Harvard Professor Martin Nowak Resigns From Austrian Academy Amid Epstein Scrutiny

Harvard mathematics professor Martin A. Nowak resigned from the Austrian Academy of Sciences last week, ending a 25-year affiliation and preempting a formal ethics review into his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.

The academy said last Thursday that its ethics committee was nearing the end of an investigation into Nowak’s membership after Department of Justice documents repeatedly linked him to Epstein.

By resigning, Nowak headed off an investigation into his ties to Epstein, avoiding a formal recommendation on his status and a potential vote by the academy’s full membership on his expulsion. The academy said his resignation would take effect ten days after its announcement.

The resignation marks a new phase in the widening scrutiny of Nowak across institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Romania, seven civic organizations called on the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași to revoke the honorary doctorate it awarded Nowak in 2010, citing newly surfaced records connecting him and Epstein to the school.

The groups pointed to a November 2009 email exchange — more than three years after Epstein was first arrested for sex trafficking — in which Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff asked Nowak for “the name of the university in romania you got the people from.”

Nowak initially appeared unsure what Groff was referring to, replying, “which people? does he mean membrane computing?” — a growing research field at the time.

He then forwarded the request to his Ph.D. student Corina E. Tarnita ’06, asking her to respond. Tarnita replied directly to Groff, writing that the “two girls” were both from the University of Iași.

In response to the open letter, the school said it is reviewing its 2010 decision to award Nowak the honorary degree and that it has found no record of a formal relationship with Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics.

Tarnita, now a professor at Princeton University, wrote in a statement that while she was at PED, the institute “began to develop a scientific collaboration” with the UAIC. At the time, she wrote, Epstein asked her to propose an arrangement in which he would act as an anonymous donor supporting “exceptionally promising women mathematicians.”

Tarnita wrote that the collaboration with PED included “a visit by a group from Harvard to give talks, meet with people, and conduct experiments that are published in a working paper.”

“I wish I had never known him,” she wrote.

Tarnita confirmed through a spokesperson that she was referring to a 2012 working paper — “Civic Capital in Two Cultures: The Nature of Cooperation in Romania and USA” — co-authored by Tarnita, Nowak, and three other scholars. The paper describes experiments with Romanian and American students on the campuses of Harvard and UAIC and finds that U.S. participants were more likely to sustain cooperation by punishing free riders. It also credits UAIC with “facilitating” the research.

Nowak did not respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.

Nowak has not escaped the fallout at home in Cambridge, either.

At Harvard, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences placed Nowak on paid administrative leave in late February while it investigates whether he violated University policies or “standards of professional conduct.”

Nowak was among the Harvard affiliates most closely connected to Epstein. He corresponded frequently with the financier and played a central role in integrating him into Harvard’s academic circles — arranging visits, introducing him to faculty, and cultivating relationships on his behalf.

Epstein also funded Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Development and helped secure an office space in Harvard Square, where he regularly met with Harvard professors.

The only Harvard faculty member with closer documented ties to Epstein, former University President Lawrence H. Summers, resigned from his academic and faculty appointments in February. Summers faced heavy and immediate blowback for his correspondence with Epstein, which extended far beyond the professional to the personal and romantic.

Harvard previously sanctioned Nowak in 2021 after an international investigation found he had violated campus use rules and the FAS Professional Conduct Policy. Harvard barred him from certain activities.

Those sanctions were lifted in 2023, restoring his advising and research roles, though the underlying findings were not overturned.

The current investigation follows a renewed wave of disclosures. Last November, the U.S. House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate, prompting Harvard to launch a new review of ties between its affiliates and Epstein.

The University later confirmed that its probe also included major University donors after additional federal files exposed ties between Epstein and many of Harvard’s top-dollar benefactors, including Andrew L. Farkas ’82, Leslie H. Wexner, and Gerald L. Chan.

According to the January tranche released by the Justice Department, Nowak met with Epstein in Boston as late as May 2019 — just months before Epstein’s arrest and subsequent death in federal custody.

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

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.