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

Portrait photograph of a middle-aged Lorenzo Tañada as a Philippine senator

Lorenzo Tañada

Brief life of a Philippine patriot: 1898-1992

by Christopher Capozzola

A California hillside burns

Can solar geoengineering slow climate change?

Coming to terms with climate change’s relentless, long-term fallout

by Jonathan Shaw

Black and white photo of a group of Vietnamese children, titled “Schoolchildren Playing Cards”

Photographer Mark Erickson’s street scenes of 1990s Vietnam

Photographer Mark Erickson on the Vietnam he never knew

by Dan Kelly

Dan Chiasson at home in front of a “sometimes delightful, sometimes disturbing” mural by David Teng Olsen, which appears in The Math Campers.

Dan Chiasson's Poetry and Criticism

Poet-critic Dan Chiasson and The Math Campers

by Lydialyle Gibson

Illustration of bearded farmer, from anthology of Yiddish children’s literature

Excerpt from Mirim Udel’s book “Honey on the Page”

Miriam Udel’s passion for children and Yiddish children’s literature

Black-and-white photograph of Karl Puchner in 1937 with his wife, young son, and a tiny, barely visible swastika button on his jacket

Review of Martin Puchner’s “The Language of Thieves”

A German American scholar is unsettled by an ancestor’s secret.

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

An illustration of social capital, the subject of the book being reviewed, in the form of an individual versus a group working together

Review of new Putnam and Garrett book, “The Upswing,” by Idrees Kahloon

In search of optimism, a sweeping interpretation of American social history

by Idrees Kahloon

An abstract illustration of a branching tree shows the varying outcomes of government spending on programs that benefit children

When spending on social programs pays

Economic analysis of U.S. government spending shows that some social programs more than pay for themselves.

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

Photograph of Louisa Thomas standing outside

Profile of Louisa Thomas, “New Yorker” sports critic

Louisa Thomas takes a different view.

by Jacob Sweet

Abstract illustration of an elderly man balanced on the edge of a half globe filled with brain gray matter

Can dementia’s decline in Europe and the U.S. go global?

Dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America. Why not the rest of the world?

by Matteo Wong