamin to benefits for cognitive aging and a reduction in cognitive decline, with consistent findings in three separate placebo-controlled studies in COSMOS.

Manson, like all health researchers, is keeping a wary eye on cuts to federal research funding. (A halt to support for the Women’s Health Initiative was reversed after an outcry.) Her own funding hasn’t been affected, though proposed cuts to indirect research costs would have a significant impact, as studies like VITAL and COSMOS have major infrastructure and blood repository costs. She’s concerned about cutbacks beyond her own division’s research, because they will have broad impact on science and prevention nationally, as well as on training programs and pipelines for future generations of scientists.

“It’s distressing what’s happening,” Manson said. “We’re very concerned, obviously, about our faculty and staff supported by federal funding, but it really goes far beyond the impact on any individual division or research program. It’s really the nationwide, and even global, impact on the scientific enterprise and population health.”

Harvard amended its lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday to account for the most recent round of cuts to research funding. The government’s actions violate federal law and the University’s First Amendment rights and have no link to charges of campus antisemitism, the complaint says.

The original complaint was filed on April 21 and asked the court to vacate and set aside the termination of $2.2 billion in grants. Last week, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon informed the University that it should no longer seek federal grants “since none will be provided.” On Tuesday, the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said that Harvard researchers would lose another $450 million in grants from several agencies.

In the weeks since the original suit was filed, Harvard has received grant termination letters from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The letters echo one another, saying that awards have been terminated because the projects “no longer effectuate agency priorities,” and that there is, in essence, no way to modify the projects so they would become acceptable.

At risk, the amended complaint contends, is the University’s ability to continue research that has contributed to breakthroughs in health, science, national security, and other fields.

“All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear. Allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” the complaint says.

Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter sent to McMahon on Monday, sought to seek common ground with some Trump administration priorities, highlighting University initiatives to fight antisemitism and its efforts to encourage constructive disagreement on campus, among other actions.

“As your letter suggests, we share common ground on a number of critical issues, including the importance of ending antisemitism and other bigotry on campus,” Garber wrote. “Like you, I believe that Harvard must foster an academic environment that encourages freedom of thought and expression, and that we should embrace a multiplicity of viewpoints rather than focusing our attention on narrow orthodoxies.”

But he rejected as unlawful Trump administration demands that include governance and hiring changes and “audits” of student and faculty viewpoints, pushing back against “the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law.” The administration, he said, has “ignored the many meaningful steps we have taken and will continue to take to live up to our principles and improve the lives of people across the country and throughout the world.”    

The lawsuit argues that the government is seeking to coerce ideological balance and therefore violating the University’s right to free speech. The funding freezes and terminations announced so far also ignore procedures laid out in federal law through which complaints about civil rights violations are investigated and resolved, the University says.

Garber has repeatedly highlighted several University reforms aimed at combating antisemitism. Last month, he accepted the reports of two task forces investigating antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias, describing them before their release as “hard-hitting and painful.”

In his letter to McMahon, Garber said additional steps taken by Harvard in recent months include new investments in the study of Judaism and related fields and new initiatives to make Harvard more pluralistic and welcoming from the standpoint of intellectual diversity. He also disputed claims that Harvard is a partisan institution.

“It is neither Republican nor Democratic,” Garber wrote. “It is not an arm of any other political party or movement. Nor will it ever be.”

David Deming — Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and faculty dean of Kirkland House — was named Danoff Dean of Harvard College on Tuesday. He begins in his new role July 1. 

In announcing the appointment, Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Hopi Hoekstra said: “A recognized and respected expert in higher education research and policy, an inspiring academic leader, and a beloved faculty dean with a deep, authentic connection to undergraduate life, David is uniquely well-suited to lead the College at this consequential moment in Harvard’s history.” 

“David is a stellar researcher, a great educator, a beloved faculty dean, and a role model to students and faculty alike,” said Harvard President Alan M. Garber. “His work on education and social mobility, and much else, gets to core questions in education, and I have benefited greatly from his expertise and his ability to distill the key implications of his research. I am excited that he has agreed to take on this critical role for the College and the University, as he shapes the experiences of generations of undergraduates.” 

Deming is a nationally recognized scholar at the intersection of education, labor markets, and economic inequality. He is a principal investigator with the CLIMB Initiative at Opportunity Insights, which studies how higher education drives social mobility and how policymakers and institutions can amplify that impact. He also co-leads the Project on Workforce, a cross-Harvard initiative that focuses on preparing students for meaningful careers in a rapidly changing labor market. In addition, Deming co-founded the Skills Lab, which creates performance-based measures of “soft” skills, such as teamwork and decision-making. His most recent work explores how the rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence has affected jobs and the economy. 

Deming’s “work explores how education transforms lives, especially for low-income and first-generation students, and how public policy can expand opportunity and upward mobility,” said Hoekstra in a message to the FAS community. “His research blends rigorous economic analysis with a strong sense of purpose: to ensure that education systems work better for more people.”  

“David embodies the many virtues and traits needed in a great Harvard College Dean,” said Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee professor of Economics, who co-authored research with Deming when he was a graduate student and is a long-time colleague. “He is a caring and committed colleague; an empathetic friend, teacher, and father; and a gifted communicator.

“David has been a leader in labor market research on the roles of social skills and teamwork. His most recent work reveals how generative AI is impacting education and employment and explores the similarities of this technological disruption to those of the past. David exemplifies veritas as a person and as a researcher.” 

Deming began teaching in Harvard College in 2018. He and his wife, Janine Santimauro, became faculty deans of Kirkland House in 2020. During their five years of leadership, Deming and Santimauro have transformed the Kirkland community, fostering connection and camaraderie through intramural sports; “Kirkland Teaches Kirkland,” where students share their senior theses with the House community; and new student-initiated traditions like “The Choosening,” a Sunday night ceremony to announce and celebrate a House-wide theme for the week.  

“As a faculty dean, I’ve loved getting to know our students outside the classroom and contributing to their academic and personal development,” said Deming. “While our current moment brings many challenges, I believe deeply in the intellectual rigor and transformative power of a Harvard College education and experience. I am honored to become the next dean and excited to work with Dean Hoekstra and Harvard leadership as we chart a path forward.” 

Deming has held multiple leadership roles during his time at Harvard, serving as director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Kennedy School and later becoming the School’s academic dean, a position he held until 2024.

Born in Nashville, Deming moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, when he was 15. He holds degrees in economics and political science from Ohio State University, a master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the HKS policy program. After beginning his career at Carnegie Mellon, he joined Harvard as an assistant professor at HGSE in 2011 and was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2016. 

In 2022, Deming won the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to labor economics. In 2018, he was awarded the David N. Kershaw Prize for distinguished contributions to the field of public policy and management under the age of 40. He has written columns for The New York Times and The Atlantic and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Deming succeeds Rakesh Khurana, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School and a professor of sociology in the FAS, who is stepping down as dean at the end of the academic year, following 11 years of service to Harvard College.

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2025, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Walter Jacob Kaiser was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Walter Jacob Kaiser, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, led a life of vibrant culture, knowledge, and accomplishment.

In 1963 Kaiser published “Praisers of Folly: Erasmus, Rabelais, Shakespeare,” a study of Renaissance humanism, philosophy, witty fools, and cosmopolitanism based on his dissertation. The next year saw his edition of the essays of Michel de Montaigne in John Florio’s English. Kaiser soon produced translations, first of three longer poems from the modern Greek by the Nobel laureate George Seferis 1969 and later of three volumes of prose from the French by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman elected to the Académie Française: “Alexis” (“Alexis ou le traité du vain combat”) in 1984; “Two Lives and a Dream” (“Comme l’eau qui coule”) in 1987; and, in 1992, “That Mighty Sculptor, Time,” a collection of Yourcenar’s essays on which he collaborated. His skill as a translator drew praise, including from the reviewer Philip Thody in the Times Literary Supplement in 1992. Kaiser’s 1983 essay, “The Achievement of Marguerite Yourcenar,” is an important contribution to English criticism of that writer.

Kaiser devoted much of his career at Harvard to revitalizing Villa I Tatti, the University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy, housed in Bernard Berenson’s villa and grounds in the valley of the Mensola in the hills northeast of the city. The choice of Kaiser to lead this institution had a certain logic. As an undergraduate in 1953, he had met Berenson — “I was terrified,” he later recounted — but the two became acquainted on walks. Thirty-five years later, Walter became I Tatti’s director. During his tenure, serving from 1988 to 2002, he consolidated its scholarly programs and gave new life and vitality to its garden, properties, people, and programs.

According to one member of the Memorial Minute Committee, a visiting professor at I Tatti in 1991, when Kaiser was director, “he was absolutely perfect for the position. Presiding at daily lunches with grace and humor, he always managed to steer the conversation to the varied and interesting research projects of the Fellows. . . . Walter loved the gardens and saw to it that they were kept in the best possible condition of each season. His Italian and French were perfect. He could talk about anything with anyone. He was loved and admired by staff and fellows. He presided like a happy Renaissance Prince of the Church, lavishing his blessings on his guests. He knew how to raise money and keep order so that a very complicated organization seemed to flow effortlessly. Walter was smart, sharp; he loved to laugh and make people laugh with him!”

The present director, Alina Payne, remarks how much she benefited from Kaiser, “both as a scholar and personally from what he managed to build . . . at I Tatti — the community, the place, the grounds, and its sound financial basis.” He oversaw the expansion of the library and photo collection. His efforts were marked by the establishment of a fund named in his honor to support the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti and, in 2018, by the reopening of its newly renovated main space as the Walter J. Kaiser Reading Room.

Kaiser also inaugurated a library of a different sort: the I Tatti Renaissance Library. This highly regarded series of Latin literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific texts with facing English translations, distributed by Harvard University Press, now runs to more than one hundred volumes. He also contributed to the Press’s Villa I Tatti Series, which publishes studies on topics related to Bernard Berenson, his colleagues, interests, and collections, editing, with Michael Mallon, a selection of book reviews by the eminent art historian John Pope-Hennessy.

Above all, Kaiser valued interdisciplinarity. Under his direction, I Tatti focused on the Italian Renaissance, a purview since expanded to encompass the broader Mediterranean. For more than seven decades, I Tatti has supported scholarly work in many fields, including literature, history, art history, philosophy, and musicology. Kaiser called the resulting conversation among the disciplines “the greatness of I Tatti.”

Before his directorship of I Tatti, Kaiser taught courses featuring Shakespeare, Spenser, Ariosto, and Montaigne. He enlivened his lectures on Shakespeare with analysis, criticism, and a marvelous ability to play characters in different voices. Memory of his renderings of Falstaff, Justice Shallow, and Justice Silent in “Henry IV, Part 2,” never fades. When one student asked what, aside from verbal ability, permitted Shakespeare to become a great poet, Kaiser replied, “He was open to every kind of experience.”

From 2009 through 2015, Kaiser wrote essays and reviews for The New York Review of Books. His subjects reflected his wide interests: Renaissance and American art, connoisseurship, the task of translation, Paul and Julia Child in the Office of Strategic Services, Arezzo, Florence, Shakespeare, modern European painting, Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca, Janet Ross, and Bernard Berenson. In these essays, as in all his undertakings, he connected learning to living as much as to the academy.

Born May 31, 1931, in Bellevue, Ohio, the son of a grocer, Kaiser earned the position of page in the U.S. Senate in 1944, followed by scholarships to Phillips Academy and Harvard, which conferred his A.B. magna cum laude with highest honors in 1954 and his Ph.D. in 1960. He published poems in The Harvard Advocate and The New Yorker. Appointed assistant professor of English and comparative literature in 1962, promoted to associate professor in 1965, and tenured in 1969, he was, in 1999, granted a named professorship. From the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, he chaired the Department of Comparative Literature three times, totaling eight years.

Before divorcing in 1981, Kaiser and Neva Goodwin Rockefeller had two children. Kaiser is survived by his daughter, Miranda Kaiser; her two daughters; and two daughters by his son, David Kaiser, a courageous climate advocate who died in 2020. Walter Kaiser died peacefully in New York City on Jan. 5, 2016.

Respectfully submitted,
Robert Kiely
Katharine Park
Jan Ziolkowski
James Engell, Chair

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2025, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Gloria Ferrari Pinney was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Some friends had occasion a few years ago to ask a distinguished classical archaeologist her opinion of the scholarship of an art historian in her own field of Greek vase painting — her view was highly positive, so one friend said, musingly, “I wonder if that person’s work is as original as Gloria Ferrari Pinney’s?” The archaeologist’s immediate response was, “That would be impossible!”

Gloria Ferrari Pinney’s internationally renowned scholarship, which transformed the study of her field, was brilliantly original — and she was an original: resolutely independent-minded and, at the same time, a tireless collaborator; endlessly generous — intellectually, and in every way — to colleagues and friends old and new; inspiring to her many students and mentees across the globe, and inspiringly loyal to them; and, as seriously as she took everyone she dealt with, she never took herself too seriously.  She had a hilarious sense of humor and a profound modesty that one could describe as hard-wired. On the matter of originality, Pinney may be the only Classicist one knows who took flying lessons as a teenager and became proficient at it.

Pinney was born in Bologna, Italy, in 1941 and died in Sept. 2023 in New Jersey, where she had moved to be near her daughter, Dr. Antonia Pinney, and Antonia’s family.  Her father, Antonio Ferrari, was an Italian air force pilot and died in the war before she was born, and her mother, Laura, subsequently moved to Rome, where Pinney grew up and then did her undergraduate studies at the Università degli Studi di Roma, receiving a Laurea in Lettere Classiche in 1964. She stayed in Rome for two more years, studying at the Scuola Nazionale de Archeologia and the American Academy in Rome, where she was a Fulbright Scholar in 1965–66 and took part in excavations in Cosa, under the auspices of the American Academy, and at Punta della Vipera.  In 1966 Pinney married a young American architect, Paul Pinney, and moved with him to his home in Kentucky, where her daughter was born several years later. She pursued doctoral work at the University of Cincinnati, where she wrote a dissertation on early red-figure vase painting and earned a Ph.D. in 1976.  After beginning her teaching career that same year at Wilson College in Pennsylvania, in 1977 she moved to Bryn Mawr College, where she taught in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, holding the Doreen Canaday Spitzer Professorship in Classical Studies until 1993, when she joined the University of Chicago’s Departments of Art History and of Classical Languages and Literatures. She came to Harvard in 1998 as a member of the Department of the Classics and retired in 2003.

Over the years, Pinney’s illuminating, innovative scholarship was recognized by notable fellowships and distinctions, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

The American Philosophical Society described her pathbreaking scholarship when she was elected a member in 2003: “Gloria Ferrari Pinney combines a deep knowledge of classical philology and keen artistic sensitivity with a penetrating critical acumen that allows her to reach unprecedented and often revolutionary conclusions about even well-known ancient monuments. Her pioneering study on the origin of Asiatic sarcophagi was in fact disregarded by scholars for almost 20 years until excavational finds confirmed her hypothesis. Within her great range, she is an expert in Greek vase painting, with emphasis on iconography, yet two of her recent publications — on the North metopes of the Parthenon (2000) and the architecture of the Archaic Akropolis (2002) — are among her most startling contributions.  Although well versed in current art-historical and linguistic theory, she produces terse and concise analyses that carry conviction with their strict logic.”

In 2004, Pinney received the Archaeological Institute of America’s James R. Wiseman Book Award for “Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece” (2002). Its citation reads, in part, “This fruitful interaction between the visual and textual evidence makes Gloria Ferrari Pinney’s study truly interdisciplinary, and of importance to philologists as well as to archaeologists.  “Figures of Speech” is provocative and thoughtful — its sophisticated approach to Greek culture and images should guide discussion in the future.”

Continuing to extend her already formidable range of research interests, after retiring Pinney published such innovative works as “Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta” (2008), which was praised in reviews as “entirely original” and “an important contribution to the study of ancient Greek choral poetry, archaeology, and art history,” as well as major articles and book chapters on such subjects as the Nile mosaic at Praeneste; the metaphor of architectural space in the Greek sanctuary; anthropological approaches to the study of ancient Greek and Roman art; and metaphors of eros in Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War.”  She was named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 2011–12 and lectured at universities across the country.

Pinney’s students from around the globe — many now eminent scholars themselves — became her lifelong friends.  In gratitude for her invaluable, dedicated mentorship, and to celebrate her 80th birthday, they organized a series of monthly online workshops, in which they met to present work directly inspired by Pinney’s contributions to their fields.  These workshops continued for two full years — and, in true Pinney fashion, she herself attended each of them and offered incisive feedback, even as her health declined.

Any tribute to Pinney must underscore above all her unshakeable democratic, inclusive ethos; her native intellectual openness; her commitment to feminist ideals; her open-handed hospitality, her devotion as daughter, mother, and grandmother; and her steadfast attachment to Italy and beloved friends there. Gloria was always the first, as all who knew her can attest, to stand up for Harvard’s ideals in protecting freedom of thought and inquiry.

Respectfully submitted,

Emma Dench
Laura Slatkin (New York University)
Gregory Nagy, Chair

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2025, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Charles Dacre Parsons was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Charles Parsons was a philosopher of logic and mathematics of great penetration, known for clarifying difficult issues, deeply scrutinizing problems of long standing and their attempted solutions, and articulating both judicious proposals to make progress on them and acute analyses of the difficulties that still stood in the way.

Parsons was raised in Belmont, Massachusetts. His father was Talcott Parsons, the eminent Harvard sociologist, and Parsons grew up in a Harvard atmosphere. He was educated at the University, graduating from the College in 1954 summa cum laude in mathematics and entering the philosophy Ph.D. program after a year in Cambridge, England, on a Henry Fellowship. He joined the Society of Fellows in 1958 and completed his Ph.D. and the Junior Fellowship simultaneously in 1961. After three years as an assistant professor at Harvard, he moved to Columbia University, where he taught for 24 years. He returned to Harvard in 1989, becoming the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy in 1991, and retired in 2005.

Parsons’s dissertation and early research work focused on mathematical logic, in which he obtained some noteworthy results in fine-grained analyses of the deductive strength of various axiom systems for areas of mathematics. Subsequently his interests turned towards less purely technical matters, and his writing concentrated on philosophy of logic and of mathematics. In the 1960s and 1970s he published highly influential papers in this area, collected in his first book, aptly titled “Mathematics in Philosophy” (1983). These papers included his careful examinations of the foundations of set theory and of the Liar Paradox, the seemingly paradoxical consequences of the sentence that says of itself that it is not true. The latter, in particular, spawned a large industry of proposed solutions based on Parsons’s work. But perhaps most striking from this part of his career was his attention to Kant. Before Parsons’s work, Kant — whose concern with mathematics is central to his entire philosophical system — had been dismissed as irrelevant to contemporary philosophy of mathematics due to the subsequent development of modern logic, non-Euclidean geometry, and the theory of relativity. Parsons, almost single-handedly, brought Kant back into dialogue with contemporary philosophy of mathematics by locating what was still of interest in his philosophical structures that might be of help in solving the conundrums that contemporary philosophy of mathematics had encountered. To do this, Parsons also made major contributions to pure Kant scholarship, particularly in his exposition of the role Kant’s notion of intuition plays in a crucial section of the “Critique of Pure Reason.”

Parsons’s resuscitation of Kant had a mode of operation in common with all of his work. He never said outright “That position isn’t going to work.” He always carefully drew out what strands in a position might be able to make contributions to current understanding while gently suggesting which other parts were more troublesome.

Parsons’s work in philosophy of mathematics and logic inspired by historical figures was ongoing. Two more collections of his published essays eventually appeared, titled “From Kant to Husserl” (2012), with essays on Kant, Frege, Brentano, and Husserl, and “Philosophy of Mathematics in the 20th Century” (2014), which continued his conversation linking Kant to contemporary philosophy of mathematics but also considered later figures, particularly the pathbreaking logician Kurt Gödel and the Harvard philosopher W. V. Quine, who was one of Parsons’s teachers.

Parsons’s greatest contribution to modern philosophy of mathematics is his final statement of his mature considered views, “Mathematical Thought and Its Objects” (2008). The first half of this volume took off from his seminal paper “Objects and Logic” (1982), which closely examined what it could amount to be a mathematical object. The ultimate result was a sober defense of a view in philosophy of mathematics known as “structuralism,” which argues that there should be no question of what a mathematical entity is but only of what structure it plays a role in. Other contemporaries have defended a view in this neighborhood, but they usually turn out to be implicitly assuming some notion of mathematical entity. Parsons’s work was exemplary in avoiding any such hidden presuppositions, so that his defense of structuralism was the tightest and most convincing. The second half of the book examined epistemological issues, focusing on the role of reason and the room for some notion of Kantian-style intuition in the concept of evidence for a wide range of mathematical theories. Throughout the book, Parsons drew on all his historical work in formulating and appraising various proposed solutions.

Parsons was a devoted graduate teacher. Despite his initial somewhat austere demeanor, his dissertation students at both Columbia and Harvard quickly came to appreciate his kindness and benevolent scholarly attention and became loyal friends. Many of Parsons’s students became major figures in philosophy of mathematics, Kant scholarship, Husserl scholarship, and philosophy of logic and language. Parsons was also well known for a quirk, in both lecturing and informal personal conversation, of pausing in mid-sentence, clearly reflecting on whether what he was about to say was really accurate and, even after a full minute (or even two) of silence, picking up that sentence at the point he had left it.

Parsons was predeceased in 2017 by his wife of 49 years, Marjorie (née Wood). He is survived by their son, Dr. Jotham Parsons (Harvard College Class of 1990); their daughter, Dr. Sylvia Parsons (Harvard College Class of 1992); and two grandchildren.

Respectfully submitted,

Peter Koellner
Christine Korsgaard
Thomas M. Scanlon
Warren Goldfarb, Chair

Harvard marked a milestone in January with the launch of the Learning Experience Platform (LXP) — a University-wide initiative designed to support innovative teaching and enable cutting-edge digital learning experiences.

Hosted at Harvard Business School’s Batten Hall, more than 120 participants, including faculty, deans, and senior administrators, gathered to celebrate the LXP’s rollout. In his opening remarks, Vice Provost for Advances in Learning Bharat Anand underscored the collaborative nature of the effort, developed jointly by the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL), Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT), and Harvard Business School.

“This is about ensuring we retain control over our pedagogical future,” Anand said. “We’ve built a platform that reflects Harvard’s values — one that’s modular, flexible, and rooted in over a decade of innovation in online learning.”

Ten years in the making

Harvard has long been a leader in digital learning. From co-founding edX in 2012 to pioneering asynchronous case-based learning through HBS Online, the University has consistently explored how technology can expand access and enhance learning.

The pandemic accelerated this shift, highlighting both the opportunities and limitations of existing platforms. The 2022 Harvard Future of Teaching and Learning Report identified, among other things, the need for a modern digital learning platform to match the excellence of Harvard’s physical infrastructure.

LXP answers this call. Built to support online and hybrid learning, it offers a flexible, modular platform that supports a wide range of teaching styles and course lengths and leverages innovative “teaching elements” around peer and active learning, including “online cold calls” and tools for surfacing viewpoint diversity. It enables consistent, high-quality learning experiences for everyone from first-years to alumni and global learners.

Solving for fragmentation

One of the motivations for building the LXP was to reduce the complexity and fragmentation of the digital learning ecosystem. “If a learner wanted to find a Harvard course on AI or climate change today, they’d have to visit over a dozen websites,” Dustin Tingley, deputy VPAL, noted.

“There are 40-plus learning platforms that are currently managed by HUIT, creating technology clutter and cost inefficiencies,” said Emily Bottis, HUIT’s managing director for academic technology.

“We needed to solve that fragmentation and inefficiency while preserving the ability to innovate locally,” added Zachary Wang, VPAL’s director of strategic technology.

The LXP consolidates efforts across Schools and allows for consistency in experience while supporting unique pedagogical approaches. Seven Harvard Schools already use the platform in different ways.

Early successes

The first program launched on the platform was a pre-matriculation course for incoming Harvard Law School students — 20 hours of foundational content that other law schools now can customize for their own needs. This kind of modularity, said HLS Online Executive Director Leah Plunkett, is one of LXP’s greatest strengths: “You can create once and customize infinitely.”

Another milestone came last summer, when more than 1,600 incoming Harvard College first-years completed three short orientation modules through the LXP. These included videos featuring faculty, polls, peer-engagement tools, and interactive content.

“I think what really was the innovation last summer [in online orientation] was getting students excited,” said Katherine Veach, assistant dean for first-year academic programs. “We were able to deliver essential information in a way that felt personal and engaging. Students heard directly from faculty they may have already known, read, or were eager to learn from. The platform made that experience memorable and interactive at scale in a way emails never could.”

Designed for what’s next

LXP is already supporting a broad range of learning experiences, from short modules to semester-long programs, with plans underway to expand offerings for Harvard’s alumni and international partners. Its flexibility enables everything from 15-minute tutorials to multiweek blended courses.

“A 12-week semester is natural for residential learning,” said Anand. “But online, that format doesn’t always make sense. What if an executive program met one day a week for five weeks? Or what if a course could adapt its length to fit the learning outcomes, rather than the academic calendar, whether that meant 10 weeks or 10 hours? The LXP allows Harvard to design around the needs of the learner — not the limitations of legacy systems.”

Built on three big ideas

Anand described three principles that guided the LXP’s creation.

First, pedagogical creativity: “Our faculty are full of ideas for innovative teaching. They shouldn’t have to fit those ideas into one-size-fits-all platforms. The LXP gives them the flexibility to design learning experiences that truly reflect their vision.”

Second, a One Harvard vision: “The platform is available to all Harvard’s Schools and ensures a consistently high-quality learning experience across each, while still allowing for local customization to reflect each School’s unique voice, priorities, and pedagogy.”

Third, global reach: “Whether through online courses, livestreams, or blended experiences, the LXP allows one to deliver on the University’s mission to engage learners at scale far beyond campus.”

With the platform now live, faculty are encouraged to explore new ways to elevate their teaching and connect with learners.

“We’ve built the foundation,” Anand said. “It’s now up to our faculty and academic staff to imagine what comes next, and to create learning experiences that are as inspiring and impactful as the ideas we teach.”

Jodie Foster always thought she’d become a writer.

“I didn’t really think I wanted to be an actor when I grew up because it seemed like kind of a dumb job,” the Academy Award-winning actor and filmmaker said during a Radcliffe Day event Friday with Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Acting seemed too superficial to be intellectually satisfying as a career, she said. But then, Robert De Niro took her under his wing and worked with her on improvisation skills while the two starred in “Taxi Driver.” DeNiro was the lead in the 1976 Oscar winner, and Foster played a young sex worker, a role for which she received her first Academy Award nomination.

“My 12-year-old mind was blown. I suddenly understood that acting was more than just saying lines and ‘being yourself,’” she told Gates, who was Foster’s thesis adviser at Yale in the early 1980s. “I hadn’t looked at it the way I might look at a book or the way I might look at a painting. I hadn’t really looked at it as an art form, and … It was up to me to challenge myself to go beyond that.”

Foster was on hand at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute to receive the 2025 Radcliffe Medal, presented by Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, for her accomplishments over a six-decade career as an actor and filmmaker, and her advocacy for suicide prevention among LGBT youth.

As part of the annual Radcliffe Day celebration, Foster spoke about her evolution from 1970s Disney child star to celebrated filmmaker and two-time Academy Award winner for leading roles in “The Accused” (1988) and “Silence of the Lambs” (1991).

Famously private, Foster delved into the trauma she experienced as an 18-year-old Yale freshman after a stalker shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in a bid to win her favor. She was forced into hiding, couldn’t live on campus or attend classes anymore, and needed round-the-clock security.

The ordeal was, she said, “a trial by fire. I became adult really quickly” and learned some good life lessons about the value of community and also some bad ones, like “now you can trust no one.”

Foster said she deliberately avoided talking about the experience for decades.

“I wanted to have a long career where I was known for myself and for my work, and I wanted my identity to be about what I produced,” she explained to Gates. “I just didn’t want to be ‘that girl’ who was chosen abstractly by an insane man to be a footnote in history.”

Foster also talked about being a mother and of the complicated relationship she had with her own. Brandy Foster, a single mother of four, pushed her daughter into acting and modeling at age 3 and managed her career for many years, steering her toward many films that achieved critical and commercial success.

“Because of her generation and her status [as a] pre-feminist woman, she wanted me to be respected above anything else, and so she engineered, in some ways propelled me in, a career where she could feel respected because her daughter was respected,” she said. “That was a big burden and a big responsibility.”

Diana Nyad, the record-breaking endurance swimmer who inspired “Nyad,” the 2023 biopic for which Foster earned her fifth Oscar nomination, spoke about Foster’s meticulousness as an actor and her status as a somewhat reluctant lesbian icon.

Foster said she feels proud that people say she helped facilitate greater acceptance of LGBTQ people in the film industry, but she wishes she “could have done more” to be an outspoken leader.

“My No. 1 concern … was surviving intact, emotionally and intellectually,” she said. “What I didn’t want to do was end up dead in a hotel room with a needle in my arm.” Accomplishing that required “a kind of emotional safety and privacy that was unusual for the film business” then and perhaps more so now.

“I don’t think I would have survived it intact” if she’d been a young actor now, Foster said. “But in those days, the way to survive that was to say, ‘I am off limits. You can’t have me. You can have all this part that I give you. You can have my art… You can count on me, but you can’t have all of me.”

Earlier in the day, actor Amy Brenneman ’86, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair ’79, Naomi McDougall Jones, an advocate for gender parity in film industry, and television showrunner Saladin K. Patterson spoke with Stacy L. Smith, a professor of communication at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, about how underrepresented women remain in the film and television industry the obstacles that still need to be overcome both in front of and behind the camera, despite societal gains.

Since 1987, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute each year has recognized outstanding women who have made a lasting impact on the world. Past recipients include Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, labor activist Dolores Huerta, former Secretary of State and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, and Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison.

Outwardly, everything has changed since he broke his neck in his first Harvard football game in 2017. But Ben Abercrombie says he’s not all that different on the inside.

He still loves football. He still considers himself determined and hard-working — a point with which those around him emphatically agree. He still plans to go into personal finance when he graduates from Harvard College this spring, a career that, if all goes well, will have him guiding professional athletes’ personal wealth, blending his interests in economics and sports.

He admits, though, that it’s hard having to ask for help all the time.

“That’s one thing. I used to try to do everything myself,” Abercrombie said. “I like to think I haven’t changed too much, but it does open your eyes not to take things for granted, to be thankful for what you have, for your family, and for the grace that people show you.”

That grace helped Abercrombie navigate a tough eight years. That determination got him back to Harvard after two years of rehabilitation, of learning how to live paralyzed below the neck, and how to get around in a wheelchair and guide a laptop computer with his eyes. That hard work has him graduating with a degree in economics after years of coursework that competed with his new reality, where even getting out of bed takes longer. And all of that has made him an inspiration to those around him, even those whose role once was to inspire him.

“As a coach, part of my job is to motivate, but every time I would see Ben after his accident — with very few exceptions — he was in such high spirits, laughing, talking football, that he motivated me,” said former Crimson football coach Tim Murphy, who recruited Abercrombie to Harvard and was standing just feet away from the seemingly routine tackle that changed Abercrombie’s life. “He makes my day. They are a remarkable family on many levels.”

Even before the injury, Abercrombie was a standout, said Murphy, who retired as the Ivy League’s winningest coach in 2024. Abercrombie was recruited from Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham in football-mad Alabama, to play safety for Harvard. He was the only freshman defensive player to suit up with the team in fall 2017 for the season opener at the University of Rhode Island. And, when a starter injured a hamstring during the opening kickoff, Abercrombie got the nod, covering the deep right side of the field.

Just before halftime, Abercrombie recognized the receiver’s route and broke toward him as the ball was thrown. Murphy, standing nearby, saw the tackle and later said Abercrombie used good technique. Still, Murphy knew something was amiss by the way Abercrombie fell to the turf.

The impact damaged two vertebrae in Abercrombie’s neck along with the nerve to the diaphragm, which controls breathing. Abercrombie was conscious long enough to realize something was wrong before passing out.

“I didn’t go home with the team, I jumped in the car with my wife, Martha, and we drove directly to the hospital,” Murphy said. “We were there for the next seven or eight hours, until about midnight. I had the opportunity to squeeze Ben’s hand just before he went into surgery. I had the opportunity to see him as he came out of surgery. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Weeks in Providence Hospital were followed by months at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which specializes in brain and spinal-cord injury. There, he and his parents, Sherri and Marty Abercrombie, came to grips with how much had changed.

They returned home to Hoover in January — right before the 2018 college football title game, Abercrombie recalled. Over the next 18 months, he and his parents relearned how to live, creating new daily routines and working with the state Department of Rehabilitation Services so Abercrombie could learn to control a computer with his eyes. Sherri Abercrombie, a registered nurse, left her job to become her son’s full-time caregiver. Marty Abercrombie, a restaurant owner and manager, retired and sold the business.

In 2019, Abercrombie enrolled in a summer school course through the Harvard Extension School. That fall, he returned to campus, settling into a modified suite in Winthrop House with his parents, who have been at his side since. They’ve helped with daily activities, gotten Abercrombie to and from class, and worked closely with health aides who’ve assisted with care.

“They’ve done a very nice job helping us do what we need to do,” Sherri Abercrombie said. “I’m glad he was able to come up here and is able to finish, though I do miss the weather at home, except in the summer.”

Abercrombie said he’s has been struck by the generosity of the Harvard community. The University supported his desire to return to campus, resume his studies, and graduate. El Jefe’s Taqueria in Harvard Square has held annual fundraisers, donating the proceeds to a fund created by the Harvard Varsity Club to defray the costs of his care. Former Crimson teammates also hold an annual bowling fundraiser for the fund.

Abercrombie said classes have been challenging, but he has become more adept at completing coursework. He continued to take summer classes and, a couple of years ago, was able to increase his workload from two classes per semester to three. He has kept in touch with friends and teammates via social media and has also stayed in touch with Crimson football coaches. He stops by their offices to talk football weekly while visiting the athletic complex for physical therapy. The Abercrombie family and Murphy, who retired in 2024, became close, regularly celebrating Thanksgiving at Murphy’s home on Cape Cod.

“It’s been an extraordinarily challenging path that he has undertaken since that injury and it’s taken him a long time to get his degree, but at no time was there any indication from his mom or dad or Ben that they were not going to complete their Harvard experience,” Murphy said. “I’m really excited to see him graduate in Harvard Yard. I will be there with him and his family and we’re going to have a great day.”

“As a coach, part of my job is to motivate, but every time I would see Ben after his accident — with very few exceptions — he was in such high spirits, laughing, talking football, that he motivated me.”

Tim Murphy

Abercrombie keeps an eye on advances in medical science in hopes that he’ll one day be able to breathe and move on his own. His physical therapy utilizes cutting-edge equipment such as a Locomat, a robot-assisted device that supports him and helps him move, and electric stimulation to move his arms and legs, maintaining flexibility and preventing atrophy. Using the Locomat, he’s able to walk on the treadmill for 45 minutes during his weekly two-hour session.

Progress has been slow, but Abercrombie can move his fingers slightly and feel pressure on his skin. When he sits in one position too long, his body feels uncomfortable. He recognizes the improvements are small, but they give him something to build upon. He also uses electric stimulation in an effort to build up breathing muscles in anticipation of achieving a key goal: getting off the ventilator.

Abercrombie isn’t quite sure what to expect on Commencement Day but he enjoys history, so he’s looking forward to taking part in Harvard’s centuries-old traditions. He admits that after so many years as a student he’s ready to move onto the next phase of life. This summer, he will work on passing state licensing tests and in September, plans to start work at a Birmingham-area personal finance firm.

“I’ve been in school for a decade, so I’m excited to finally be done. It’s surreal that it’s coming to a close,” Abercrombie said. “It’s been a long road for sure.”

The steady pulse of music filled the Science Center Plaza on May 3 as a crowd of students from visiting artist Steven “Rhythm” Garcia’s Office for the Arts Dance Program course “House” moved freely to the beat, spun by DJ Luna del Flor. Suddenly, the music cut — and members of The Kuumba Singers and the Harvard Choruses began to sing “This Little Light of Mine.” A deep, resonant bass-baritone voice broke through the harmony, as opera singer Davóne Tines ’09, the recipient of the 2025 Harvard Arts Medal, rose to sing a stirring solo.

As Tines’ final note faded, Abe Joyner-Meyers ’22, American Repertory Theater sound engineer, picked up the melody on banjo. He was quickly joined by the Arts Fest Jazz Band, which launched into “When the Saints Go Marching In,” leading a parade of onlookers into the nearby tent and officially kicking off the Harvard Arts Festival’s Performance Fair.

The annual spring celebration of the arts took over stages, museums, and other venues across Harvard’s campus. The annual festival, produced by the Office for the Arts at Harvard, had nearly 2,000 participants, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni, in 150 events ranging from public concerts to theatrical performances, and hands-on art-making activities.

“This is really the culmination of art-making that’s been happening across our campus over the past year,” Fiona Coffey, director of the OFA, told the audience in the plaza tent. “This is a time when we need joy, resilience, community, collectivity more than ever. … I think that the arts are a really great example of how we can lift each other up and how we can lift up humanity during challenging times.”

Adam Bartholomew ’26, a molecular and cellular biology concentrator, and Elizabeth Bennett ’26, a music concentrator with a secondary in government, led the Harvard College Steelpan Ensemble through a resonant rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” made famous by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, to enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Bartholomew, a member of the Harvard-Berklee Joint Studies program who grew up playing steelpan in Trinidad and Tobago, said bringing the instrument to a Harvard stage has long been a dream.

“As we planned to create this ensemble over the past two years, we’ve always envisioned playing at Arts Fest once we got it started,” Bartholomew said. “The fact that it’s finally coming to fruition is a really good feeling.”

In Holden Chapel, Ethan Chaves ’26, a music and philosophy joint concentrator, performed original compositions for solo viola that were inspired by the idea of the Jungian shadow. It was a busy day for Chaves, who also performed with the Brattle Street Chamber Players in Adolphus Busch Hall earlier in the day, and had an original choral composition, “Exultation is the going,” premiered by the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum at Memorial Church later that afternoon. Chaves, who is enrolled in the Harvard-New England Conservatory Dual Degree program, said the festival allows students to experiment with new projects.

“It’s fun because it’s so hectic, there are always about 80 things going on all at the same time,” Chaves said, “It’s nice to be able to see your friends perform different things than they usually would and try out different works in progress you don’t normally get to see.”

President Alan Garber awarded Tines the Harvard Arts Medal in a ceremony May 4 in Lowell Lecture Hall. In his remarks, Garber recalled standing beside the award-winning opera singer as he transfixed the crowd in Tercentenary Theatre with his rendition of “Lift Ev’ry Voice” at Harvard’s 2019 Commencement ceremony.

“Art conveys truth in ways that are layered and unique,” Garber said. “It enlarges our hearts as well as our minds. It compels us to deepen our understanding and to expand our perspective at its best. It challenges us to appreciate the world and one another in new ways, creating the possibility for sympathy and empathy, for real and lasting connection.”

At the medal ceremony, Tines and his band The Truth performed “Let It Shine,” a stunning “This Little Light of Mine” reprise that brought the audience to its feet. He also spoke with Diane Paulus, the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the A.R.T., about his time at Harvard, where he concentrated in sociology, was a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and sang his first opera, Stravinsky’s “Rake’s Progress,” with the Dunster House Opera Society.

Tines said his years spent working in arts administration (including as an A.R.T. intern) before becoming a performing artist helped him gain a better understanding of all the work that goes into every artistic production. He said being an artist now not only means “holding a mirror up to the world,” but also serving as a model to inspire creativity and bravery in others.

“In my ongoing quest to understand all the parts of myself and put them together in a cohesive way, I’m trying to model that that’s possible for everyone else, artists, people at large,” Tines said. “We’re made of so many things, we come from so many things, and it’s important that we honor all those things and empower ourselves to become them, even when they contradict.”

Four years after curating student work for an exhibition for the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennial, coleman jordan is back in Italy to construct his own project called “Recall and Response” at this year’s exposition. 

The visiting architecture and art history professor’s pavilion structure — designed to be taken apart and reused — is meant to act as a talking drum that sparks dialogue among attendees of the showcase, which began Saturday and runs through Nov. 23.

“The pavilion is an instrument you can play. It’s a participatory experience,” jordan said, noting that “Recall and Response” examines the solidarity and commonality between African and African diaspora communities. “It’s a space for gathering, a space for people to collect themselves [and] have dialogues.”

The Morgan State University (MSU) professor is one of four visiting faculty at Harvard from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) supported by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative.

jordan, whose work focuses on spaces of the Black Atlantic and decolonizing the Black aesthetic, taught a course called “I Can’t Breathe” in the fall before refocusing on his scholarship.

In regard to “Recall and Response,” the scholar believes the two communities share common ground but that there is also disjuncture in communication.

“Because we’re from different places, [and have] different stories, different context, oftentimes our dialogue is not cohesive,” he said. “We’re not really understanding one another.”

Helping jordan with construction in Venice are students from MSU, and Tuskegee University, as well as his former Clemson University classmate Dan Harding, now director of the Community Research and Design Center and a professor at Clemson.

MSU’s drumline, affectionately known as “The Magnificent Marching Machine,” will march through Venice around jordan’s creation on June 20. The drum culture at HBCUs is significant, jordan noted, and can often play a role in the “identification of a school.”

“The idea is to use the drum as a metaphor for bringing people together,” he said.

Beyond the exhibition at the Biennale, “Recall and Response” will be a physical and symbolic representation of the work being conducted at the Pan African Heritage Museum, which is being built in Ghana. The museum currently exists as an interactive digital space that hopes to eventually house artifacts stolen from Africa during the colonial period.

In keeping with the Venice Architecture Biennial’s theme of “Repair, Regenerate, and Reuse,” jordan said he sees his creation as a way to repair dialogue between communities and regenerate those connections.

The pavilion has taken the reuse aspect of the theme literally, and will be given to a community space to repurpose.

jordan praised the support he received during his year at Harvard and highlighted the importance of sustaining partnerships between the University and HBCUs.

“I think that we can learn from each other’s history, no matter what it is,” he said. “Bridging matters, because we’re in this world together. That collaboration really helps to create that bridge, where our histories start to meld together, and we grow faster.”

Generative AI took center stage when more than 300 educators and administrators gathered to explore, learn, and share best practices in teaching and learning at Harvard’s annual Professional and Lifelong Learning Summit, held in early March.

Vice Provost for Advances in Learning Bharat Anand, the keynote speaker, centered his conversation on a topic that has surfaced repeatedly over the past year: generative AI and how it is being used across the University to support teaching and learning.

“We’re not seeing faculty use GenAI to replace their expertise. They’re using it most often to streamline routine tasks that often take up valuable time.”

Bharat Anand

“This isn’t just about AI getting smarter,” Anand said. “What changed with ChatGPT is that it became universally accessible. With a simple text box, anyone — not just coders — can now harness the power of these tools.”

That accessibility is prompting experimentation and reflection across Harvard’s classrooms. “We don’t need to wait for institutional directives or for things to be perfect,” Anand said. “Every person can use these tools since the distance between human and computer is shrinking. That’s why we’re seeing so many people start to test, explore, and adapt.”

When tools like ChatGPT first entered the public domain, faculty responses varied.

“In fall 2023, we saw both excitement and real apprehension amongst our community,” Anand noted.

To support exploration, Harvard University Information Technology, with input from the University-wide Generative AI Teaching and Learning working group, launched a secure GenAI sandbox for Harvard. The aim was simple: give faculty, staff, and students a space to play, prototype, and learn together.

The result? A growing set of grassroots innovations — and a new way to share them.

Learning from one another

Observing this interest in experimentation among faculty motivated Anand and his team to connect with faculty across Harvard’s Schools later in the academic year to understand the ways they’d used GenAI in their classrooms. One of the most visible efforts to emerge from this experimentation is the GenAI Faculty Voices Video Library. The project collects short interviews with faculty across the University who have integrated GenAI into their teaching.

“We wanted something useful and practical,” said Melissa Tarr, assistant director of programs at VPAL’s Harvard Institute for Learning and Teaching. “These videos offer concrete examples — quick hits that educators can learn from right away.”

The team asked each participating faculty member to identify a challenge they’d faced, a way GenAI was used to address this, and what they’d learned. Course planning, revising assessments, class discussions, grant editing, and student projects all surfaced as areas of early innovation.

“The faculty we interviewed were open-minded and thoughtful,” said Mary Godfrey, director of multimedia at VPAL. “They used GenAI to stretch their assignments and to test its boundaries. A number also deliberately showed students where the tools failed, as a way to sharpen critical thinking.”

It’s about augmentation, not substitution

Use cases include generating practice questions, building tutor bots, providing timely student feedback, or helping students learn prompt engineering.

Anand highlighted an important takeaway: “We’re not seeing faculty use GenAI to replace their expertise. They’re using it most often to streamline routine tasks that often take up valuable time. Whether it’s summarizing student responses, answering questions after hours, or drafting new practice problems, the goal is to free up energy for higher-impact teaching. This mirrors what we’re seeing in other sectors. The real value lies not in outperforming humans, but in ‘automating the mundane’: in saving time on things we already do — or don’t do — because they take too long.”

A community of learning

This ethos — of curiosity, reflection, and shared discovery — has come to define Harvard’s approach. Working groups have been in operation across the University, exploring the role of GenAI in research, administration, and pedagogy. The Teaching and Learning working group, chaired by Anand, continues to develop resources and track developments both inside Harvard and beyond.

“The video library is just one piece, and we’ll continue to add to it,” Anand said. “We’re trying to support thoughtful experimentation. At the same time, there is a strong need for GenAI literacy across the University, continued discussion on the ethics of its uses, and engaging in a more strategic conversation about what this all means for the role of educators.”

Examples from the Faculty Voices Library include:

• Generating new practice problems: Molly Brady (Harvard Law School)
• Stimulate problem-solving skills: Mitch Weiss (Harvard Business School)
• Course planning and syllabus design: Tari Tan (Harvard Medical School)
• Revise assessments to evaluate learning: Jacob Cook (HBS)
• Introduce concepts at students’ pace: Greg Kestin (Faculty of Arts and Sciences)
• Tutorbots to support student learning: Sharad Goel (Harvard Kennedy School )

“The Faculty Voices Video Library illustrates the depth and breadth of creativity unfolding across Harvard’s campus,” said Provost John Manning. “I’m excited to see what further innovation lies ahead.”

Looking ahead: A campus-wide conversation

On May 13, Harvard will host its first University-wide symposium on the future of generative AI and its implications for the various activities of the University: research, teaching and learning, operations, and administration. Held at Harvard Business School’s Klarman Hall and sponsored by a coalition of University offices — including VPAL, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, HUIT, the Harvard Library, and FAS — the half-day event will surface ideas and questions from across disciplines and schools.

“We’ve seen real momentum,” said Anand. “Now is a good time to take stock — to learn from each other, to ask hard questions, and to shape a path forward.”

For someone who studies the brain’s ability to predict future experiences, there is little about Nghia Nguyen’s life that could be described as predictable.

Nguyen, who graduated from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in November with a Ph.D. in neurobiology, was born in the very south of Vietnam, where his mother chopped banana leaves for work and his backyard was a rice paddy. “We grew up very poor,” he said. “Every day was a struggle to survive.” Their lives changed due to the American Homecoming Act, which allowed relatives of former American soldiers to immigrate to the U.S. with green cards. Nguyen’s grandfather, whom he’d never met, was an African American soldier in the Vietnam War. The law allowed applicants to prove their racial identity without a birth certificate. “When they saw my dad with an afro,” he said, “they were like, ‘This guy is clearly not full Vietnamese.’”

Nguyen and his family ended up in Burlington, Vermont. His mother packaged candy and his father took on a variety of jobs, like pumping gas and painting houses. They lived on North Street, along with seemingly all the other low-income and immigrant families in the area, about a mile north of downtown.

Though he and his sister attended schools that weren’t especially well-resourced, he said the teachers were kind and helped them learn English. His parents never made him work, and Nguyen and his sister focused their energy on getting perfect grades. “It wasn’t really even my parents’ expectations of me,” he said. “It’s just me observing the world around me and thinking, ‘How can I change that?’”

Nguyen secured full financial aid at Stanford, where he immediately felt himself playing catch-up. “Kids came in saying, ‘I’m going to skip three courses because I already know how to code,’” Nguyen recalled. “I was like, ‘What is coding?’” He picked his major, biomechanical engineering, because it seemed like the most practical and hardest option.

A year or two in, he felt like he’d caught up with his peers, which made him realize that his deficit had been because of an opportunity disparity rather than an innate skill difference. He also got encouragement from his sister to start doing research. “I know you don’t like to do stuff,” she said, “but just try it.”

He applied to several summer research positions for on-campus labs and received one offer. When he arrived, he remembers the professor telling him that he had not been the lab’s first choice. Nguyen didn’t care: “I was just glad they took me.”

The job was to train mice on olfactory tasks. He would present an odor to a mouse, which he would direct toward a certain place to earn a reward. He learned to use a miniscope to get live images of mice brains as they performed different activities.

Conducting research felt like the first time his schoolwork actually applied to real life, and he loved it. “Neuroscience is a very self-fulfilling endeavor because the goal is to understand who you are,” he said. “And so doing these experiments gave me a very technical, tangible reason for the things I do every day. Why do I go seek food when I’m hungry? Why do I feel stressed in these moments? It gave me a very mechanistic reason for exactly why these things are happening.”

After graduating from college, Nguyen wondered if he should just try to make as much money as possible to help his mother retire. “But I really love neuroscience,” he said. “It was the only thing I ever really was passionate about.” Once he realized that he was paid for doing Ph.D. research and that he wouldn’t be burdening his family, the decision was easier.

At Harvard, Nguyen joined the lab of Mark Andermann, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who studies how the body determines which sensory cues are attended to, learned, and remembered. For his dissertation, Nguyen studied what the brain is doing when daydreaming or not doing anything in particular. “We know which neurons are responsible for vision, for hunger, for thirst, for learning,” he said, “but we don’t really know what the neurons are doing when we’re really doing nothing — like sleeping and zoning out.”

Even when they’re not seemingly completing a discrete task, neurons still fire. The field has historically called this behavior “spontaneous activity,” but Nguyen doesn’t think the term is accurate. “It seems pretty taxing to fire all the time and just have it be random,” he said. “This activity is not spontaneous.”

To answer what the brain was doing during wakeful rest, Nguyen showed mice one of two videos of black and white blobs moving across a screen, recording the activity of 7,000 neurons in the process. Between the movies, Nugyen peered into their neuronal activity as they sat in a dark room.

Nguyen expected that the mice, after watching the videos, would play back the movies in their head during breaks as they experienced it the previous time. The hypothesis was consistent with the field’s traditional concept of replay or reactivation — that after experiencing something, you replay that experience in your head. Over time, through repeated exposures, it becomes easier to distinguish between different stimuli. Your experience looking at a painting for the 60th time is different than your first experience looking at it.

But Nguyen found that the mice’s brains didn’t repeat the experience of watching the movies; their brains actually predicted how they would experience the movies in the future. “It was the opposite of what we expected,” Nguyen said. “We never expected to have in our mind the representation of an experience that we have not experienced yet.”

The results shocked Nguyen and were novel enough to land in the scientific journal Nature. “Contrary to prevailing theories,” the paper states, “reactivations systemically differed from previous patterns evoked by the stimulus. Instead, they were more similar to future patterns evoked by the stimulus, thereby predicting representational drift.”

Nguyen recognizes that there is more to be done to confirm his findings, and he hopes to continue working on similar problems in future research. He also wants to explore other observations from his project — like how the same neurons that processed the movie fired together even before mice watched it for the very first time.

The potential implications of that line of thinking are astounding. “Everything you will ever see ever, has already been played in your mind,” Nguyen said, smiling. “It’s like before you saw me, I’ve already existed.”

After an unpredictable upbringing, Nguyen is grateful to have wound up at Harvard. “Some people have bad experiences with their Ph.D., but every day, I thought, ‘I’m so privileged to do this stuff,’” he said. “There’s no way my parents would ever get this opportunity. I’m living such a surreal life.”

It looks like the end of an era for the U.S. dollar.

In his new book “Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead,” Kenneth Rogoff looks back on the currency’s dominant run in global trade and central bank reserves for a host of other countries. Today, he argues, that lofty status is on the wane.

“My thesis is that the U.S. dollar is about to get knocked down a couple pegs,” said Rogoff, a professor of economics and the Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics. “It will still be first in global finance, because nothing is poised to fully replace it. The dollar just won’t be as unique as it once was.”

Written entirely before the 2024 election, the book weaves first-person reflections with a history of the U.S. economy and its currency topping a succession of challengers. As a teen chess pro in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Rogoff traveled to tournaments in the Eastern Bloc provided him with rare insight on America’s Communist rivals. As a visiting scholar at the Bank of Japan in 1991, he glimpsed a booming economy on the precipice of disaster. He went on to serve as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund in the early ’00s, the nascent days of Europe’s common currency.

“The book is not a memoir,” Rogoff said. “But I do link in anecdotes from my experiences with world leaders, policymakers, former students, and chess players.”

The Gazette met up with Rogoff in his office for a preview of the book’s personal tales and macroeconomic prophesy. The interview was edited for length and clarity.

---

This release feels extraordinarily well-timed, given the recent sell-off of U.S. Treasuries and the dollar’s decline following President Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement. What events compelled you to revisit the dollar’s incredible rise and offer predictions for its future?

It wasn’t a single event. Based on my research, I thought the dollar peaked in its global footprint in 2015 and was in gentle decline. But I also thought this trend might accelerate. I was particularly concerned with our fiscal deficit and rising interest rates. I recently published a paper showing that if you look at the long history of interest rates, they tend to revert to trend.

I was also very concerned about the Federal Reserve losing independence. I actually wrote the first paper on the importance of central bank independence almost 45 years ago; it’s maybe my most famous paper. But in recent years, I started noticing rhetoric on both the left and the right about reining that in. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell wouldn’t get pushed aside out of the blue. It would take another crisis. During wartime, for example, central banks are commonly made subservient to the government.

That covers some of the internal pressures on dollar dominance. What about external factors?

We’ve been able to use economic sanctions in place of military intervention. It saves us lives; it saves us money. But dollar dominance also gives us access to financial data that no other country has. If you were to go to the CIA today, you would see somebody on a laptop instead of somebody like James Bond.

So there’s quite an appetite, particularly in Asia, to reduce the dollar’s grip. China couldn’t help but notice when the U.S. placed economic sanctions on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. China, of course, has designs on Taiwan.

For most of us in the U.S., our currency’s almighty position isn’t exactly top of mind. Can you illustrate how dollar dominance impacts daily life for everyday Americans?

For one thing, we’re all paying lower interest rates. It’s not a huge amount. You don’t like paying 6 percent on your mortgage, but you’d dislike it even more if you were paying 7 percent. And for the national government, which owes $36 trillion, every additional 1 percent is $360 billion.

Another thing is that, in times of crisis like the pandemic or the global financial crisis of 2008, the U.S. has been able to borrow promiscuously. Interest rates do rise as our debt rises, but the effect is very gentle compared with the U.K. or France. If this privilege is lost, we will notice it.

Tell me about the book’s title.

The U.S. dollar used to be as good as gold. If you were a foreign country holding the equivalent to what is today hundreds of billions of dollars, as many Asian central banks do now, you could just take them to the U.S., and we would give you gold. But then President Richard Nixon decided, in 1971, that we weren’t going to do that anymore.

Leaders from around the world were in a state of shock. As a global financial incident, it was just as dramatic as the introduction of President Trump’s tariffs earlier this year. Nixon sent Treasury Secretary John Connally to meet with these leaders in Rome. They asked, “What do we do? Now that you’re not on gold, you can just inflate this stuff, and we’re stuck with it.” And Connally replied, “Well, it’s our dollar, but it’s your problem.”

What do Connally’s words call to mind for you today?

Connally’s remark captures the arrogance of American leaders that foreign leaders so often feel. I feel our role in the world comes with responsibility, and we should recognize that.

The book’s title is also ironic. After we went off gold, we lost a kind of price anchor. Nixon started beating up on Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns as brutally as Trump beats up on Powell today. It just wasn’t in public; he was doing it in the Oval Office. We only know about it now because of the Watergate tapes. Burns got pressured into printing a lot of money. The result was the worst inflation the U.S. had seen since in a long while. So although Connally was saying “It’s your problem,” the resulting inflation proved a disaster for the U.S., too.

Other economies have emerged as challengers to U.S. power over the years. But you open the book with a surprising example, at least for those who came of age after the Cold War. You start with the post-World War II rise of the Soviet Union. Can you talk about that choice?

By the ’80s, it was becoming clear that the Russian ruble would not outpace the dollar. But in the ’60s and ’70s, we had no idea. I write about the different professors I met as an undergraduate at Yale, as well as textbooks by leading economists such as Paul Samuelson. Samuelson was convinced the Soviet economy would catch up to the U.S. The greatest economic historian of that era was Angus Maddison. He didn’t think the Soviet Union would catch up, but he thought it would do pretty well. These economists were not Marxists!

Later on, we didn’t know Japan would falter. We didn’t know Europe would fizzle. We never imagined the heights the U.S. dollar ultimately reached. My book hits these themes again and again.

How did your experiences as a globe-hopping teen chess master shape your views on the subject?

My professors at Yale talked about how great the Soviet Union was doing. But I had lived on my own abroad, primarily in the former Yugoslavia. I had visited some of my chess-player friends in their homes. Chess was a very big deal in the Communist bloc, so these players had privileged lives and nicer dwellings than the typical resident. But these nice dwellings consisted of little cement blocks in these humorless buildings. They barely had modern plumbing by U.S. standards. It made me very skeptical about Samuelson’s claim.

You write in this book that era of dollar dominance is in “late middle-age, but still in good health.” Is that still true in light of Trump’s second-term trade war?

Well, the dollar is starting to experience more serious health issues under Trump. When you’re an academic, the goal is never to write a book that’s true tomorrow. After coming to Harvard in 1999, I went for a walk across campus with former Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Jeremy Knowles. I’ll never forget what he told me. He said, “The perfect paper is one that everybody thinks is wrong, but in five or 10 years it’s proven right.”

You’ve achieved that in the past.

Carmen Reinhart and I were ridiculed in early 2009 when we presented a paper showing that recoveries from financial crises tend to be much slower and weaker than conventional recoveries. Of course that is exactly what happened. I had a similar experience in 2020 when my work suggested a deep problem in Chinese real estate.

My new book also contains some out-of-consensus forecasts that I believe will ultimately prove correct — on interest rates, inflation, and the role of the dollar. I don’t argue that dollar dominance will fall sharply tomorrow. But Trump has been an accelerant. He has been a catalyst. Parts of the world were already moving away from the dollar. Now they’re moving much faster.

U.S. children aged 8 and younger spend 2½ hours a day on screens, with kids under 2 exceeding an hour each day, according to a recent report from Common Sense Media. 

It’s data that Michael Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, finds deeply troubling. 

Rich is the co-founder and director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital, where he works with young people whose online activities are interfering with their well-being. He sees digital media as an environmental health issue like clean air. 

“We should definitely be asking the owners of these platforms to clean up their products, but we also have to help kids breathe right now,” he said. “We have to help them learn how to thrive in the environment we’ve got.” 

Here’s how Rich describes the effect of screens at different stages of development:

Ages 0 ‒ 4

Screens don’t just attract our attention — they shape the structure of our brains. 

“We are constantly making synaptic connections between our neurons,” Rich says. “When we use those connections, they get reinforced, but other connections are made and then get pruned away because we don’t use them so much.”

The Common Sense report found that by age 4, more than half of children have their own tablet, and that 36 percent of 2- to 4-year-olds watch online videos every day. Rich has sympathy for their parents, many of whom are juggling multiple tasks. But, he said, the most important thing is to aim for the “richest way possible to build a brain.” 

While synaptic connections are formed and pruned all through our lives, the brains of infants develop new connections faster. According to Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, more than a million new neural connections are formed every second in the first few years of life — and these neural pathways lay the foundation for future development. 

When babies and toddlers spend time on screens, their brains develop based on input that is at once highly engaging and absent of richer, more meaningful stimulus, Rich said, like the smell of their caregivers’ bodies or the touch of their skin. 

“The real issue with screen time is often not what’s coming from the screen being toxic, but what they’re missing out on because they’re on a screen.” 

Ages 5 ‒ 12

Over time, screens can “desensitize” children to the simpler sensations of the real world. “When they sit down at the dinner table and their parents are saying ‘How was your day?’ it just isn’t enough,” Rich said. 

Rich also worries that much of what children consume on screens requires little to no engagement, a curated list of endlessly entertaining content activated by touch.

“It doesn’t demand that they contribute anything,” he said. “So the other piece is ‘I’m going to be fed stimulus’ as opposed to ‘I have to go out and find my stimulus.’ It doesn’t dull creativity; it just doesn’t give creativity space to happen.”

By age 8, nearly 1 in 4 children have their own phones, according to Common Sense Media, a statistic that Rich said poses new and different challenges. 

“The lunchroom, the playground, the hallway between classes — these are the places where kids are individuals in a society of their own making, where they figure out who they like and don’t like, how to pick themselves up after challenges,” he said. “If that kid has in their pocket a phone in which mom can say, ‘How did you do on the math test? Do I need to talk to your teacher? What’s going on in the playground?’ they never get the opportunity to figure these things out for themselves.”

Even so, as state and local leaders move to ban or restrict phones in schools, Rich argues for a more nuanced approach. 

“I think that we actually should be teaching kids to use these tools, just like we teach them to use the computer or pencil and paper,” he said. “If we ban phones from schools, we will not have any time or space in which kids are taught how to use these powerful tools effectively. An important part of using them effectively is knowing when they are not the best tool for the job and turning them off.”

Ages 13 and above

By the time kids reach high school, some have the social and emotional skills to regulate their own use of technology. For those who don’t, like the patients at Rich’s clinic, problematic internet use is almost universally a symptom of an underlying mental health condition or neurodivergence, typically depression, social anxiety, autism, or ADHD, he said. Helping teens moderate their internet use is really more about giving them tools to cope with those underlying challenges. 

Rich cautioned against thinking about problematic internet use as an addiction, though. “The therapeutic goal with addiction is abstinence,” he said. “The internet is a necessary resource. We need it to learn, to teach, to communicate, to connect.” Misuse “is driven by psychological, not physiological, drivers,” he said.

“We see the better analogy as binge-eating disorder, which is the most prevalent eating disorder. That’s the use of a necessary resource — food — but for psychological reasons, trying to fill that empty hole within. Our goal with binge-eating disorder and with problematic interactive media use is self-regulation, being able to use this tool in ways that are effective and productive.”

Rich is optimistic about a path forward for kids. His prescription: getting comfortable with boredom. That goes for adults, too. 

“We’re so averse to boredom that we can’t get on an elevator without pulling our phones out,” he said. 

He recommends that at any age, parents model healthy media habits, encourage non-screen activities, and have ongoing conversations about how to critique what kids see on their screens. 

“Ultimately, whether we’re talking about television or smartphones or Gen AI, our goal is to help kids be critical thinkers, to be digitally literate in what they receive and also what they create and put out there.”

Today, much of the visual communication around public health is digital — in Instagram infographics, TikToks, or YouTube videos. But in decades past, posters, printed out and pasted up in public, were a key way to spread messaging. 

“People remember information better if it’s presented both visually and with printed messages,” said Amanda Yarnell, chair of the Chan Center for Health Communication, which helps online creators spread evidence-based health messages in ways that resonate. “Seeing something and reading something at the same time improves understanding.”

Harvard Library has digitized more than 3,000 posters related to a single major public health crisis: the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The posters come from numerous countries around the world and span roughly 1990 to 2004. The collection tells a story, said Yarnell, of what the public health establishment has learned about what messages work, and why. 

---

Message, feeling, action 

In the small area of a poster — and the limited time in which you might hope to catch someone’s attention — designers need to craft a single simple message. Too many words and you lose people. 

“A good poster is one point and a feeling: something that the messenger wants you to remember, and then the feeling helps you remember it,” said Yarnell, who is also a lecturer on social and behavioral sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “And best-case scenario, there’s a route to more. It used to be a phone number, and then it became a website, and now it’s probably a QR code.”

Go big 

Effective messages can be bold, eye-catching, or even provocative. 

“Something that draws you in, something that makes you feel seen or resonates with you, gives you some kind of connection with the subject matter.” 

Audience matters

“Often in the early days, there was a single campaign with a single message that was used in every situation,” Yarnell said. “Over time, we realized that you need multiple different campaigns for multiple different needs.”

Co-create the message

“For a long time, public health was really focused on, ‘We’ve gathered some expertise and we’re going to share it with you,’ as opposed to ‘We’re going to co-create expertise to help you make better decisions in your life,’” Yarnell said. The best way to make sure the message fits the audience, after all, is to make the audience a part of designing the message. 

Times have changed 

Over time, researchers learned that positive, affirming messages are better for changing behavior than messages based in shame, stigma, or admonition, Yarnell said. 

Looking back at the posters in the collection is an exercise in remembering the past and preparing for the future, said Neal Baer, lecturer on global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School. 

“Condoms were the only things we had to prevent HIV back then. Now, it’s very different. We have PrEP [Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis]; we have antivirals that keep people alive. … These posters are outdated in the sense of the information they’re giving out.” 

It is estimated that about 42 million people worldwide have died from HIV/AIDS since the virus first emerged in the 1980s. With modern preventions and treatments, it is possible to end transmission and prevent deaths, Baer said. 

“We haven’t done a good job of preventing HIV transmission in the United States, especially since we have the ability to prevent it completely through ‘U=U,’” Baer said, referencing the “undetectable equals untransmittable” messaging strategy begun in 2016 aimed at changing the conversation around HIV/AIDS. “There should be no one getting HIV.

“This poster collection reaffirms that we need to not forget. … These posters are like gravestones of all the people who have died, and I don’t want them to have died in vain.”

Tech billionaires promoting space exploration and colonization as the solution to humanity’s problems should be ignored, says Adam Becker.

These CEOs have little to no expertise in engineering or astrophysics and have little to support their arguments beyond money, according to Becker, an astrophysicist, journalist, and author of the new book “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity.”

“They think that money is some sort of metric that tells you how worthwhile somebody is and how smart they are, and that if somebody else has less money, that means that you don’t have to listen to them,” said Becker, who was joined at a recent Harvard Science Book Talk by Moira Weigel, assistant professor of comparative literature and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and Max Gladstone, an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer.

Becker earned a Ph.D. in computational cosmology from the University of Michigan in 2012. He said that as a child he also thought the future was among the stars.

“I didn’t question that assumption for a long time,” he told the audience. “As I got older, I learned more and realized, ‘Oh, that’s not happening. We’re not going to go to space and certainly going to space is not going to make things better.’”

In his book, Becker dissects the “baseless fantasies” promulgated by tech CEO billionaires, futurists, and philosophers. Each chapter features key figures — including philosopher Peter Singer, effective altruist William MacAskill, and futurist and former tech entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil — who believe they can optimize what comes next for humanity. Some, like Space X CEO Elon Musk, have the funds to pursue those beliefs.  

Originally, Becker believed the subcultures he focuses on in his book — rationalists, effective altruists, and those who believe in the singularity (the point at which tech essentially blends human and machine) — were “mostly harmless.” That belief changed over time.

“People were taking them seriously. That scares me and also I was deeply annoyed because if you know more about these areas, it becomes clear that they have no idea what they’re talking about,” he said.

Becker alluded to individuals, such as Silicon Valley tech billionaires like Musk and Jeff Bezos, who try futilely to “use their money to run as far as they like from their fears.” They have accumulated wealth because they need control in order to feel safe, he argued.

“You end up accumulating more and more money than you could ever possibly spend in one lifetime and more power than any one person should have,” he said. “That’s not enough and you need more.” 

Becker also argued that there is “something very dualist and haunted” about the way the subjects of his book view the mind. Following the death of his father, Kurzweil began to explore the possibility that AI will one day be capable of collecting memories and replicating the human mind.

These people believe that “the body is this thing that the mind is unfortunately dependent upon rather than us being our bodies,” Becker said.

“Our bodies are not like space suits for our nervous systems or for our minds,” he said. “They are what we are and instead, there is this horror with the flesh that is just exuded by all of this rhetoric.”

While answering questions from the audience, Becker reiterated pointed criticisms of tech CEO billionaires who claim to have productive visions of the future.

“I think that they have something that sounds cool, that they believe in, that they think is a vision of the future, because they’re not used to thinking anymore. They’re used to vibing, and this might be why they’re so easily fooled into thinking that ChatGPT and other LLMs are actually thinking as opposed to producing extruded, homogenized-thought like products,” he said.

Suzanne Glassburn has been appointed vice president and secretary of the University, President Alan Garber announced Thursday. 

“A deeply experienced and widely respected senior university administrator, Suzanne is an individual of exceptional demeanor, diplomacy, and intellect,” Garber said. “Her leadership of the Office of the Governing Boards will advance and strengthen the critical work of both the Corporation and the Board of Overseers at a moment of great consequence for Harvard and for higher education.” 

Prior to her appointment at Harvard, Glassburn spent 15 years at MIT, most recently as vice president and secretary of the Corporation, and previously as counsel in MIT’s Office of the General Counsel. Before her move to higher education, Glassburn was a partner at the Boston law firm Nutter, McClennen & Fish, LLP.  

“I am deeply grateful to President Garber for the opportunity to serve an institution with such an incredible history of strong governance and respected leadership,” said Glassburn. “I look forward to joining a team committed to maintaining, upholding, and strengthening this essential partnership between administration and governance.” 

As vice president and secretary of the University, Glassburn will serve as chief administrative officer of the governing boards, which are comprised of the Corporation and the Board of Overseers. As leader of the Office of the Governing Boards, she will set the priorities and vision for the office, which is responsible for supporting and offering guidance to the boards. 

“It is a privilege to work with the dedicated individuals who serve on the Corporation and the Board of Overseers,” said Glassburn. “I look forward to providing guidance and counsel in support of their efforts to steer this venerable institution toward a future in which it continues to make profound and meaningful contributions to society.” 

As secretary of the Corporation at MIT, Glassburn coordinated the activities and operations of a large governance body, as well as its standing and visiting committees. Her work included advising on governance issues, serving as liaison between MIT’s senior administration and governing board members, and overseeing the Office of the Corporation.

As vice president, Glassburn was a senior adviser and chief of staff to MIT’s president and a member of the senior team, which included the president’s direct reports. She also oversaw the Office of the President, federal relations, institute events, and the ombuds office. 

Her work in the MIT Office of the General Counsel focused on academic and research collaborations, other contracts, governance, and policy. Notably, Glassburn collaborated with colleagues in Harvard’s Office of the General Counsel to structure and establish edX, Inc., a nonprofit online learning and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) provider.  

At Nutter, McClennen & Fish, Glassburn represented public bodies and private businesses in a variety of industries, as well as nonprofits, and served in a number of leadership and administrative roles within the firm. Her practice areas included mergers and acquisitions, trademarks, intellectual-property licensing, and securities. 

Glassburn will succeed Marc Goodheart, who announced plans in September to conclude his service as vice president and secretary of the University. Goodheart, who held the position for nearly three decades, will become senior adviser to the president and other University leaders while working to ensure a seamless transition in the Office of the Governing Boards. 

“We are fortunate that Marc will continue to serve the University with his customary insight and wisdom as Suzanne steps into her new role.” said Garber.

Glassburn is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School and received her undergraduate degree in English from Vanderbilt University.  

Helping mothers protect their bodies during childbirth, reimagining how hydrogen can be transported safely and affordably, and leveraging AI and robotics to transform the thousands-year-old process of hair braiding are a few of the 2025 Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge’s extraordinary winning ventures.

“At a time when so much is uncertain, the possibility of redefining what’s possible is not only a springboard to your own achievements, but also a gift to our community, our nation and our world,” said President Alan Garber. “Your willingness to pursue ideas, to take risks and to carve new paths to excellence reminds us all of the power of knowledge, and the importance and necessity of places like Harvard.”

The President’s Innovation Challenge is an annual competition for Harvard students and select alumni and affiliates pursuing ventures that are redefining what’s possible in their fields. During the Wednesday awards ceremony at Klarman Hall, President’s Innovation Challenge finalists pitched their ventures to a global audience of more than 2,000 in-person and virtual attendees. Winners received a share of $517,000 in non-dilutive funding, made possible by a gift from the Bertarelli Foundation, co-founded by Ernesto Bertarelli, M.B.A. ’93.

“Each year, the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge showcases the incredible creativity and impressive drive of students from across the University,” said Bertarelli. “It’s been an immense honor to support these founders at the earliest stages of their ventures and see how they go on to make a positive impact to society.”

“Your willingness to pursue ideas, to take risks and to carve new paths to excellence reminds us all of the power of knowledge, and the importance and necessity of places like Harvard.”

President Alan Garber

$75,000 award recipients

Gurus Inc. (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health): Providing vulnerable populations with housing, education, mentorship, and support services.

Halo Braid (Harvard Business School, Harvard College, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Building an AI-powered robotic hair braider that reduces braiding time from hours to minutes, empowering hair stylists to double their business.

PeriPeach (Harvard Medical School): Designing a medical device to prevent severe tears from childbirth.

Regatta Bio (Harvard Medical School): Developing cellular therapies to restore immune tolerance and prevent immune system-related diseases.

The Paal (Harvard Kennedy School): Improving financial outcomes for smallholder livestock farmers in India.

“Advocacy and awareness has always been a central part of PeriPeach, and I want to thank everybody here today,” said Tess Kim, founder of PeriPeach, after receiving the $75,000 prize. “This is for all the women who had to suffer with severe tears and for all the women who won’t have to.”

$25,000 award recipients

Adaptive Reader (Harvard College): Reimagining books so that every learner is able to engage with rigorous content, using AI to personalize languages and reading levels.

Brain Exercise Initiative (Harvard Law School): Preventing memory loss with cognitively stimulating exercises.

HydroHaul (Harvard Business School): Building a safer, more reliable, and cheaper solution for transporting hydrogen using a proxy carrier molecule.  

Modulate Bio (Harvard Business School): Developing therapies to treat neurological disorders, including Essential Tremor, epilepsy, and anxiety.

Radiate Biosciences (Harvard Medical School): Creating a new colorectal cancer screening method with a blood test that delivers colonoscopy-level performance.

Ingenuity award winners

AIRQUA (Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Transforming flood relief with air-generated water technology, delivering clean, safe water to families in urgent need during crises.

Pythia Diagnostics (Harvard College, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Making a wearable device that predicts epileptic seizures by analyzing skin-released chemicals.

SAMI+ (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health): Equipping health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with AI-powered handheld ultrasounds, enhancing prenatal care.

SpiroSniff (Harvard College, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Creating an affordable breathalyzer to detect lung cancer early, using sensors and AI for rapid, non-invasive, accessible screening.

Wyndergy (Harvard Extension School): Harnessing wind power to increase range for electric vehicles and eliminate range anxiety.

“Today is one of our favorite days of the year,” said Becca Xiong, managing director of programs and engagement at the Harvard Innovation Labs. “We get to celebrate bold ideas, real-world impact, and the remarkable people behind both. It takes vision, courage, and a lot of hard work to reach this stage — and even more to bring that vision to life.”

To learn more about the President’s Innovation Challenge finalists and winners, and watch a recording of the May 7 awards ceremony, visit the Harvard Innovation Labs website.

Six years ago, Sahil Chinoy was a new hire at The New York Times, working at the intersection of journalism and data analysis. At 23, he was a graphics editor at the paper of record.

Crunching numbers, making charts, and speaking week by week to experts about party ideology, police brutality, or facial recognition: It was a dream job for a curious person.

And it wasn’t enough. “I’d want to read the underlying paper,” Chinoy said. “You’re reading this research on the way home, on the subway, and feeling like, ‘I just don’t have the energy to really understand this — I’d have to do this full time.’”

In retrospect it’s clear to Chinoy how he was borne along — and repeatedly redirected — by his particular curiosity: about systems, abstractions, how things work.

He came to UC Berkeley in 2013 as an aspiring aeronautical engineer, but the shine quickly wore off. “When I went to my first class, all the other kids were super excited to get into the machine shop,” he laughed. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no: The part of this that I like is thinking about building things.’”

So engineering gave way to physics, and physics was in turn displaced by economics. After his year at the Times, he joined Harvard’s Economics Department as a doctoral candidate. He’s set to graduate from the Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences later this month.

In papers for the National Bureau of Economic Research, he and his co-authors have studied big datasets in search of the sociopolitical patterns that structure American life, such as the influence of “zero-sum” thinking on American policy preferences and how military service in World War I drove Black veterans into the NAACP.

Along the way Chinoy may have benefited from the winding route he took to Harvard, drawing on advanced math, an interest in American politics, and the journalistic instinct for the timely investigation.

Chinoy’s distinctive approach has won him admirers among faculty collaborators and mentors.

Stefanie Stantcheva, his main adviser, is herself a rising star; she was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for the top American economists under 40 just last month.

In written remarks, Stantcheva said it’s been “such a joy working with Sahil. He is super curious about new issues, but then also engages with them on a deep level.”

Vincent Pons of the Business School praised the “curiosity and ambition” Chinoy brought to their paper on neighborhood roots and political affiliation.

“Sometimes there are very big questions that you’re interested in, but it’s very unclear how you might study those questions,” Pons said. “Sahil is someone who — once he has a big question he’s after — he’ll find the data, and find the strategy, that is required to provide a convincing answer.”

For Chinoy’s latest job-market paper, which found “substantial segregation” on the basis of ideology in American workplaces, that meant yoking together two enormous digital databases — voter rolls and the networking site LinkedIn. The work created a political-economic window on more than 34 million Americans, likely the largest such dataset ever compiled.

He and co-author Martin Koenen found that not only are there conservative- and liberal-aligned firms, but voters will measurably forgo some pay to work at a firm that reflects their values — or to avoid joining one that doesn’t.

Chinoy acknowledges that the interdependence of work and politics prompted decades of economic scrutiny before he ever came to Harvard. “A lot of what I am doing is I think addressing some of these long-standing questions with really modern econometric tools and with big data.”

Three papers later, the work has helped him to a nuanced view of personal politics at work.

“In this research, I kind of seesaw between thinking that politics is now this defining form of identity, that for a lot of people shapes all kinds of decisions,” Chinoy said. “On the other hand, the labor market is also about people who want a paycheck, who want to put food on the table. And when a job pays less than another job — even if it’s more politically aligned with your views — that matters, too.”

For now, that’s the big question preoccupying Chinoy: what he calls “the interplay between political identity and political behavior and some of these economic forces,” like the labor market, immigration patterns, and racial coalitions.

And that interest has prompted one more evolution in Chinoy’s professional career. Trained as an economist, he’ll join the political science department at Stanford in 2026.

In the meantime, he has a postdoctoral appointment at Yale’s Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics, which will keep him in Cambridge for one more year with his partner, a public defender.

But first comes Commencement, which the Chinoys — his parents, his brother, and a couple of cousins — will attend ahead of a celebratory weekend trip to the Berkshires.

Asked if he can share any lessons for our polarized political moment, Chinoy remains — characteristically — in the interrogative mood.

“We started getting really good public opinion data in the mid-20th century, around the 1950s. And so we chart the rise of polarization from what might have been a particularly peaceful time in American politics, or at least, where there was less open conflict between different factions. Perhaps that was the anomaly.”

Sometimes an important discovery springs from a fishing expedition. In Joel Habener’s case, it was an actual one.

More than three decades after the discovery of GLP-1, the hormone has transformed the treatment of obesity, diabetes, and cardiometabolic disorders that affect more than a billion people worldwide. Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, Daniel Drucker, and Jens Juul Holst — scientists who played a crucial role in the hormone’s discovery and characterization — have received some of the biggest awards in science.

But more than three decades ago, when Habener, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School investigator emeritus, set up an experiment that helped lead to the discovery, this outcome was far from clear.

“It’s just been one surprise after the next,” Habener said. “It’s amazing to me.”

The unique pancreas of an ugly fish helped accelerate a revolution in modern medicine.

Back in the late 1970s, Habener’s goal was to identify possible prohormones — precursors of hormones — for the pancreatic hormones glucagon, which raises blood sugar, and somatostatin, which inhibits both insulin and glucagon.

He and MGH investigators P. Kay Lund and Richard H. Goodman decided to use recombinant DNA gene cloning to isolate these prohormones from the pancreases of rats, but they ran into a problem. The National Institutes of Health, which helped fund this fundamental research, had declared a moratorium on recombinant DNA research in warm-blooded animals as scientists evaluated ethical and safety concerns of the new technology.

“The solution to the problem,” Habener said, “required a fishing expedition.”

A member of his lab knew a commercial fisherman who had provided research specimens for other scientists. The anglerfish was raised as a possibility “because the anglerfish is a trash fish,” Habener said. “We throw them back. And they’re big, and they’re ugly.”

 It was also cold-blooded and therefore exempt from the NIH moratorium.

The anglerfish turned out to be a boon for Habener’s research. While endocrine and exocrine tissues exist together in a rat’s pancreas, the two types of tissue are separated in anglerfish — with endocrine cells in a marble-sized organ called the Brockmann body. The separation made isolating the mRNA, and the peptide hormones and their precursors, easier.

After extracting mRNA from the Brockmann bodies, Habener and his team were surprised to find that glucagon and somatostatin were embedded in larger proteins that later cleaved into their active forms.

“The eureka moment,” as Habener puts it, was when they discovered that in the larger precursor protein proglucagon, there was a signal peptide, an intervening peptide, a peptide that was homologous to mammalian glucagon, and then a second GLP-related peptide later revealed to be GLP-1.

It took many more fundamental breakthroughs before this discovery could translate into therapeutic use. Mojsov, now a research associate professor at Rockefeller University and then a member of MGH’s endocrine unit, identified the biologically active form of GLP-1, known as GLP-1(7-37).

Holst, a University of Copenhagen professor, discovered that GLP-1 acts as an incretin hormone, stimulating insulin secretion in response to food.

Drucker, a clinician scientist at Sinai Health’s Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute — and a former member of Habener’s MGH research group — uncovered more of GLP-1’s physiological actions and helped translate GLP-1’s therapeutic benefits to drugs.

The impact of GLP-1 drugs might seem like a given today, but Habener knows that some of the federally funded developments that led there were far from preordained.

“I think the word is serendipity,” he said. The unique pancreas of an ugly fish helped accelerate a revolution in modern medicine.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. appears to be pulling back from its leadership role on the world stage and warns there is no other nation that can step in as the champion of global democracy if America walks away.

Pompeo, J.D. ’94, sat down on Monday for a closed-door talk at Harvard Kennedy School about his time as the nation’s top diplomat and spoke candidly about his efforts with Israel and the Middle East, Iran, China, and his views on Russia’s war with Ukraine.

The event was part of the American Secretaries of State Project, a collaboration between the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project at HKS. Over the years, past secretaries including James A. Baker III, Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton have come to these sessions to share insights into some of their greatest diplomatic challenges.

In the wide-ranging discussion, Pompeo detailed the negotiations behind the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of agreements normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

He said there were three essential components to getting these deals done: first, demonstrate the U.S.’ unwavering support for Israel; second, make clear Iran is a bad actor in global politics and the central impediment to improved Mideast relations; and lastly, convince the Arab Gulf nations that the U.S. would not throw them under the bus if things fell apart.

Pompeo also defended his close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even after a CIA assessment found he was behind the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Pompeo, who Monday called the killing “horrific,” said he felt it was important to U.S. long-term strategic interests to remain close with Saudi Arabia.

Asked about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Pompeo, now at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said it’s “very unlikely” there will be a two-state solution in the near or medium term.

While in Congress, Pompeo had been a vocal critic of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, believing it gave Iran too much leeway to enrich uranium, a necessary step in the production of a nuclear weapon. Less than two weeks after he became secretary of state, the U.S. withdrew from the deal.

Even now, with Iran’s power diminished from a decade ago, it’s “an absolute imperative” that the U.S. stand firm on its policy of “no enrichment” because there’s no way to ever be absolutely certain Iran wasn’t doing so secretly. “If they can cheat, they will,” said Pompeo.

“As good as our intelligence agencies are, as wonderful as our collection is, [Iran is] a big country, and they have demonstrated their ability to foil our efforts to actually know what’s going on,” he said, adding, “If the Iranians get any closer than they are, you’ll have proliferation in the region.”

Pompeo was joined in the discussion by Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at HKS; Robert Mnookin, Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, at HLS; Meghan L. O’Sullivan, director of the Belfer Center and Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at HKS; and James Sebenius, Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Before becoming secretary of state, Pompeo served as CIA director from 2017‒2018. While a supporter of the agency, he believes it remains too focused on Middle Eastern counterterrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

One of the CIA’s lingering “shortcomings,” he said, is that it does not spend enough time on economic intelligence, which puts the U.S. at a great competitive disadvantage with China given that President Xi Jinping “has been at war with the United States for 40 years — economically.”

He called standing by as China moved to weaken democracy in Hong Kong following the 2019‒2020 protests “one of my great failures” as secretary.

In regard to Russia, Pompeo said he has not been surprised by the actions of Vladimir Putin. It makes sense that the Russian president remains fixated on Ukraine and righting what he perceives as a historic wrong done to Russia as he continues to “chip away” at Europe’s borders.

“It’s intrinsic to who he is,” Pompeo said, which is why “we should never give an inch of Europe to him, and I regret that it appears that we’re headed that way.”

Pompeo rejected the notion that the U.S. can’t afford to help countries like Ukraine and should cut back its defense of democratic values around the world.

“That’s what saddens me in my own political party, is that too many people who know better, who know how important this is,” have been unwilling to do the hard work and explain to the country “why it’s in America’s best interest to be the world’s leader, that the benefits far exceed the costs,” said Pompeo, who served in the U.S. Army before attending the Law School.

A more isolationist approach to foreign policy is the easier political argument to make to voters, but the U.S. will regret it in the coming decade if we fail in this moment to lead on the global stage, he said.

“If America doesn’t lead, the world is forlorn. There’s nobody. The Japanese can’t do it. The Australians can’t do it. The Indians won’t do it,” said Pompeo. “For good or for bad, it sits on our shoulders, and we should own that, and we should be happy to go lead in that way.”

Five faculty members have been awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching, in fields ranging from high-dimensional geometry to comparative politics. Hopi Hoekstra, Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, announced the recipients on May 6. They are:

• Denis Auroux, Herchel Smith Professor of Mathematics
• Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies
• Michael Smith, John H. Finley Jr. Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
• Yuhua Wang, Ford Foundation Professor of Modern China Studies

“I am delighted to recognize these five outstanding colleagues for their contributions to teaching, mentorship, and research,” Hoekstra said. “Their passion, rigor, and creativity inspire our students every day, giving them the opportunity to ask big questions, explore new ideas, and grow as thinkers and scholars. I am grateful for their extraordinary commitment to our students and our educational mission.”

The Harvard College Professorship was launched in 1997 with a gift from John and Frances Loeb. Professors hold the title for five years and receive support for a research fund, summer salary, or semester of paid leave.

---

Illuminating ‘deep connections’ across math

Auroux is a pure mathematician who has spent his career studying ethereal domains such as high-dimensional geometry, in which some shapes are too abstract to be drawn on a blackboard. He finds much more tangible rewards when it comes to teaching.

“I am really happy when I feel that I’ve explained something to a student in a way that suddenly they get it,” Auroux said. “The process of seeing knowledge being acquired, I just love that.”

Auroux has taught at Harvard since 2018. Educated in France, he previously held positions at the Ecole Polytechnique, MIT, and Berkeley. Among his classes is the legendary “Math 55,” a fast-paced course for advanced first-year students.

He described his teaching style as classical — lectures, a “massive amount” of homework, and office hours — and he still prefers an old-fashioned chalkboard. He seeks to guide students toward a deeper understanding of mathematics from multiple perspectives, including algebra, geometry, and analysis. Over the course of the year, the class revisits the same facts from different branches of the discipline.

“There are deep connections that run across different areas of math,” he said. “It’s very beautiful when you get to illuminate that in a class.”

Auroux himself still seeks those deep connections. He studies the geometry of abstract spaces that are not encountered in everyday life, but are subjects of keen interest for mathematicians and theoretical physicists. His research interests include symplectic geometry, low-dimensional topology, and mirror symmetry.

“I’m still trying to understand the same questions I was trying to understand 10 years ago,” said Auroux. “I’m just changing what it means to understand. I have understood certain things, and now I realize there’s more I don’t understand. Maybe mathematicians are a bit obsessive about that.”

---

Putting images first to promote curiosity

Maranci, an art historian with a focus in pre-modern Armenia, likes to begin her classes with images — perhaps a 7th-century Armenian manuscript depicting the Annunciation, or photographs from fieldwork in Eastern Turkey — and let her students first experience the image, then learn to understand it.

“One of the wonderful things about working with art and visual culture is that you can really confront them with things before they know what they are, and they just look,” Maranci said. “Then you teach them to ask questions about what they’re looking at. For me, it’s a really helpful way of teaching and it also promotes curiosity.”

Maranci’s area of expertise falls at the intersection of art, architecture, and material culture of medieval Armenia. She teaches courses on all aspects of Armenian culture and history, from liturgical textiles to art and literature.

For Maranci, teaching is a “whole-body” experience. She doesn’t read from notes, choosing instead to walk around the room as she lectures, welcoming questions and drawing individual students into lively, public dialogue.

She vividly recalled her own undergraduate struggles — grappling with material that seemed easily understandable to her peers. That experience, she said, informs the way she teaches today.

“I really like to talk them through things,” Maranci said. “I’m putting myself in their shoes and I want to break things down in a way that makes everybody feel that they can learn this stuff. Even when it’s obscure 7th-century Armenian Church architecture, at bottom it’s all knowable, and that’s something I try to get across.”

---

Engaging, hands-on, with problems

For Smith, the surest route to learning is doing — engaging with real problems, solving technical challenges, and wrestling with ethical dilemmas.

“It’s one of my passions,” he said of teaching. “I especially enjoy working with our undergraduates. I try to make it as hands-on and engaging as possible and connect it to the issues that the students are thinking about at the current time.”

Smith has spent decades thinking about education. He began teaching at Harvard in 1992 and spent 11 years as dean of the FAS. He is writing a book about teaching.

A prime example of his hands-on approach is “CS 32: Computational Thinking and Problem Solving,” an introductory course that enrolls some 300 students. On the first day, students install the Integrated Development Environment (a software interface with tools for computer programmers) on their laptops so they can work on problems simultaneously with the professor. In the final weeks, each student presents an independent project. Some students designed a program to turn the popular online game Wordle into a two-player version; another wrote a program to scrape recipes from the Internet and then suggest what to cook for dinner that night based on the ingredients on hand in the kitchen.

“I want them to have a foundation on which they can start to learn for themselves and become self-sufficient,” said Smith.

He applies a similar philosophy to his upper-level class, “Critical Thinking in Data Science,” in which students grapple with the ethical implications of ever-more-powerful information technologies. The class features two-week “sprints,” exercises in which students build deepfakes and facial recognition programs — and contended with the social consequences of their creations. Smith summed up the dilemma: “Yeah, I can build it, but should I build it?”

---

Creating a space where all perspectives are welcome

Thornber, a cultural historian of East Asia, strives to make her classroom a space where all perspectives are welcome, and where students feel comfortable sharing their insights, even when discussing difficult topics such as gender-based violence, mental health stigmas, or end-of-life care.

Thornber said co-chairing the FAS Civil Discourse Advisory Group and becoming the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning last year made her realize the need to foster this environment with greater intention.

“It’s made me realize the importance of being attentive to students’ own inclination to self-censor, or to come to premature consensus,” Thornber said. “There’s a need for being really intentional about this and being really explicit with the students. If we all come in with the same opinion, that’s great, but we’re going to tackle other opinions as well, because it’s really important that they understand the range of opinions on a difficult topic.”

Thornber’s own scholarship spans the medical and health humanities as well as the environmental humanities, gender justice, indigeneity, and transculturation, as related to the literatures and cultures of East Asia. Her research scope also includes South and Southeast Asia, well as Africa, Europe, and North America. She has taught a range of undergraduate courses, from first-year seminars on gender justice and literature of pandemics to general education courses on mental health and the arts. This fall she will teach a new course, “HUMAN 2: Introduction to the Medical and Health Humanities.”

She said creating a “transformative experience” for students gives her work meaning. For her, that means helping students feel connected to each other and breaking down some of the silos that separate students from different backgrounds so they can all engage in lively and productive classroom discussions.

“I believe very strongly that the humanities provide our students with unique and invaluable information, insights, and perspectives into how we can best make sense of and ameliorate some of our most complex global challenges,” Thornber said. “Not only is it exciting to work with students on increasing their knowledge of global challenges, but also to work with them on how they might ultimately render this knowledge into impactful action. Nurturing the hopefulness, excitement, and creativity that students bring to the table — it’s really a privilege and an honor to be able to do that.”

---

Learning along with his students

Wang likes to build his political science courses around intellectual debates, to show his students that there is always another way to look at the world. Sometimes this means assigning readings and structuring class discussions to reflect contradictory views.

“I ask them, ‘What do you think?’” Wang explained. “We can challenge the reading and challenge each other. I think that debate form is really useful for getting to the bottom of things. At the end of the conversation, we usually gain more understanding of the issue but also change our previous view about the question.”

Wang’s area of expertise is Chinese politics. He has written extensively about state-building in China from the seventh to 20th centuries and is currently doing comparative research to see how China and Europe diverged politically after the year 1000. The undergraduate courses Wang teaches regularly include “Government and Politics of China” and “Comparative Political Development,” and he is part of a rotation of faculty who teach “Foundations of Comparative Politics.”

Wang said his favorite part of teaching Harvard undergraduates is how often they challenge him intellectually — something that he says is “the best thing that can happen to a professor.” He sometimes presents a provocative argument on purpose, inviting students to push back. More than once, their responses have led him to change his own viewpoint.

“One thing I really want to emphasize to them is I’m learning with them — in this class, we are exploring something together,” Wang said. “I think that’s really important, because I don’t want them to stop learning after this class, or after Harvard. I want them to realize even people my age are still learning, and that I can learn from them.”

Inside a sound- and scent-proof room at Harvard’s Canine Brains Lab, photographer Elias Weiss Friedman tapped a hammer on the floor near his hand as Sasha, the Harvard University Police Department’s community engagement dog, watched attentively. When Friedman feigned injury, pretending to hit his thumb and crying out in pain, the black Labrador looked briefly to Officer Steve Fumicello, her handler, before rushing to Friedman and licking his face. The moment was part of an experiment used regularly to assess the empathy of dogs in the lab.

“Some [dogs] react like that, some of them couldn’t care less,” explained Erin Hecht, assistant professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, who runs the Canine Brains Project. “In the real test, the person does this three times, and we had a couple of dogs actually take the hammer away.”

Friedman, founder of popular social media account “The Dogist,” visited Hecht’s lab last week. Friedman has photographed more than 50,000 dogs while Hecht uses a different kind of imagery — MRIs — to study the science behind the beloved pet.

“I’m OK, I was just joshing,” Friedman reassured Sasha, after the experiment, while petting her ears. “Thank you for being so empathetic and caring, because if that were to happen in real life I would need your love.”

Hecht and Friedman later discussed the way they each approach dogs visually in a fireside chat at Kirkland House moderated by Faculty Dean David Deming, Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Education and Economics at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“They make great photographic subjects because they’re 100 percent candid,” said Friedman, whose new book, “This Dog Will Change Your Life,” is forthcoming. “You can look at a dog and see the expression on their face and know that they’re being 100 percent honest, and there’s something very great about that.”

Hecht said MRI scans allow her to explore the question many dog owners have wondered at some point: What is going on inside their head?

“You can see all kinds of things, signatures of fearfulness, or aggression, or trainability, something we might think of as cognitive capacity or ability to learn, and differences between breeds that might relate to their historical functions,” Hecht said. “I still get shivers when we get a dog in the scanner and their brain image comes up for the first time. It’s like, ‘Wow, there’s a brain in there. That is the dog, all of its emotions and thoughts and plans and desires, we’re looking at it right now.’”

“You can look at a dog and see the expression on their face and know that they’re being 100 percent honest, and there’s something very great about that.”

Elias Weiss Friedman

She said that in science, it’s always possible to invest time in a study only to find no significant results. But that hasn’t been the case with her dog research, likely because of the remarkable variability in canine brains and their close ties to behavior. Hecht’s lab is actively recruiting dogs for research studies, particularly seeking dogs with behavioral issues related to early life stress or trauma. They are also looking for children ages 7 to 12 and their dogs to participate in a study exploring the bonds between kids and their pets.

Friedman said dogs are like “furry icebreakers” that have helped him meet tens of thousands of interesting people as part of his work.

“Before you get a dog you know your neighbor, and after you get a dog you know your neighborhood,” Friedman said. “There is this force of community and socialization when your dog needs to go out, you just end up meeting like 10 people. That’s very real.”

Hecht said dogs have been bred to be good at making friends with people.

“The ability to form a bond with people is the most fundamental thing that they’ve evolved. We are their social partners. Their natural place in the world is within human society. They’re adapted for our world,” Hecht said. “Then humans have developed different lineages of dogs. Some breeds need to be defensive and territorial in order to protect a family or a flock of sheep. Others need to do a job that’s more interactive with the environment. It’s this huge range of cognitive styles.”

During the Q&A, students asked Friedman and Hecht a range of questions: “Do dogs pick favorites within the household?” (Hecht: They have favorites for different activities); “Are dogs judgmental?” (Hecht: They can intuit when people’s intentions are not friendly); and “Do people really look like their dogs?” (Friedman: Yes).

When asked if there were any dogs that stood out from the thousands he has photographed, Friedman recalled Pudding, a pit bull mix bearing the scars of past abuse, whom he photographed back in 2013 when his Instagram account was barely a month old.

“Until then I had been going about it as the joke, like, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to photograph dogs?’” Friedman recalled. “This was a pivotal dog because it made me realize this project was much more profound. Dogs make us laugh and cry and there’s some beauty and sadness, and it’s important that I share all of it.”

More like this

• 

  How well do you know your dog?

  Take our quiz based on new Netflix documentary featuring Harvard researcher

Starting this fall, students will be able to choose among nine introductory courses launching in the Division of Arts and Humanities as part of an initiative by Sean Kelly, dean of Arts and Humanities and Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy.

To counter the nationwide problem of declining enrollment in these fields, the initiative aims to engage more first-year students in the studies.

While Kelly attributes declining enrollment in part to a lack of emphasis on the subjects in American high schools, one Harvard statistic gave him pause: While about 12 percent of first-years arrive on campus interested in pursuing arts and humanities, about half end up changing their minds by the time they declare their concentrations.

“That was the thing that really struck me,” Kelly said. “The kinds of introductory courses that we’re teaching don’t grab our students. That was the issue that I wanted us to have conversations about.”

There are exceptions to the enrollment decline — courses in Art, Film & Visual Studies and Theater, Dance & Media, as well as creative writing and music performance, are in high demand among students. But Kelly believes the “Canon Wars” of the ’80s and ’90s — debates over which major texts define disciplines like English or art history — impacted the design, and appeal, of many introductory humanities courses. While these debates broadened our understanding of what counts as a “great work,” Kelly said, they also made it harder to curate a definitive list of must-reads to introduce the subjects.

“The idea that you’re studying something ‘great’ is motivating for a student, and that it was harder for us to say about any text that it is great had an effect on the kinds of courses that we were able to design and teach,” Kelly explained. “That makes it hard for a first-year student, since they can’t gain any sense of what matters in the field.”

“I hope these courses meet the students where they are and really help them understand the intrinsic value of what we do. I hope they are great courses that change their lives.”

Sean Kelly, dean of arts and humanities

Kelly took inspiration from the Department of Philosophy, which has increased its number of concentrators nearly fivefold since 2006 after shifting its goals from preparing students for future Ph.D.s to engaging undergraduates in fundamental questions about human beings and the universe. Questions like these can be beneficial regardless of a student’s future career path.

The department introduced intro courses like Professor Samantha Matherne’s “Phil 129: Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’” which garnered an enrollment of 80 students, and Professor Gina Schouten’s “Phil 16: Sex, Love, and Friendship,” which attracted 120 students the first time it was taught.

Building on this model, and after a series of conversations with faculty last fall, Kelly put out a call for introductory humanities course proposals. He received nearly two dozen. Ten were selected, nine of which will launch in the 2025-2026 academic year.

This fall Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, will teach “Introduction to the Medical and Health Humanities”; Richard F. Thomas, George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics, will teach “Bob Dylan the Classic”; Lauren Kaminsky, associate senior lecturer in History & Literature, will teach “Culture in Context”; and Raquel Vega-Durán, senior lecturer in Peninsular and Transatlantic Film and Literature, will teach “Migration and Border Crossing in Film and Photography.”

Next spring Moira Weigel, assistant professor of comparative literature, will teach “Humanity, Technology, and Creation”; professor of linguistics Kathryn Davidson will teach “Language”; and incoming assistant professor of comparative literature Spencer Lee-Lenfield will teach “Translation and the Craft of Reading Carefully: A World Literature Introduction.”

John T. Hamilton, William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature, will teach “HUM 17: The Human Sciences: Fundamentals and Basic Concepts” next spring. The course offers an overview of the methods, questions, and tools that define the humanities in much the same way gateway courses like LS50 or CS50 do in other disciplines. Students will tackle metaphor and metonymy, epistemology and ontology and the structures of language, and grapple with philosophical ideas such as consciousness, perception, and moral freedom, all ideas that define what it means to study human culture.

“It does give you that ground plan,” said Hamilton. “It says, OK, you’re interested in the humanities? This is what we do, this is how we grapple with all sorts of things. Then you may have a better idea of where you want to delve into for your following time at Harvard.

“In the same way you need to know how momentum works to study physics, and how cells reproduce to study biology, you need to know what a metaphor is, what realism is, and what consciousness is to do the humanities.”

Laura van den Berg, senior lecturer, and Neel Mukherjee, associate senior lecturer in creative writing in the Department of English, will co-teach “HUM 9: Reading for Fiction Writers” in the fall. The course introduces students to a range of texts, including Anton Chekhov, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, to help them understand how reading shapes writing, and begin to write their own stories.

“We are trying to bring together the critical side of the English Department, which trains students in how to close-read, understand, and analyze the text, with the creative-writing side, which trains in technique and craft,” Mukherjee said. “We wanted to marry the two to show that good writing is always dependent on being a good reader.”

“Our ability to tell our own story to ourselves and to others, to absorb other people’s stories — that’s so foundational to who we are and our identity,” van den Berg agreed. “A richer, more rigorous, nuanced understanding of how story works, how we work on story, and how story works on us, is incredibly important as a human practice.”

For Kelly, the intro course initiative is not just about increasing enrollment, but about building a more inviting and engaging humanities culture for new students. He hopes to underscore the humanities’ inherent value, not just their instrumental use. As he put it, it’s the difference between reading Shakespeare’s “King Lear” to analyze tyranny, versus reading it to explore what it means to be human.

“I want these introductory courses not just to be about the instrumental value of the disciplines, but about their intrinsic value. I want them to focus on why it matters for all of us engaged in the human project to learn how to read great literature, to think about great philosophy, to encounter great art,” Kelly said.

“I hope these courses meet the students where they are and really help them understand the intrinsic value of what we do. I hope they are great courses that change their lives.”

Addie Esposito ’25 grew up with stories about life in Germany.

“My mom was there for two years just after the Berlin Wall fell,” Esposito said. “She actually has three tiny pieces of the Wall, one for me and each of my sisters.”

At Harvard, Esposito’s fascination with German culture, and the complicated legacy of its post-World War II split into East and West, deepened. A double concentrator in government and German, she was able to fully immerse herself in these interests while completing an internship in the German parliament last summer. Working at the Bundestag also allowed Esposito to launch an ambitious project studying how the Cold War continues to shape German identity today.

“She completed this rich, rich analysis of the persistent divide between East and West,” said her thesis adviser, Daniel Ziblatt, the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. “When Germany unified in 1990, the expectation was that this divide would quickly pass. What’s remarkable is that it has endured for more than a generation and become a permanent feature of German political culture. … In some ways, it’s analogous to regional divides in the U.S. after the Civil War.”

Esposito first visited Germany with her mother at age 5. “I was just fascinated by the language,” she recalled. “My mom said I started saying German words in my sleep, just some basics like ‘blau,’ which is blue, and ‘Brot,’ which is bread.”

In middle school, German was the obvious choice for Esposito’s foreign language elective. In high school, the Raleigh, North Carolina, native completed a two-week exchange program in Frankfurt, Germany, and interned at a nonprofit run by her mother’s friend in a small town near the French border.

As a College first-year, Esposito enrolled in Ziblatt’s “Democracy: Breakthroughs and Breakdowns,” drawn to the professor’s expertise in authoritarianism and democracy in the U.S. and in Europe — Germany in particular.

“I thought, ‘This person is at the intersection of all my interests,’” Esposito recalled. “I kind of clung to him like a barnacle ever since.”

“I’d love to be the ambassador to Germany. I would be thrilled to work for the State Department. I would like to use my German no matter what.”

Ziblatt helped Esposito land her position with a member of the center-left Social Democrat Party representing part of Hamburg, Germany. This provided her with access to the full chamber, which totaled more than 700 legislators at the time. “It meant I could go anywhere I wanted in the Bundestag unaccompanied,” said Esposito, whose internship was made possible by the Center for European Studies.

One area, however, was strictly off-limits. Mainline German political parties have constructed what they call “a firewall” against cooperation with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is most popular in the country’s eastern states.

“For the parliamentarian with whom I was working, that meant zero contact,” Esposito explained. “Therefore, the AfD was initially excluded from my interview pool.”

In the end, the former Harvard International Review co-editor in chief surveyed 183 parliamentarians to learn about their backgrounds as well as the contours of their identities. Esposito also did face-to-face interviews (in German) with 48 members, including 17 members from the former Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic (GDR). Once her internship was complete, she moved to secure what Ziblatt characterized as “rare” research interviews with two members of the AfD.

“It’s pretty common for students to rely on pre-existing surveys for their theses,” he said. “But in this case, she used her own interviews to dig a lot deeper into how people think about their lives — and how those lives relate to politics and history.”

Esposito’s approach, with its unusual focus on political elites, uncovered regional attachments more pronounced than what pollsters had found with the broader German public. She discovered that more than half the parliamentarians from the former GDR still identify more as East German than anything else.

The identity proved somewhat less central for parliamentarians who grew up after East Germany’s Peaceful Revolution of 1989. “But it was still incredibly high,” Esposito said, with more than 40 percent of Millennial and Gen Z members from the region selecting East German as their primary identity.

A different pattern was observed with parliamentarians hailing from the part of the country once occupied by the U.S., Great Britain, and France. Just 9 percent of those Esposito surveyed identified as primarily West German. More than half identify as broadly German. More than a quarter identify as broadly European.

“West German identification isn’t really a thing,” Esposito said.

Esposito drew on her interviews to advance what she calls an “underdog” theory of East German identity. “It’s strengthened both by adversity and triumph,” she said. “That makes the identity incredibly durable.”

Outsiders can be too quick to connect the phenomenon to the East’s persisting socioeconomic disadvantages, Esposito noted. “There’s also this sense of positive distinctiveness rooted in feeling responsible for reunification. People said things like, ‘We earned this freedom — we’re the reason the wall fell.’”

The thesis also builds on previous findings concerning the East/West divergence in regard to 20th-century history. The East German dictatorship, founded in 1949, positioned itself as an anti-fascist state and distanced itself from Nazi crimes, she said.

In fact, lawmakers with the AfD (both from the former GDR) made statements Esposito interpreted as trivializing the Holocaust — by comparing it to COVID-19 restrictions, for example.

This dynamic helps explain the nuances Esposito recorded in how East and West Germans express national pride. “West Germans’ responses often followed a pattern of ‘I am not proud to be German, but I am proud of Germany’s achievements,’” she writes in her thesis. “East Germans often dropped the hedging language.”

Those from East Germany — comprising 16 to 26 percent of the overall population, depending on how the region is defined — also spoke of experiencing discrimination, a phenomenon Esposito corroborated in interviews with lawmakers from the West.

“She had this incredible access to the highest level of politics in the country,” Ziblatt observed. “And she used it to engage politicians in these long conversations about what it means to be German.”

Next up for Esposito is a master’s in public policy at the Hertie School in Berlin, where she’ll have the opportunity to complete public policy internships while perfecting her German. “By the time I finish at Hertie, I want to be fluent,” Esposito said.

Longer term, she hopes to earn a Ph.D. in political science. “Honestly, my dream position would be to do what Professor Ziblatt does now,” she said. “But I’m also interested in the public policy side of things. I’d love to be the ambassador to Germany. I would be thrilled to work for the State Department. I would like to use my German no matter what.”

An encounter with grief during summer camp set Jett Crowdis on the path to a medical career.

While a Harvard undergraduate, Crowdis — who will graduate from Harvard Medical School this spring — served as a counselor at a camp for children whose parents have cancer. There, he met a 9-year-old boy whose father had died of pancreatic cancer just weeks before.

It was “a sad opportunity to be with someone going through such a challenging time in their life,” Crowdis said. “In later years, I got a chance to talk with him a bit more about his experience and he opened up about it.”

Before that experience, Crowdis knew he liked science, but wasn’t sure the best way to make a career of it. His experience at Camp Kesem, run by a national organization with chapters at several colleges, put a human face on the medical needs he knew were out there.

“My favorite aspect of research is when I get to ask questions that no one else has asked, with data that no one else has.”

“That was the first time that I got to be with someone through a very challenging experience in their life and just listen to what they were experiencing,” Crowdis said. “That was very meaningful to me. I realized that was something that I wanted in a future career, and I think medicine naturally merged that with my interest in science.”

Crowdis, who grew up in Florida, entered Harvard College thinking he would study molecular biology, but during his sophomore summer he worked in the lab of Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology Joan Brugge, who encouraged him to learn coding in order to better analyze his research results. Crowdis spent a summer teaching himself the Python coding language and began taking computational biology courses in the fall.

“I just absolutely loved it,” Crowdis said.

Crowdis graduated from the College in 2019 but made the decision to apply to medical school late. He took two gap years in the lab of Associate Professor of Medicine Eliezer Van Allen, also a Camp Kesem alum. Van Allen’s lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute seeks to use computational biology to analyze genomic data from cancer patients, probe cancer’s molecular origins, investigate resistance to cancer therapies, and use genomics to guide clinical decision-making.

Crowdis used his computational skills to advance projects in the Van Allen lab, analyzing data from a prostate cancer genomic study. He was the first author of a Cell Genomics paper that highlighted the benefits of a broad-based experimental framework that engaged study participants as partners who freely share biological samples, clinical information, and details of their cancer experience. The work showed that the model, called the Metastatic Prostate Cancer Project, could break down barriers to treatment and care.

“My favorite aspect of research is when I get to ask questions that no one else has asked, with data that no one else has,” Crowdis said. “That’s the core aspect of research that I love the most, really, the exploration.”

After Crowdis entered HMS in the fall of 2021, he kept in touch with Van Allen, continuing work on some projects. When he expressed an interest in learning immunology, Van Allen connected Crowdis with Arlene Sharpe, Harvard’s Kolokotrones University Professor. In the Sharpe lab, Crowdis investigated how a technique called checkpoint blockade that harnessed the immune system to fight cancer can go wrong, causing potentially dangerous adverse reactions.

“He’s very thoughtful, very interested and engaged, he’s a critical thinker,” Van Allen said. “That’s a pretty unique combination to have. He really wants to be as critical and as keen as he possibly can.”

Though he has amassed considerable research experience, Crowdis is still exploring how large a role that research will play in his career. He matched with Yale New Haven Hospital and will head there after Commencement to begin a residency in internal medicine. The move will also give him a chance to rejoin his wife, Sruthi Muluk, a Harvard College classmate now in an obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Connecticut.

“It’s fascinating,” Crowdis said of internal medicine, “and also gives you time to sit and be with patients in the same way that I enjoyed the process at Kesem.”

A team of Harvard researchers have unveiled a way to map the molecular underpinnings of how learning and memories are formed, a groundbreaking new technique expected to offer insights that may pave the way for new treatments for neurological disorders such as dementia.

“This technique provides a lens into the synaptic architecture of memory, something previously unattainable in such detail,” said Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics and senior co-author of the research paper, published in Nature Neuroscience.

Memory resides within a dense network of billions of neurons within the brain. We rely on synaptic plasticity — the strengthening and modulation of connections between these neurons — to facilitate learning and memory.

Synapses, or the junctions where neurons communicate, lay the groundwork for every memory we form, from a childhood melody to a loved one’s face to what we ate for breakfast.

In their new paper, the team detailed their new technique, dubbed Extracellular Protein Surface Labeling in Neurons (EPSILON), which focuses on mapping the proteins vital for the transmission of signals across synaptic connections in the brain.

These specific proteins are called AMPARs and are considered key players in synaptic plasticity, the process that allows the brain to adapt and reorganize itself in response to new information.

Utilizing sequential labeling with specialized dyes, EPSILON enabled the researchers to monitor these proteins’ movements at high resolutions. Traditionally, understanding such detailed microscopic phenomena has required more invasive methods. Using EPSILON to observe AMPARs’ behavior in neurons represents a significant scientific advance.

This work was undertaken by several members of Cohen’s lab, including Harvard Griffin GSAS student Doyeon Kim and postdoctoral scholars Pojeong Park, Xiuyuan Li, J. David Wong-Campos, He Tian, and Eric M. Moult, as well as scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A combination of fluorescent labeling and cutting-edge microscopy allowed the researchers to illuminate synaptic behavior at unprecedented resolution. The technique’s precision was akin to shining a spotlight on some of the brain’s most intricate functions, allowing the team to monitor the synaptic interactions critical for learning.

As synaptic changes of specific memories came into view with greater clarity, patterns started to reveal rules governing how the brain decides which synapses to make stronger or weaker when storing a memory.

Prior research into synaptic processes often lacked such granularity, making EPSILON’s insights particularly valuable for future explorations into diseases like Alzheimer’s, marked by synaptic dysfunction that results in memory and learning impairment.

As synaptic changes of specific memories came into view with greater clarity, patterns started to reveal rules governing how the brain decides which synapses to make stronger or weaker when storing a memory.

“Our most important breakthrough is our method that can map the past history of the synthetic plasticity in the living brain,” Kim said. “We can look at the history of the synaptic plasticity, studying where and how much of the synaptic potentiation has happened during a defined time window during the memory formation.

“By mapping the synaptic plasticity over time at multiple time points, we can truly map the dynamics of the synapses,” Kim added. “We’ll also be able to apply this to different kinds of memories that have different patterns of synaptic plasticity.”

The technique’s first application has already yielded intriguing results. By applying EPSILON to study mice undergoing contextual fear conditioning — a process that helps animals associate a neutral context with a fear-inducing stimulus — researchers were able to demonstrate a correlation between AMPARs and the expression of the immediate early gene product cFos, a signal that tells us when brain cells are active.

These findings suggest that AMPAR trafficking is closely linked to enduring memory traces, or engrams, within the brain, where specific neurons become activated following learning experiences.

Cohen credits the significant and sometimes unexpected role basic science can play in fueling progress with enabling their study to succeed.

“The HaloTag technology, which is used to label proteins, was based on a gene discovered in 1997 by a group of scientists in Ireland who were studying a soil bacterium, which had an unusual ability to break down pollutants,” Cohen said. “It’s a generations-long arc from the basic research characterizing the natural world to making discoveries that can make human health better. We really need to support the entire arc to make progress.”

Looking forward, Cohen is eager to see how EPSILON can be further applied to study numerous cognitive phenomena and potentially improve therapeutic strategies targeting memory impairments.

“We’ve already distributed the molecular tool to labs around the world who are now starting to use these tools to explore how synaptic strength is regulated in their favorite question and context,” he said.

---

This work was partially supported the National Institutes of Health.

Among the artifacts on display in a new exhibition at the Schlesinger Library are photos of Ainu and Visayan women who were displayed as “living exhibits” at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. 

The women’s names are not known. Their images have survived because they were included in the archives of Jessie Tarbox Beals, one of America’s first female photojournalists. But their stories are now being revisited as part of “Illuminate: Contextualizing Asian American Women’s Stories Through the Archives.” 

“Asian American history is oftentimes invisible, given the population and the history,” said Victor Betts, the curator for collections on ethnicity and migration at the Schlesinger Library. “It’s pushed to the margins. That’s also reflected in the archives.”

The exhibition, on display through January, presents materials spanning 150 years and asks viewers to examine their own assumptions about Asian and Asian American women’s roles in history. 

The show was created in conjunction with a spring undergraduate course called “Asian American Women’s History in the Schlesinger Library,” which Betts co-taught with Erika Lee, Bae Family Professor of History and the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library.

“It’s a model of co-teaching and co-creation, of research and learning, that we hope will serve as a model for other classes,” Lee said. 

Students used the archival material to consider the ways Asian and Asian American women have been forgotten, made hypervisible, or both, as were the women displayed at the World’s Fair.

“We had a whole week on erasure,” Lee said, laughing. “Like, where are they?”

Christian D. Topinio ’27 researched Beals’ photos for his final project.

“[The women] were objects to study, potentially objects of cultural curiosity,” Topinio said. “There’s a really interesting idea in these photos where you’re ascribing colonial hierarchies among these people, buttressing colonial hierarchies abroad.”

Betts said that in more contemporary collections, Asian American women tell their own stories on their own terms, like the donated archives of famous chefs and cookbook authors Grace Zia Chu and Madhur Jaffrey.

“Other women, earlier in history, in the 19th and 20th centuries, didn’t have that luxury,” he said. So he and the students went looking. 

Sophia Wang ’25 researched the 1874 court case of Ah Fong, a Chinese woman who was detained at the Port of San Francisco. She and about 20 other detained women and girls, age about 17 to 28, filed writs of habeas corpus on their own behalf.

Their legal action also contributed to the 1875 Supreme Court case Chy Lung v. Freeman, in which the court ruled that only Congress, not states, had the power to regulate immigration. 

“As someone who’s Chinese American and whose parents immigrated to the United States, when I read her case, I was in tears,” Wang said. “They were legal pioneers, although their stories still remain untold.”

Although there was little concerted effort to collect and preserve Asian American women’s stories at the time, archivists found Asian American women’s stories throughout local history and Harvard’s history. 

Siok-An Chiu Wu, Wai Tsu New Kuo, and Manik Kosambi appear in Radcliffe College yearbooks in 1919 and 1922.  

Manik Kosambi was the first South Asian woman to graduate from Radcliffe.

The exhibit places Asian American women’s photos, political posters, comic books, and zines in the context of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese American internment, the Civil Rights era, and anti-Asian violence in the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Betts wanted to play with the exhibit’s title, “Illuminate,” as part of the display. He commissioned artwork by Greater Boston Taiwanese-American artist Shaina Lu to accompany the archival material. Her translucent illustrations, placed over the windows, allow sunlight to filter into the gallery.

Betts is working to expand Schlesinger’s collections of Asian and Asian American women’s materials. But for now, he said, what’s missing is part of the point. It’s an opportunity to ask why Asian American women’s stories have been marginalized in the first place, and how our understanding of American history would change if they weren’t.

“Asian American history is American history,” Betts said, “and so it should have the same level of seriousness and value that we understand U.S. history, collectively, to have.”

“Illuminate: Contextualizing Asian American Women’s Stories through the Archives” is on display through Jan. 23 in the Lia and William Poorvu Gallery of Schlesinger Library.

A long career bridging medicine, social science, and the humanities has left Arthur Kleinman with one critical insight.

“Care, critically understood and practiced, matters most,” he told a packed lecture hall last week. “This is at the center of whatever claim I can make to wisdom and truth.”

Kleinman, M.A. ’74, a psychiatrist whose many titles include Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, plans to officially retire next year after a total of nearly 50 years at Harvard. But his work in the classroom ended Tuesday with the final meeting of his “Future of Medical Anthropology” seminar.

The occasion drew nearly 200 current and former students to Sever Hall, with dozens more joining via Zoom. Five former students also testified to Kleinman’s impact as a teacher, author, mentor, and moral anchor committed to building cross-cultural understanding and advancing well-being.

“The gift that he leaves us with is the idea that knowledge is not only linked to patents and businesses,” offered Adams House Faculty Dean Salmaan A. Keshavjee, Ph.D. ’98, who also serves as director of the Center for Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (GHSM). “It’s linked to a better understanding of how to improve the human condition.”

Kleinman, who is also a professor of medical anthropology in GHSM and professor of psychiatry at HMS, first landed at Harvard with his wife, Joan, in the fall of 1970. With support from the National Science Foundation, the Stanford-trained M.D. came to do a comparative study of medical systems across cultures.

“I quickly figured out that for me, anthropology was a suitable way forward,” Kleinman explained.

He taught Harvard’s very first course in medical anthropology in 1973. He left in 1976 for an associate professorship at the University of Washington, but the expert on health care in Chinese culture was back in Cambridge by 1982, now in a senior position split between the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and HMS.

“And that is the position I will be retiring from in July 2026 when I formally retire, and from which today — 43 years later — I deliver this, my final lecture,” Kleinman said.

He honored the contributions of the late Harvard social medicine/psychiatry professor Leon Eisenberg and former students including the late Paul Farmer, M.D/Ph.D. ’90, the celebrated co-founder of Partners In Health. Kleinman also name-checked a long line of staffers and faculty assistants who over the decades helped build the medical anthropology program.

“We’ve had about 100 doctoral students, 25 of whom are M.D./Ph.D.’s; more than 250 postdoctoral fellows, including researchers from much of the world; over 50 M.A. students; dozens of students from the Chan School of Public Health and other Harvard Schools; hundreds of medical students; and thousands of undergraduates,” he said.

Veterans of the program praised more than Kleinman’s intellectual rigor and moral mentorship. His influential body of work also figured prominently. In the final class, former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, M.D. ’91, Ph.D. ’93, who co-founded Partners In Health with Farmer, testified to the career-altering discovery of Kleinman’s “Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture” (1980).

Anne E. Becker ’83, M.D./Ph.D. ’90, the Medical School’s dean for Clinical and Academic Affairs and its Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, spoke to the inspiration provided by “The Soul of Care” (2019), Kleinman’s account of navigating the healthcare system as a family caregiver from Joan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis until her death in 2011.

“This book has become my touchstone as a clinician — and quite frankly, in my responsibilities as an educator, mentor, and colleague,” Becker said.

Recent government demands on U.S. universities have some scholars searching for the right historical analogue for insights.

“I’ve been thinking about this budding conflict between the state and universities as possibly a replay of the 1950s” and the McCarthy era, said William C. Kirby, T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. But, he suggested, events that occurred outside the U.S. provide more useful parallels.

Kirby and other Harvard faculty with expertise on higher ed crackdowns in various national contexts came together on a recent panel hosted at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES). Stories emerged of governments in other countries muzzling student speech, placing universities under receivership, or hobbling institutions with bureaucratic red tape.

The event, offered as part of the center’s Democracy and Its Critics Initiative, had been in the works since December. “Little did we know then how important this issue would become to the very institution in which we are meeting today,” said moderator Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History.

The history starts in the heart of Berlin, began Kirby, author of “Empire of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China” (2022). The University of Berlin, founded in 1810, was the world’s premier research university. It was the first dedicated to the creation as well as the transmission of knowledge. It pioneered the concept of academic freedom for students and faculty. It also placed liberal arts, rather than professional training, at its core.

“It became the model for all great research universities,” said Kirby, who served as FAS dean from 2002 to 2006.

As late as 1930, he noted, the University of Berlin — known today as Humboldt University — was the world’s most respected institution of higher learning. But its reputation collapsed with the rise of the Nazi movement, with its book burnings, mass firings of Jewish professors, and curbing of curriculum deemed insufficiently German.

Some of South Asia’s great universities were patterned after the University of Berlin, said panelist Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs. He spoke of “the Humboldtian project” being implemented at his own alma mater — Kolkata’s Presidency College, founded in 1817 — “with later echoes in Dhaka, Lahore, Aligarh, Allahabad, and Bangalore.”

The decline of those situated in India started in 2016, Bose said, when supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched what he characterized as “an unbridled attack on India’s best universities.”

A former member of India’s parliament, Bose shared a clip from a speech he delivered to the chamber that year. At the time, students nationwide were demonstrating against caste discrimination. They adopted slogans broadly viewed as in opposition to the government.

“That was the first term of the Modi government,” he recalled. “It was still possible, standing in the Indian parliament, to offer principled opposition.”

For nearly a century, the strongest of India’s universities were funded directly by the central government, Bose explained. “Now it’s the central universities, such as Jawaharlal Nehru University or Hyderabad Central University, which are directly under the thumb of the central government.”

Also impacted are otherstate universities, now controlled by chancellors aligned with Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“The private universities and other autonomous institutes in the south of India are doing much better,” said Bose, noting a string of states in the region not controlled by the BJP. “These are the spaces for resistance and for standing up for the academic values, which sustain universities.”

Laura V. Jakli, an assistant professor of business administration at the Business School, outlined the recent assault on Hungarian universities. She recalled giving a lecture at Budapest’s Central European University (CEU) in 2017.

“At some point near the end, someone came up to me and whispered that parliament just passed something that might mean this university is no longer operational,” Jakli said. The student body wasted no time in taking to the streets to protest Lex CEU, an educational rule that effectively forced the U.S.–accredited CEU out of Hungary.

Subsequent measures by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán brought schools including the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Theatre and Film Arts, both in Budapest, under the control of foundations closely aligned with the Orban government.

The “note of hope,” said Jakli, is Hungary’s membership in the European Union. EU leadership has acted to curb these moves, by limiting funds to schools run by quasi-public foundations, for example. It also litigated Lex CEU before the EU’s Court of Justice, which struck down the rule in 2020.

But by then, Jakli submitted, “It was too little too late.” CEU had already relocated its core academic programs to Austria.

Kirby, a historian of modern China, took the conversation back to Asia for a final case study. During its late-Qing and Republican periods, China was home to an “extraordinary group of small universities,” he said. But these institutions were seized or shuttered after Chairman Mao Zedong and his Chinese Communist Party rose to power in 1949.

Kirby rattled off nearly a dozen examples — from Peking Union Medical College, usurped by the Communist Party in 1951, to Tsinghua University, its iconic gate toppled by the Red Army during the Cultural Revolution. The entire system was “Sovietized,” as Kirby put it, or retooled to train workers according to state priorities.

As the event wound down, one attendee raised the lack of hopeful examples. “We haven’t had a story of a successful rebuttal,” agreed Daniel Ziblatt, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and director of the CES.

In response, Kirby steered the conversation in a surprising direction.

Today, he suggested, China’s research universities are skirting government control to reclaim some of the academic excellence of an earlier era. And institutions like Tsinghua University, in Beijing, have surpassed Princeton and Yale in at least one global ranking.

Tsinghua leaders officially tout “an education with ‘Chinese characteristics’ — whatever the hell that is,’” Kirby noted to laughs. “No one knows what it is. In fact, it’s just to appease the leadership.”

An AI tool trained to analyze multiple brain scans over time predicted risk of relapse in pediatric cancer patients with far greater accuracy than traditional approaches, according to a new study. Researchers hope the results lead to improved care for children with brain tumors called gliomas, which are typically treatable but vary in risk of recurrence.

“Many pediatric gliomas are curable with surgery alone, but when relapses occur, they can be devastating,” said corresponding author Benjamin Kann of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program at Mass General Brigham and the Department of Radiation Oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “It is very difficult to predict who may be at risk of recurrence, so patients undergo frequent follow-up with magnetic resonance imaging for many years, a process that can be stressful and burdensome for children and families. We need better tools to identify early which patients are at the highest risk of recurrence.” Kann is also Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School.

The results of the study by investigators from Mass General Brigham and collaborators at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center were published in The New England Journal of Medicine AI.

The research, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, leveraged institutional partnerships across the country to collect nearly 4,000 MR scans from 715 pediatric patients. To maximize what AI could “learn” from a patient’s brain scans — and more accurately predict recurrence — the researchers employed a technique called temporal learning, which trains the model to synthesize findings from multiple brain scans taken over the course of several months post-surgery. 

“Many pediatric gliomas are curable with surgery alone, but when relapses occur, they can be devastating.”

Benjamin Kann

Typically, AI models for medical imaging are trained to draw conclusions from single scans; with temporal learning, which has not been used previously for medical imaging AI research, images acquired over time inform the algorithm’s prediction of cancer recurrence. To develop the temporal learning model, the researchers first trained the model to sequence a patient’s post-surgery MR scans in chronological order so the model could learn to recognize subtle changes. From there, the researchers fine-tuned the model to correctly associate changes with subsequent cancer recurrence, where appropriate.

Ultimately, the researchers found that the temporal learning model predicted recurrence of either low- or high-grade glioma by one year post-treatment, with an accuracy of 75-89 percent — substantially better than the accuracy associated with predictions based on single images, which they found to be roughly 50 percent (no better than chance). Providing the AI with images from more timepoints post-treatment increased the model’s prediction accuracy, but only four to six images were required before this improvement plateaued.

The researchers caution that further validation across additional settings is necessary prior to clinical application. Ultimately, they hope to launch clinical trials to see if AI-informed risk predictions can result in improvements to care — whether by reducing imaging frequency for the lowest-risk patients or by pre-emptively treating high-risk patients with targeted adjuvant therapies.

“We have shown that AI is capable of effectively analyzing and making predictions from multiple images, not just single scans,” said first author Divyanshu Tak of the AIM Program at Mass General Brigham and the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Brigham. “This technique may be applied in many settings where patients get serial, longitudinal imaging, and we’re excited to see what this project will inspire.”

---

This study was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health/the National Cancer Institute.

After Harvard rejected Trump administration demands related to hiring, governance, and the viewpoints of faculty and students, the government froze more than $2 billion in grants for research in science, medicine, and technology at the University. In all, the administration has targeted more than $9 billion in Harvard funding for review. The University responded with a lawsuit late last month.

The disruptive effects of cuts to research funding at Harvard and other institutions of higher ed have already been seen across the U.S. economy. Even if the total funding cuts end up being one-quarter of what has been threatened, gross domestic product will shrink by 3.8 percent (adjusted for inflation) over the coming years, a rate comparable to the 2008-2009 Great Recession, according to new research from economists at American University. Their analysis followed a March report by the nonprofit United for Medical Research that detailed $2.56 in U.S. economic activity for every dollar put into federal biomedical research in 2024.

Less immediately visible are the potential effects the funding freeze could have on a key engine of U.S. economic growth, the startups that help bring scientific innovation and breakthroughs to market.

In this edited conversation, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, senior lecturer in entrepreneurial management at Harvard Business School, discusses the role research universities play in the startup world and how disruptions to funding for science and medicine could reshape the future of entrepreneurship. Bussgang teaches the M.B.A. course “Launching Technology Ventures” and is co-founder and general partner of Flybridge Capital Partners, an early stage venture capital firm.

---

How do research universities figure into the startup and venture capital ecosystem?

There are two critical pathways to bridge the university system and the startup ecosystem. One is through the faculty and the second is through the students.

On the faculty side, often we see commercialization pathways coming out of research in the labs. That can occur both in the computer science departments as well as in the biomedical arenas. And, of course, Harvard has many, many labs and many diverse vehicles, whether it’s the Wyss Institute or the Broad Institute, which operates in conjunction with MIT, as well as the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science departments. Robotics, as well. Those tend to be very rich environments for startups.

Second, students benefit from an incredibly rich entrepreneurship curriculum. It’s the most popular field of study at Harvard Business School and the largest faculty unit at Harvard Business School. We consistently have dozens and dozens of startups that come out of our students’ work. As does SEAS — both graduate students and undergraduates. 

Research universities seem to play an incubation role in that model. Why has it evolved that way — is it because of risk?

It’s less about risk and more about an intentional curriculum and launching pad for academics and for students. The school is engineered to help faculty through the technology licensing office and various entrepreneurs in residence and venture capitalists that surround the school. We have a very explicit objective of helping our students become company creators and entrepreneurs. So it’s not about risk; it’s more about opportunity and intentionality.

Historically, why is the federal funding of scientific research and development so critical to tech and biomedical startups and entrepreneurs? How does it foster U.S. economic growth?

The more heavily resourced the labs are, the more performative they can be in terms of generating novel ideas that can eventually become massively successful commercial companies. I would also say, the more of a magnet the school is for the best and the brightest internationally, the more likely it is to attract brilliant, aspiring entrepreneurs. And if their work is inspired not by necessarily the labs, but just because of the nature of the work and the quality of the educational system and the quality of the faculty, then that’s also an important magnetic force.

What impact has the federal funding freeze on NIH research and the halting of previously approved grant payments had so far?

We’re just seeing the beginning. There are hiring freezes. There have been initiatives canceled and there have been grants canceled. The pipeline for company creation takes time. The companies that are being created now and launching in 2025 were incubated over the last three years, so we won’t see a short-term effect. It’s going to be more of a medium- and long-term effect in the coming years. We’ll just see fewer promising startups come out of the system.

How long until we start to see the full effects of this situation, and could the damage be reversed?

It could be reversed, but I think it’s going to be a one-to-three-year ripple effect because of how long it takes for these ideas in the lab to come out and to become commercially viable companies.

Elegy, a form of poetry traditionally meant to honor the dead and lament the loss, is often composed in solitude. On a warm recent Tuesday afternoon in Lamont Library, a small group — some poets, most not — gathered to write, read, and workshop elegies of their own.

The workshop, led by Karen Elizabeth Bishop and David Sherman in partnership with the Woodberry Poetry Room, is part of the duo’s ongoing “Elegy Project.” The event late last month was paired with a reading that evening in Houghton Library’s Edison Newman Room by poet Peter Gizzi, author of the T.S. Eliot Prize-winning collection “Fierce Elegy.” 

“The Elegy Project is a public poetry initiative,” Sherman said. “We put poem cards in public places for strangers … Our intention is to make grief less lonely.”

The Elegy Project was the recipient of the Poetry Room’s 2023 Community Megaphone grant. Using funds provided by poet Tom Healy ’83, the Poetry Room began offering stipends to individuals and nonprofits in the Boston area to support their work and creative contributions to the community.

“Elegy is perhaps the most primal and human of poetic impulses — the need to mourn, to praise, and to console all springing from the inescapable human predicament: to be alive is to experience loss,” said Mary Walker Graham, associate curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room. “Elegy not only makes this loss more bearable, it enlarges our capacity to experience the full spectrum of human emotion.”

Started in spring of 2022, Bishop and Sherman said they were inspired to create the Elegy Project when they noticed the loneliness and grief caused by the pandemic and thought there must be a way to show people that they weren’t alone.

“During the pandemic we wanted to do an anthology of elegy. But the publishing world works at glacial speed,” Bishop said. “Everybody was in their houses. And so we thought to do a deconstructed anthology that would be immediately free and accessible, and ‘aggressively randomly accessible,’ as Dave says.”  

Both Bishop and Sherman distribute poetry cards wherever they go.

“I walk around with thumbtacks in my pocket and the cards, and I put them on wooden utility poles, or leave them in the post office, on the train, or the bus, or maybe a bench, and it’s aggressively contingent and random,” Sherman said. “It’s unsystematic. It’s aggressively embracing randomness.”

Both Bishop and Sherman say they use elegy in their professional work as well. Bishop is an associate professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, where she researches and teaches modern poetry and narrative. Sherman is an associate professor of English at Brandeis University, where he researches elegy and the politics of commemoration.

“I think that elegy performs this beautiful kind of stretching toward something that’s gone or something that’s gone missing,” Bishop said. “Isn’t that the nature of death? That you want to reach out, you want to kind of make that movement forward.”

This most recent workshop was the second between the Elegy Project and the Poetry Room. Last spring they did poetry workshops with invited guests. This time around, there was an open call for anyone interested in crafting a poem.

“I think these are people who probably use poetry privately and maybe share with a few friends, and want to expand that experience by a significant step,” Sherman said. “These were people who are busy with life, busy with real experiences where poetry is useful for processing, and they just want to write in community.”

The group assembled ranged from doctoral candidates in physics to retired painters. They were asked to use the Poetry Room’s collection and prompts by Sherman and Bishop for inspiration.

“Elegy is perhaps the most primal and human of poetic impulses — the need to mourn, to praise, and to console all springing from the inescapable human predicament: to be alive is to experience loss.” 

Mary Walker Graham

“The thought behind the steps was to create a dynamic conversation between people and books, between people and people, between lines and other lines, so that something unexpected would emerge,” Sherman said. “It was exploring openly, exploring new books on the shelves, and then feeling the desire to say something back of your own.”

Bishop added that using prompts and exploring texts can help get the creative juices flowing, too.

“It takes a little bit of the pressure off sitting around waiting for a line to appear or waiting for your brain to come up with something,” she said. “I think that that kind of scaffolding is really useful for people to get into to writing a poem or just engage poetry in some way.”

Graham, the Poetry Room’s associate curator and co-organizer of the event, said workshops like the Elegy Project’s are important to engage the community and bring poetry out from the stacks.

“Poetry belongs to everyone, not just to the authors of published books,” she said. “We all have an equal right to access it, not only to receive it but to create it. Workshops like this one nurture the poets in us all.”

When it gets hot in Ahmedabad, bats pass out and fall from the trees.

Climate change is forcing temperatures into the upper limits of what many mammals, including humans, can bear. Heatwaves are more frequent and last longer. People in the world’s hottest places — like Ahmedabad, a 15th-century city of about 8 million in western India — now routinely struggle for months at a time. Air conditioning there is rare.

While extreme daytime temperatures grab headlines, “being indoors, at home, during the rest hours can be just as dangerous and deadly,” said Satchit Balsari, associate professor in emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Adapting to this new reality is a matter of life or death. But to test adaptation strategies — say, how much does a white roof cool the room below? — urban planners need basic data. For example, how hot is it really in the places where people live and work? Ahmedabad’s official temperature is measured at an airport weather station standing out in the open, not in the dense urban microclimates where homes and livelihoods are concentrated. And how does the body respond to prolonged high temperatures? Or, as Balsari put it: “How do you define how hot is too hot?”

Harvard researchers are working with community leaders in India to build one of the largest datasets ever recorded on extreme heat and human well-being.

Cities and states across India are developing heat action plans to mitigate the impacts on their populations, though they often overlook informal workers.

The data will let civil society groups lobby on behalf of policy solutions, because there are no precise statistics in India on how heat affects work.

To answer these questions, Harvard researchers are collaborating with community leaders in Ahmedabad to build one of the largest datasets ever recorded on extreme heat and human well-being — data that could help millions of others facing rising temperatures around the world. The research team is placing thumb-size heat and humidity sensors in the workplaces and homes of hundreds of local women — in urban dwellings, on streets, and on farms — and monitoring their health with Fitbits and regular checkups over a year.

“This study was born out of an attempt to quantify the lived experience, the temperatures people are experiencing day after day in their homes, and what that means for their health, their heart rate, kidney function, their sleep,” said Caroline Buckee, professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Policies meant to offset extreme heat often focus on the risk of heat stroke, “but there’s a range of other health impacts that injure and kill people more slowly,” she added.

Balsari and Buckee lead a research cluster — funded by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and supported by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute — studying the impact of warming microenvironments on the lives and livelihoods of the Indian working poor.

“During our pilot study, in certain homes we found temperatures up to 10 degrees hotter than the airport weather station data,” said Balsari. “We realized that a lot of global modeling efforts were dependent on data at a temporal and spatial resolution that may not reflect the lived reality of the millions of people most at risk in South Asia.”

Inside one home their team recorded a heat index of 137 degrees Fahrenheit — a measure that combines temperature and humidity to reflect how hot it feels. “That’s extreme, but the fact that the numbers cross 120 F routinely is terrifying. These thresholds, in many contexts, are unlivable,” Balsari said.

Building resilience with data

Study participants are tenant farmers and piece-rate workers. Data collectors are local social workers who visit participants every two weeks in their homes and workplaces to download data onto a customized smartphone app.

Cities and states across India are developing heat action plans to mitigate the impacts on their populations, though they often overlook informal workers.

The data will let civil society groups lobby on behalf of durable policy solutions, like heat action plans that take their members into account, because there are no precise statistics in India on how heat affects work.

Already these groups offer a growing menu of novel responses to heat: affordable finance to paint roofs a heat-reflecting white, buy umbrellas to shade market stalls, and install vents that let heat escape concrete-block homes. Another innovation is parametric heat insurance: Members buy a policy that will pay a day’s wage when the temperature exceeds a preset threshold, to allow them to stay home during the most brutal heatwaves and not have to choose between feeding their families and protecting their health.

These insurance policies are designed to cover the kind of losses suffered last year by Ramila, who sells okra and tomatoes, bottle gourds, and fresh fenugreek from a cart she has pushed around Ahmedabad for 28 years.

Summers have gotten hotter and longer, she said, especially in the last few years. “But I still have to run my business.”

Last May, on one of the many days the mercury topped 110 F, Ramila, 47, passed out and hit her head on the ground. A bystander called an ambulance, which took her to a hospital. “That day my vegetables spoiled, so that was a loss. Plus, I incurred hospital costs — a double loss,” she recalled.

This year 250,000 women bought a policy ahead of the heat season, which peaks in May.

No escape

After a deadly 2010 heatwave, Ahmedabad adopted a heat action plan, the first in South Asia. It encourages public awareness of the dangers, trains doctors to spot heat stroke, and expands supplies of drinking water.

Still, argued one of its authors, Dileep Mavalankar of the Indian Institute of Public Health, “there is gross underreporting of heatwave-related deaths” across India, which might be recorded as heart attacks or other emergencies. “The combination of very high daytime temperature and warm nights kills the most. It is so hot that bats are falling unconscious and dropping out of the trees.”

Researchers are placing heat and humidity sensors in the workplaces and homes of hundreds of local women and monitoring their health with Fitbits and regular checkups.

Data collectors visit participants every two weeks to download data onto a smartphone app.

Initial data from the project is validating concerns about the home environments, which remain hot and humid well into monsoon season.

Initial data from the project — known as “Community Heat Adaptation and Treatment Strategies” — is validating concerns about the home environments, which remain hot and humid well into monsoon season.

“The way homes are designed, they absorb and store a lot of heat,” said Robert Meade, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Salata cluster. “Imagine a street vendor. They go to work in the hottest period of the day. Then they return to overheated homes where they must recover, take care of family, clean — all in an environment that is actually hotter than outdoors and doesn’t get that same nighttime drop in temperatures measured out at the airport weather station.”

An adaptation model

Down a lane wide enough only for pedestrians and mopeds, Karunisha, 55, works as a seamstress in her one-room home in Ahmedabad.

On the cornflower-blue wall, a white sensor records the humidity and temperature, 24 hours per day, year-round. A thermometer reads 93 F on a March afternoon.

“My neighbors gossip. They say the sensor is a camera, that I am being spied upon. But I know the data is being collected to help us,” says Karunisha, describing how it “gets hotter every year, so hot I get too weak to work.”

Without local trust in civil society, the Harvard researchers would not be able to reach so many vulnerable women in India’s poorest neighborhoods, said Buckee, the principal investigator.

“It is extremely difficult to implement this kind of study. You have hundreds of participants, sensors that need to be checked, private data. You have to do lab tests regularly. This level of coordination is simply not possible in most places. It’s possible here because our partners are doing the work and they care about finding the answers,” said Buckee.

The research cluster is now scaling up — expanding to other parts of India, distributing Fitbits and sensors in time for peak heat this year. As they collect empirical observations to inform a ground-up picture of the health risks from climate change, they are pioneering a new type of adaptation model by and for workers.

“We see this as a research platform that our partners themselves can use to test their own adaptations, to decide which work best for them,” Buckee said.