Epstein Data Wiki

Harvard University and Jeffrey Epstein

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tagsentity, academia, harvard-university, program-for-evolutionary-dynamics, science-philanthropy

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InstitutionHarvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Giving recorded by the University$9,179,000 in total between 1998 and 2007 (22 gifts totaling $8,443,000 through 2006, plus four further gifts totaling $736,000 between his 2006 arrest and July 2007), per Harvard’s May 2020 review1
Largest single gift$6.5 million in 2003, establishing the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics1
After the 2008 convictionThe same review found that Harvard accepted no gifts from Epstein after the conviction, and estimated that he visited the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics more than forty times between 2010 and 2018, the records of his visits after 2009 being “not precise”2
Unspent funds$200,937, found by a separate review, which the University said it would divide equally between two charities working with victims of trafficking and sexual assault3
University responseReview by the Office of the General Counsel with the firm Foley Hoag, released May 2020; President Lawrence S. Bacow said the report “describes principled decision-making but also reveals institutional and individual shortcomings that must be addressed”3

Jeffrey Epstein gave money to Harvard University, corresponded with and was solicited by members of its faculty, met academics in Harvard offices, and named Harvard people and Harvard programmes in an outline his publicist drew up for a press story. Harvard’s own review of the relationship, released in May 2020, put his total giving at $9,179,000 (22 gifts totaling $8,443,000 between 1998 and 2006, plus four further gifts totaling $736,000 between his 2006 arrest and July 2007), found that the University accepted nothing from him after his 2008 conviction, and estimated that he nonetheless visited one Harvard programme more than forty times in the decade that followed.12

The money

The Harvard Crimson reported on February 7, 2003, under the headline “Magnate Donates $30M to Sciences,” that in a meeting two weeks earlier with the University’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, Epstein had “pledged the money to support the work of mathematical biologist Martin A. Nowak, who takes his post at Harvard on July 1.”4 Harvard’s 2020 review addressed that reported pledge directly: “The Harvard Crimson and other sources reported at the time that Epstein’s $6.5 million gift was part of a $30M pledge from Epstein. We found no Harvard record of such a pledge.”1 The review found that, between 1998 and 2006, before there was any public notice of criminal charges against him, Epstein provided 22 gifts to Harvard totaling $8,443,000, the largest being the $6.5 million gift that in 2003 established Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Between July 2006 and July 1, 2007, after his arrest and before his 2008 conviction, Harvard accepted four additional gifts from Epstein totaling $736,000. Those four gifts brought his total giving to Harvard to $9,179,000 between 1998 and 2007.1

The release also holds a gift instrument for a different donor. A “Terms of Gift” for the Genomics and Synthetic Biology Research Fund at Harvard Medical School records that Leon D. Black “and/or the Leon Black Family Foundation” “irrevocably pledges and promises to pay $2,000,000 to Harvard Medical School in two equal installments,” no later than December 31, 2014 and September 30, 2015, the fund to be “under the direction of George M. Church, PhD.”5 The copy in the release is a pledge instrument rather than a record of payment, and its three signature lines, for the donor, for the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and for the President and Fellows of Harvard College, are blank, as are the dates beside them.5 Harvard’s 2020 review found that Epstein’s accountant, rather than Black or his foundation, notified the Medical School’s development staff of the intended gift, and that Epstein’s staff acted as intermediary between Black and Professor Nowak, at Nowak’s direction, which is how the instrument came to be among Epstein’s papers.6 Asked by the reviewers about the source of the gift, Black’s representative said that “the gifts made in support of Professor Church’s and Professor Nowak’s research were made by Mr. Black. None of the funds were provided by Mr. Epstein and no attempt was made to conceal the source of these gifts.”6 The reviewers wrote that a contemporaneous email from Epstein’s accountant corroborated that account, and that their review “did not reveal any evidence showing that the Blacks used Epstein’s money to make these donations.”6

The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics

The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED), directed by Martin Nowak, was established with Epstein’s 2003 gift and occupied offices at 1 Brattle Square in Cambridge.1 Harvard’s 2020 review estimated that Epstein visited the programme more than forty times between 2010 and 2018, adding that the records of his visits after 2009 “are not precise.” It found that the programme “maintained an office for Epstein’s use and granted him keycard and passcode access to PED’s offices—findings which raise questions about possible violations of Harvard policies”; that “until 2017, PED maintained a Harvard telephone line in that office identified as Epstein’s”; and that in a room to which he and his assistants kept keys, and which staff called “Jeffrey’s Office,” he “brought his own rug and hung several photographs on the wall.” The report records Nowak’s own account of that room alongside the finding: that “in his view, the office was only nominally Epstein’s and that it was a simply a visitor’s office that was called ‘Jeffrey’s Office,’” and that others at the programme “generally did not view it as interchangeable with other offices, and believed it was reserved for Epstein’s use when he came.” The review also found that Epstein’s publicist had asked the programme to post links to his charitable foundations, which “included both flattering descriptions of Epstein as a science philanthropist and false claims about the level of support he provided to Harvard,” and that Nowak approved requests to feature Epstein prominently on the programme’s website; the review called Epstein’s effort to post favorable material on the PED website part of “a larger effort to rehabilitate his image.”27 The Faculty of Arts and Sciences placed Nowak on paid administrative leave the day the report was published.8 Nowak “did not immediately respond to a request for comment” that afternoon. He has since said he regretted fostering a relationship between Epstein and Harvard, and in March 2021 the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced that Nowak had violated multiple Harvard policies, barred him from receiving grants or taking on advisees for two years, and closed the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics.89

The released files record the programme’s staff arranging the practical side of one such visit. On September 15, 2015, Nowak’s assistant at PED wrote to Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff that because Ehud Barak was “speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday Sep 17,” she assumed “there will be University Police presence on campus on Thursday,” and asked: “for Wednesday i wonder if Jeffrey wants PED to coordinate with Harvard Police detail in addition to Ehud Barak’s private security.” She later sent through the Harvard Police detail request form and the detail office’s email address. Groff replied that Epstein had said Barak “would really be the one coordinating his security.”1011

The visit itself was set out that morning in a message from Epstein that Nowak forwarded to colleagues with the note “fyi. please keep confidential.” Epstein wrote: “Im bringing ehud barak with me tomorw. you will meet him, he travels with security, so that it best if yao would come to the institute, tell moishe. he will enjoy him. . then at 2 30 chomsky will come to talk only me chomsky and ehyd for 2 hours. heopflly we can use the confernce area, but cannot be disturbed its best if they can talk openaly with no audience.” Nowak answered, “Wow. That is awesome. Can I tell Moshe and Erez?”, and Epstein replied “yes.”12 The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023 that Epstein, Nowak and Noam Chomsky had met at the PED office in March 2015; Chomsky confirmed that meeting and said the group discussed neuroscience and computer science, and Nowak did not respond to a request for comment on the report.9

Harvard Hillel

On May 10, 2010 the president of Harvard Hillel, Bernie Steinberg, wrote to Epstein from the Riesman Center for Harvard Hillel in Rosovsky Hall, thanking him “for your support of Harvard Hillel and the Harvard Jewish community during this important moment in history” and describing a short-term financial pressure that his help was assisting to relieve.13 The letter is a solicitation as well as a thank-you, and no statement from Steinberg answering this page is recorded. It sets out an intent “to change the organization’s name from ‘Harvard Hillel’ to one that more accurately represents our vision and role,” to “The Center for Jewish Life & Leadership at Harvard University,” and says that “a naming opportunity will be offered to a single donor who may wish to materially support this new Center”; the funding aspiration for the plan is given as $25 million.13 Steinberg also wrote that he “very much” appreciated Epstein’s “offer to share this letter and the attached information with those who you think may have an interest in learning more about our efforts.”13

The letter states that Harvard Hillel “is an independent, non-profit organization” whose affiliated structure makes it “a recognized part of the community but not a wholly owned subsidiary,” and that it “receives absolutely no financial support from the University itself.”13 The letter was copied to Henry Rosovsky, the first Jewish dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, for whom the building is named, and who is listed seven years later in Epstein’s media outline as a proposed validator.1314

Faculty approaches and meetings

Marc Hauser, then Harvard College Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Human Evolutionary Biology, wrote to Epstein early on September 2, 2009: “i wanted to ask whether you might be interested in supporting a large scale project aimed at understanding the nature of our moral judgments,” a project he said “traditional funding” would not support because of its scale.15 Epstein replied the same morning, “at your convenciene i would be happy to orgaize a day for you to come to palm beach to discuss,” and Groff offered to help with the arrangements.15 Twelve days later Hauser was still asking “any thoughts on dates?”, and the message was forwarded into Epstein’s account with the question “What would you like me to tell him?”16

Some of the emails quoted below carry transmission damage in the print itself, an ”=” mark standing in place of a character the transmission lost; the missing character is supplied here in square brackets. Ted J. Kaptchuk, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, wrote to Epstein on December 25, 2011 asking when he could “get your feedback on the budget we sent you two weeks ago” and what would interest him “in developing a partnership with our efforts in [p]lacebo studies.” His team, he wrote, had “all the intellectual and infrastructure resources of Harvard Universit[y] and any input would be appreciated.” Epstein replied the same afternoon, in a message whose text is damaged and breaks off just before a redaction box; the day is established instead by Kaptchuk’s own reply, in the clear: “i’ll call later in the mor[n]ing on Tuesday.”17

Stephen M. Kosslyn, then Dean of Social Science and John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James, exchanged emails with Epstein from his Harvard address in October 2009 about a cognitive test Epstein wanted him to devise, Epstein telling him “you cannot give out the formula.. you should devise a cognitive test” that would sort people into unnamed categories with “no emotional content to the classification.”18 In February 2010 he set out to Epstein several posts he was weighing or had turned down, among them a deanship at New York University and an executive deanship at the New School, and Epstein answered, “lets talk today… New School gets my vote.”19

Nicholas A. Christakis, then Professor in the Department of Health Care Policy and the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was asked by Epstein’s office in April 2013 whether he could meet Epstein “at Martin Nowak’s Institute, 1 Brattle Square, Suite 6, in Cambridge.” He agreed; four days later the office moved the meeting to Saturday May 4 and he agreed again; two days after that the office wrote that Epstein was “canceling his trip up to Cambridge this weekend all together.” Christakis replied that he was “moving to yale on july 1” but that if Epstein “gets up to cambridge in the next two months, it would be great to meet him.”20

George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, was approached in October 2011 by Epstein’s office: “Hello Dr. Church. Jeffrey is making an impromptu trip up to Harvard tomorrow. Might you be around and available to meet with him at Martin Nowak’s office, 1 Brattle Square?” Church replied that he would be returning to Boston on the Friday morning.21 In late 2014 Luhan Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, sent Epstein’s office a business plan and convertible bridge note documents for the company eGenesis, one attachment named “20141101_eGenesis Inc_shared with Jeffery Epstein.pdf,” and pressed for a decision over several weeks: “Any specific comments and advice Jeffery would like to offer to eGenesis?”22

David Gergen, of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, was to meet Epstein in Cambridge on the evening of October 27, 2011. An assistant in Gergen’s office and Epstein’s office settled the arrangements on October 26 and the morning of the 27th, the day of the appointment itself, considering “either Martin Nowak’s Institute at 1 Brattle Square or the Charles Hotel” and fixing the appointment for between 7 and 7.30. On the morning of the 27th, Epstein’s office wrote to Gergen’s office naming the assistant who would travel with Epstein and closing, “I hope David and Jeffrey have a very nice visit.” Gergen’s office replied that Gergen “will be leaving to meet Jeffrey closer to 7:30,” and Epstein’s office answered, “sounds just perfect! thanks.”23 Whether the two men met is not recorded in the documents cited here.

Campus visits

Most of what the released files hold about these trips is the arranging of them. The October 2011 visit is documented from two directions on the same two days, in the approach to Church describing “an impromptu trip up to Harvard tomorrow” and in the arrangements for the Gergen appointment that evening.2123 For September 2015 the documents cited here are the security correspondence and Epstein’s own account of who was to be there, rather than a record of the day itself.1012 Harvard’s own review, which had access to the University’s records rather than to Epstein’s, is the source for how often he came.2

On June 14, 2011 Groff wrote to Alan Dershowitz at his Harvard Law School address under the subject “Jeffrey Epstein to Harvard!”: “Hello…Jeffrey will be coming to Harvard this Friday June 17th and Saturday June 18th…might you be around and available to meet with him one of these days?” Dershowitz replied within the half-hour, “I’m on Vineyard if J wants to stop by.” The exchange survives in the release because it was forwarded within his Harvard Law account on January 13, 2015.24

A reminder circulated in Epstein’s office on March 23, 2018 relays that a person referred to only as “Faith” “wants a ride up to Harvard as well as home from Harvard,” asks what time the aircraft would be “wheels up,” says that a person whose name is redacted “is to have a tour of Harvard…do I need to do soemthing?”, and notes that Faith was “asking if you will go to Boston for fun/tour.” The document records the request; it does not record whether the trip took place.25

Epstein was also enrolled in the Harvard Personal Genome Project. A message from the project on March 10, 2017 opens “Dear Jeffrey” and states that he was receiving it because “You are enrolled in the Harvard Personal Gen[o]me Project.”26

A note in Epstein’s files headed “Notes on Opportunities Dubai, UAE,” dated June 11–13 with no year given, lists “Harvard Hospital” under a heading of “Ideas”; “GMR with DP World” (DP World), hedge funds and a stock exchange index appear separately, under a heading of “Non Real Estate.”27

A 2017 media outline

At 10:18 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, August 5, 2017 (the message’s own header prints 2:18 a.m. with no time zone, which is UTC; a sibling copy quotes it at 10:18 p.m. and a second sibling prints the UTC offset explicitly), the public-relations executive Matthew Hiltzik sent Epstein a document headed “JE Story Outline,” writing: “This is an outline of what we would present in a story.”14 Under “Philanthropic Efforts” it lists “Mind-Brain Behavior Committee at Harvard University” and “Evolutionary Dynamics Institute at Harvard University” first, ahead of Arizona State and MIT. Under “Third Party Validators” the first two entries are “Harvard University Professor and twice acting President of Harvard University Henry Rosovksy” and “Former United States Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers.”14 The outline misspells Rosovsky’s surname and is quoted here as printed.

Asked about the PED sessions in 2018, Rosovsky told The Harvard Crimson that he “attended a couple of sessions and lost interest”; an assistant for Summers declined to comment for the same article, and Harvard’s 2020 review did not discuss either man’s ties to Epstein.289 Rosovsky died in 2022 and cannot answer the document; no statement from Summers answering it is recorded on this page.29

Harvard’s 2020 review

In May 2020 Harvard released the findings of a review of Epstein’s donations and campus interactions carried out by the University’s Office of the General Counsel, then headed by Vice President and General Counsel Diane E. Lopez, working with the law firm Foley Hoag. Reviewers interviewed more than forty people and examined more than 250,000 pages of documents.1

The review recorded $9,179,000 in total giving between 1998 and 2007 (22 gifts totaling $8,443,000 through 2006, plus four further gifts totaling $736,000 between his 2006 arrest and his 2008 conviction), the largest single gift being the $6.5 million that established the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics in 2003, and found that Harvard accepted no gifts from Epstein after his 2008 conviction.1 A separate review found that $200,937 of the money received remained unspent, and Bacow announced that sum would be divided equally between My Life My Choice and Girls Educational & Mentoring Services.3 The review recommended clearer mechanisms for reviewing gifts, criteria for identifying problematic donors, revised visiting fellow procedures requiring disclosure of conflicts of interest, and that the University “consider what, if any, further actions should be taken” based on Epstein’s access to PED, his use of the PED website, and the misstatements made to the John Templeton Foundation about the source of matching funds.30

President Lawrence S. Bacow said of the report that it “describes principled decision-making but also reveals institutional and individual shortcomings that must be addressed.”3

Martin Nowak; Lesley Groff; Alan Dershowitz; Leon Black; Ehud Barak; Noam Chomsky; DP World.

Footnotes

  1. Diane E. Lopez, Ara B. Gershengorn and Martin F. Murphy, “Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein’s Connections to Harvard University,” Harvard University Office of the General Counsel with Foley Hoag LLP, May 2020, pp.3, 5, 10. https://ogc.harvard.edu/files/ogc/files/report_concerning_jeffrey_e._epsteins_connections_to_harvard_university.pdf (archived https://web.archive.org/web/20200507154151/https://ogc.harvard.edu/files/ogc/files/report_concerning_jeffrey_e._epsteins_connections_to_harvard_university.pdf; the live OGC domain is unreachable from outside Harvard’s network). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  2. Same report, pp.4, 17, 20. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. Michelle G. Kurilla, “Harvard Asked Its Lawyers to Review the University’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Here’s What They Found.”, The Harvard Crimson, May 2, 2020, reporting on and quoting the University’s report on Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to Harvard (Office of the General Counsel with Foley Hoag, May 2020). https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/2/harvard-concludes-epstein-review/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. Stephen M. Marks and Lauren A. E. Schuker, “Magnate Donates $30M to Sciences,” The Harvard Crimson, Feb 7, 2003. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/2/7/magnate-donates-30m-to-sciences-an/ ↩

  5. “Genomics and Synthetic Biology Research Fund at Harvard Medical School: Terms of Gift”; the instrument carries no execution date, its payment schedule running to September 30, 2015. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00583251 pp.2–3. ↩ ↩2

  6. Same report, pp.14–15. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Same report, p.22. ↩

  8. James S. Bikales, “FAS Places Prof. Nowak On Leave After Report Finds Epstein Used His Program to Rehabilitate Image,” The Harvard Crimson, May 2, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/2/epstein-review-nowak-leave/ ↩ ↩2

  9. Elias J. Schisgall, “Jeffrey Epstein Met With Harvard Professor Martin Nowak and Noam Chomsky in 2015 in Harvard Office,” The Harvard Crimson, May 3, 2023, reporting on a Wall Street Journal investigation. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/3/epstein-nowak-chomsky-meeting-2015/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Program for Evolutionary Dynamics to Lesley Groff, and Groff’s replies, Sept 15, 2015. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00339963 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  11. Lesley Groff, Sept 15, 2015, identifying May Huang as Martin Nowak’s assistant at PED. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00339966 p.1. Cited for that point only; no other name on this page is taken from it. ↩

  12. Message from Epstein of Sept 15, 2015, 6:29 a.m., forwarded by Martin Nowak the same morning with the replies of 7:22 and 7:37 a.m. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00339963 p.2. ↩ ↩2

  13. Bernie Steinberg, President, Harvard Hillel, to Jeffrey Epstein, May 10, 2010. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00727994 pp.1–3. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  14. Matthew Hiltzik to Epstein, “Privileged and confidential,” headed with a UTC timestamp of Aug 6, 2017, 2:18 a.m. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02339778 pp.1–2. The local time is given by two sibling copies, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02640159 p.1 (quoting “Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 10:18 PM”) and https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00630101 p.1 (header “Sun, 06 Aug 2017 02:18:16 +0000”). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  15. Marc Hauser to Epstein, Epstein’s reply and Lesley Groff’s, Sept 2, 2009. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02436449 pp.2–3. ↩ ↩2

  16. Hauser, Sept 14, 2009, forwarded into Epstein’s account Sept 15. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02437461 p.1. ↩

  17. Ted J. Kaptchuk and Epstein, Dec 25, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01770556 p.1. ↩

  18. Stephen Kosslyn and Epstein, Oct 19, 2009. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00771566 p.1. Nothing on the other pages of this document is cited here. ↩

  19. Kosslyn and Epstein, Feb 27–28, 2010. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02431548 p.1. Nothing on the other pages of this document is cited here. ↩

  20. Nicholas Christakis and Epstein’s office, Apr 23–29, 2013. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02141559 pp.1–2. ↩

  21. Epstein’s office to George Church, Oct 26, 2011, and his reply of the same evening. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01784984 pp.1–2. ↩ ↩2

  22. Luhan Yang and Epstein’s office, Oct 24 – Nov 12, 2014. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02091575 pp.1–2, 4. Nothing on the other pages of this document is cited here. ↩

  23. David Gergen’s office and Epstein’s office, Oct 26–27, 2011. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00425071 pp.1–3. ↩ ↩2

  24. Lesley Groff to Alan Dershowitz and his reply, Jun 14, 2011, forwarded within his Harvard Law account Jan 13, 2015. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01200199 p.5. ↩

  25. Reminder circulated in Epstein’s office, Mar 23, 2018. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02240207 p.1. ↩

  26. Harvard Personal Genome Project to Epstein, Mar 10, 2017. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02392711 p.1. ↩

  27. “Notes on Opportunities Dubai, UAE,” dated “June 11-13” with no year given. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00728399 p.1. ↩

  28. Molly C. McCafferty and Aidan F. Ryan, “Billionaire and Convicted Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein Boasts Deep, Longstanding Ties to Harvard,” The Harvard Crimson, Dec 3, 2018. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/12/3/epstein-harvard-ties/ ↩

  29. Sam Roberts, “Henry Rosovsky, Who Broke Barriers as Harvard Dean, Dies at 95,” The New York Times, Nov 16, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/education/henry-rosovsky-dead.html ↩

  30. Same report, p.26. ↩

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