Overseer Candidate Arti Garg Says Open Dialogue Key at Harvard

Updated March 4, 2026, at 4:23 a.m.

Arti Garg, a candidate for Harvard’s Board of Overseers, said schools like Harvard should foster open, respectful debate as conversations across ideological and political differences grow more strained on campus and beyond.

Garg, the chief technologist at industrial software company AVEVA, was named in January as one of nine candidates for Harvard’s second highest governing body. The top six vote-getters in the April election will join the 30-member Board in July.

Garg said that conditions for productive disagreement have eroded in recent years, a trend she does not see as confined to Harvard.

“If I step back from Harvard specifically to discourse more broadly — and I don’t think that it’s so different on campus — I do think that it’s getting it’s getting harder for people to have open dialog that bridges differences,” Garg said.

She described the ability to engage opposing ideas without reaching consensus as central to the mission of higher education.

“That bedrock of a university is being able to create an environment and teach people how to have open and respectful dialogue, where you may never come to consensus and agreement, but you can engage ideas respectfully and critically,” Garg said.

Garg, who received a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 2008, sits on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences External Generative Artificial Intelligence Advisory Group, where she advises on the use and governance of emerging technologies.

“That’s one area that I think Harvard should be thinking about, not just as a consumer of a technology, but as a driver of it,” she said.

In the classroom, Garg said, generative AI challenges traditional forms of assessment.

“Some of the things that generative AI can do are things that we’ve historically used as methods for just assessing whether someone has mastered a technique,” she said. “It requires really thinking deeply about what is the purpose of a university education. And then, what are the outcomes we want to measure and instill in students?”

Garg also pointed to changes in the relationship between elite universities and the federal government, drawing on her experience at the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration, where she oversaw research budgets.

She said practices that have become more common in recent years, including universities hiring lobbyists to assist in securing federal funding, were rare during her time at OMB.

“It’s very unusual decision-making,” she said.

As Harvard navigates pressure from the Trump administration, Garg said the University should weigh not only its immediate interests but also the long-term implications for its academic independence and reputation.

“Harvard holds a unique place in American higher education,” Garg said. “It sort of defines, in a lot of ways, how we think about what’s different about higher education in the United States than in other parts of the world.”

“Having that longer view of anything Harvard does now is really important,” she added.

Garg’s academic range extends beyond the sciences. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, she studied English alongside physics, participated in theater, and served as a coxswain on the men’s crew team.

“I always think of her as a renaissance woman,” said Annette M. Labiano-Abello, a childhood friend. “She’s one of those kind of avid learners that come out of Harvard — just lifelong learner and just always curious, always asking questions.”

Several of Garg’s friends and colleagues also cited her nonprofit work as illustrative of her approach to leadership.

“Arti is a connector,” wrote Taylor Spicer, executive director of Garg’s nonprofit, Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally, in a statement to The Crimson. “She sees opportunities and is generous with introductions to the many leaders she knows.”

That orientation toward service, Labiano-Abello said, is central to Garg as a person.

“She doesn’t do it because it’s something for her,” she said. “It’s really for others.”

Correction: March 4, 2026

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Garg evaluated grants for the Department of Energy while at the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, she developed and oversaw basic research budgets.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.