The Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Centennial Medal, first awarded in 1989 on the school’s 100th anniversary, honors alumni who have made contributions to society that emerged from their graduate studies. It is the highest honor the school bestows, and awardees include some of Harvard’s most accomplished alumni. The 2026 recipients, who were celebrated on Wednesday, May 27, are:
Frank Bidart, A.M. ’67, English and American Literature and Language
Frank Bidart is the author of 11 poetry collections, including Golden State, Desire, Star Dust, and Metaphysical Dog. His collection Half-Light: Collected Poems, 1965-2016 received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His most recent volume, Against Silence, was published in 2021. In addition to his literary accomplishments, Bidart spent more than four decades teaching poetry at Wellesley College, where he mentored generations of writers and students. In the GSAS press release announcing the award, Wellesley professor English and poet Dan Chiasson, Ph.D. ’02, reflects: “I’ve always looked forward to the latest Bidart book as a kind of clarification of life.”
Anjana Rao, Ph.D. ’78, Biophysics
Anjana Rao has spent decades advancing scientific understanding of the cellular and genetic mechanisms underlying many neurodegenerative disorders, immune system diseases, and cancers.
Rao was a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School for three decades. In 2010, she founded the Division of Signaling and Gene Expression at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), located in the University of California, San Diego’s Science Research Park, where her research continued to shape the fields of immunology, epigenetics, and cellular signaling. Kolokotrones University Professor Arlene Sharpe, who is the chair of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School, describes Rao in the press release as a scientist “committed to answering fundamental scientific questions at a deep level.” Sharpe also emphasizes Rao’s impact as a mentor, noting that she has trained and inspired a large generation of researchers working across both academia and industry.
Cristián Samper, Ph.D. ’92, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Raised in Colombia, Cristián Samper studied at Universidad de los Andes before arriving at Harvard as a visiting undergraduate student. There, he studied biology with Stephen Jay Gould and E. O. Wilson. He later completed his doctoral dissertation on tropical forest ecology.
Samper currently serves as managing director and leader for nature solutions at the Bezos Earth Fund and has held leadership positions at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Samper’s “goal has been to make the world a safer place for organisms,” and he has succeeded at it, said Don Pfister, Gray research professor of systematic botany and former director of the Harvard University Herbaria in the GSAS press release. He added that Samper “has always been a great proponent of natural history collections, of nature, and of conservation.”
Londa Schiebinger, Ph.D. ’84, History
Described as the world’s leading scholar on women and gender in the history of science, Londa Schiebinger helped establish the study of women in eighteenth-century science and later expanded her work to address gender bias in contemporary research and practice.
Schiebinger’s expertise has been sought by organizations including the United Nations, the European Commission, and the National Science Foundation. She also directs “Gendered Innovations in Science, Health and Medicine, Engineering, and Environment,” an international initiative that brings together experts across disciplines to develop methods for integrating gender analysis into scientific research.
Sarah Richardson, Aramont professor of the history of science and of studies of women, gender, and sexuality, said in the GSAS press release that Schiebinger “has built a truly global conversation around gender bias in scientific knowledge that has driven policy change.”
