Radcliffe Institute Announces 2018-2019 Fellows

This year's cohort includes more than 50 scholars from around the world, and Harvard's own community.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s 2018-2019 cohort includes 53 fellows from 11 different countries. The group includes National Book Award finalists and a documentary photographer alongside researchers from multiple academic disciplines.

“The range of proposed projects is truly remarkable,” says Radcliffe Institute dean Lizabeth Cohen, herself a former fellow. “We’re delighted with this new group of exceptionally talented fellows and we are excited to see what the coming year holds, as they each embrace the unique intellectual and creative freedom that a Radcliffe fellowship offers.”


Clockwise from top left: Sara Bleich, Marine Denolle, Cynthia Dwork, and Cora Dvorkin
Photographs courtesy of the Radcliffe Institute

Nine of this year's fellows are faculty members from different corners of the Harvard community. Their names and the titles of their projects appear below:

  • Robin Bernstein, Dillon professor of African and African American studies and of studies of women, gender, and sexuality, and Joy Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute: The Tragedy of William Freeman: A Story of Mass Murder, Slavery, and Convict Labor in the North
  • Sara Bleich, professor of public health policy, and Pforzheimer professor at the Radcliffe Institute: Health Policies for Obesity Prevention
  • Marine Denolle, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, and assistant professor at the Radcliffe Institute: Effects of the Earth Surface on the Dynamics of Earthquakes
  • Lisa R. Diller, professor of biology and medical sciences, and Knafel Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute: Oncology Care in the Genomic Era
  • Cora Dvorkin, assistant professor of physics, and Shutzer assistant professor at the Radcliffe Institute: Probing Fundamental Physics with Cosmological Data Sets
  • Cynthia Dwork, Gordon McKay professor of computer science, and Radcliffe Alumnae professor at the Radcliffe Institute : Finding Fairness

From left: Durba Mitra, Myrto Kalouptsidi, and Janet Rich Edwards
Photograph courtesy of the Radcliffe Institute
  • Myrto Kalouptsidi, assistant professor of economics, and Marks assistant professor at the Radcliffe Institute: Global Transport Markets: Efficiency and Impact on World Trade
  • Durba Mitra, assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality, and Pforzheimer assistant professor at the Radcliffe Institute: Sexuality and the New Science of Society
  • Janet Rich-Edwards, associate professor of medicine and associate professor of epidemiology, and co-director of the science program at the Radcliffe Institute: How Childhood Trauma Leads to Obesity: Identifying Mechanisms Linking Child Abuse to “Food Addiction”

The 2018-2019 cohort also includes the first Mellon-Schlesinger Fellow, Corrine Field, an assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality at the University of Virgina. Field’s work will draw on the Schlesinger Library’s collections on the history of women in America by exploring the closely intertwined roots of race and age segregation in American feminism. 

Read more articles by Oset Babür

You might also like

Harvard Faculty Debate Plan to Cap A Grades

At a lively meeting, faculty members weighed a grade inflation plan that most agreed is imperfect.

Harvard Kennedy School Offers Contingency Plans for U.S. Military Applicants

Active-duty service members can defer admissions or have their applications considered at peer institutions. 

Conan O’Brien Named Harvard’s 2026 Commencement Speaker

The comedian, host, and 1985 graduate will deliver remarks at the May 28 ceremony. 

Most popular

Martin Nowak Placed on Leave a Second Time

Further links to Jeffrey Epstein surface in newly released files

Teen "Grind" Culture and Mental Health

Teens need better strategies to cope with lives lived partly online.

Explore More From Current Issue

A person climbs a curved ladder against a colorful background and four vertical ladders.

Harvard’s Productivity Trap

What happened to doing things for the sake of enjoyment?

A woman in a black blazer holds a bottle of beer.

Introductions: Mallika Monteiro

A conversation with a beer industry executive

Purple violet flower with vibrant petals surrounded by green foliage.

Bees and Flowers Are Falling Out of Sync

Scientists are revisiting an old way of thinking about extinction.