Conversations
Building a Bridge2AI
The burgeoning field of AI in medicine comes with a host of potential ethical challenges.
Adele Bacow
Adele F. Bacow has worked in urban planning for over 30 years, was the founding president of Community Partners Consultants, and is married to Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow.
Dancer Turned Lecturer: Ana Isabel Keilson’s Unconventional Path to Harvard
Ever since she was a little girl, Ana Isabel Keilson wanted to be a professional dancer. But after years of dancing, her career trajectory took a major turn — now, she’s a lecturer in the Social Studies department at Harvard and runs an undergraduate education program that immerses students in nature.
Fifteen Questions: Danielle Allen on the Future of Democracy, Optimism, and Minecraft
The political theorist sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about practical problem-solving in a divided country. “It’s not exactly that I’m an optimist,” she says. “I’m just a person who believes that failure is not an option. So I’m a ‘not-an-optionist!’”
Fleeting Connections with George D. Vaill, the Free Advice Guy
Vaill says the questions people ask range from lighthearted to weighty. He’s often asked things like, “What are you doing here?” “How should I handle my blind date tonight?” “How do I find a boy?” “Should I change my major?”
Fifteen Questions: Diana Eck on Interfaith Dialogue, Lowell’s Russian Bells, and Her Favorite Poetry
The Comparative Religion professor sat down to discuss religious pluralism in the United States as well as on Harvard’s campus. “It is not the godless Harvard that people used to speak of, in the old days,” she says.
Diana Eck 15Q
Diana L. Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, served as Lowell’s Faculty Dean alongside her wife Dorothy A. Austin for 20 years.
Fifteen Questions: Taeku Lee on Political Science, Civic Engagement, and His Stint as a Premed
The Government professor sat down to discuss his decision to pursue political science in graduate school and the development of ethnic studies at Harvard. “I keenly felt like there was something fundamentally misguided about my pursuit of thinking about politics and political science without understanding at a very fundamental level the history of racial politics in the United States,” he says.
American Ninja Warrior Takes on the Classroom
Levin finally made it onto the eighth season of American Ninja Warrior in 2016 and was named Rookie of the Year. He returned again in 2017 and 2018, each time making it to national finals. This year, for season 14, Levin returned to the American Ninja Warrior stage for the first time since 2018, falling just short of the $1 million dollar prize.
Fifteen Questions: Marc Lipsitch on Covid Modeling, Open-Access Science, and Latte Art
"Being very clear about the scientific rationale for advice, what are the limitations of what we know, and what public health authorities are doing to understand the things they need to know to make better advice — all these go a long way."
Fifteen Questions: Harvey Mansfield on Ideological Diversity, Trumpism, and his Signature Fedora
One of the University’s most prominent conservative faculty members sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss political polarization on campus. “The Harvard Commencement is something like the Democratic National Convention,” he says. “And that’s a hell of a way to run a university.”
Harvey Mansfield Horizontal
Harvey C. Mansfield has taught political philosophy at Harvard for over half a century. One of the few outspoken conservatives on the faculty, he has been a sharp critic of political polarization on campus.
Fifteen Questions: Andrew Berry on Fruit Flies, LS1b, and Harvard-Yale
The evolutionary biologist and historian of science sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss his scientific inspirations and his approach to pedagogy. “I have one great virtue as a teacher, which is I’m pretty dumb,” he says.
Condition that Bod 2
Matine Khalighi '25 teaches seven to nine fitness classes per week at Harvard's Recreation facilities.
Matine Khalighi is on the Move
Freshman Matine Khalighi is one of only three undergraduate fitness instructors and teaches seven to nine classes per week.
Avi Loeb's Galileo Project Reaches for the Stars
There may be more Earth-like planets in the universe than grains of sand on all of Earth’s beaches combined, researchers predict. “The extraordinary claim is to say that we are special and unique,” Loeb says.
Swati Goel 1
Swati Goel '25 competed on the 42nd season of the hit CBS reality competition show "Survivor."
Fueled by Coconuts and Adrenaline, Swati Goel '25 Lives Her 'Biggest Dream' on Survivor
For Goel, the show has been a comfort since middle school — like “chicken soup,” she says. “It’s just the thing I would watch whenever I was upset or sad.” Auditioning for the show was a bucket-list item for her.
Meet Julie Fiveash, Harvard's First Librarian for American Indigenous Studies
Their position carves out a distinct space in the world’s largest academic library system to focus exclusively on organizing, spotlighting, and acquiring materials in a field that has long been neglected.
Avi Loeb
Avi Loeb, pictured here in 2017, is a Harvard professor an astrophysicist who founded the Galileo Project, a controversial center dedicated to unearthing evidence that objects made by extraterrestrial life are in our solar system.
Lindsay Sanwald, Her Loop Pedal, and Her Surf Board
A Masters of Divinity candidate graduating this spring, Sanwald lets her spirituality manifest in a variety of ways: the psychedelic indie-rock one-woman show she performs under the stage name Idgy Dean,; the Patreon account she runs to offer sermons, spiritual guidance, and meditation to monthly subscribers, and, as of late, surfing.