Alumni & People

curation of alumni people, faculty and student profiles

Conan O’Brien in a dark suit and light shirt, smiling and posing with hands clasped.

Conan O’Brien Named Harvard’s 2026 Commencement Speaker

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

by Schuyler Velasco

Image of Uncle Sam walking away with ladders, leaving a brown hand grasping from a hole in the ground

Reparations for Slavery?

Documenting the history and scope of federal “reparatory compensation.”

by Jonathan Shaw

Illustration of a man sleeping as an alter ego surrounded by sheep practices his golf swing

How the Brain Replays Actions During Sleep

Experiments using a neuroprosthetic reveal nocturnal motor neuron learning.

by Erin O’Donnell

A man in a wetsuit helps an astronaut out of an Apollo capsule floating in the ocean

Apollo 17 Turns 50

Two Harvard alumni recall a return from the last human moonwalk.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan at Kempner Institute debut

Science Surges

Fostering businesses within enginnering and applied sciences, Amazon’s quantum support, and changing concentrations

Allison Feaster wearing a green Celtics shirt in front of team championship banners

The Irresistible Allison Feaster

A basketball star's journey from the Harvard hardwood to the Celtics front office

by Lydialyle Gibson

George Reisner, 1924

George Reisner

Brief life of a pioneering Egyptologist: 1867-1942

by Peter Der Manuelian

The Off-Kilter Economy

Reckoning with inflation and its remedies

by Jonathan Shaw

A collection of abstract geometric paintings hang above a white couch

Straight Lines and Odd Angles

Painter Judith Seligson’s creative juxtapositions

by Lydialyle Gibson

Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng debuts new novel

“Our Missing Hearts” embodies the author’s hope that storytelling can be an agent of change.

by Nancy Walecki

Portrait of John Kenneth Galbraith

Where We Went Wrong

A sweeping history of society and the economy in the twentieth century