Lydialyle Gibson

Lydialyle Gibson has been an associate editor at Harvard Magazine since 2015. She edits the Montage profiles, about alumni in the arts, and writes about a variety of topics, including arts and medicine—especially where the two intersect, as in her features about Harvard physician-writers Rafael Campo and Stuart Harris. In the January-February 2025 issue, she wrote “Caring for the Caregivers,” about the experiences of people caring for loved ones with dementia—read her Behind the Scenes about that story. She also covers politics and history, with a special emphasis on African American history, and since 2022 has reported on the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Initiative. Before coming to Harvard, she was an editor and writer at the University of Chicago Magazine. Her writing has won numerous awards, including several national awards from CASE. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University.

A Wildlife Painter's Fantastic Beasts

Bradley Scott Davis's conservation-minded artwork

Damage and Repair

Textile artist Celia Pym knits meaning into mended clothes.

Notes on Doctoring

Michael Stanley and the covenant of medicine

Curating a More Diverse Campus Environment

A report and recommendations, from the FAS task force on signage and visual culture issues 

Life After Brain Injury

Alumna Carolyn Gold on finding a “new self” after West Nile encephalitis

An Obligation to Dignity

Poet and lawyer—and MacArthur “genius”—Reginald Dwayne Betts on art and imprisonment

The Mystery of Smell

COVID-19 shines a spotlight on a once-obscure field of science.

The Art of the Portrait Painter

Jason Bouldin makes the intangible tangible.

War's Other Consequences

Harvard Art Museums exhibition explores the American military’s effect on its homeland.

Namwali Serpell’s Novel-In-Progress

The acclaimed author and English professor will explore mourning and reunion in The Furrows: An Elegy.

Harvard Art Museums To Require Vaccination or Negative COVID Test

The announcement comes amid a spike in cases on campus and an increase in testing frequency. 

Convocation Welcomes Classes of 2024 and 2025 to Campus

President Bacow and Harvard College Dean Khurana welcome the Class of 2025 and, for the first time in-person, the Class of 2024.