Pope Leo XIV presents scientific honor to astrochemist Karin Öberg
The astrochemist traveled to Vatican City to accept the award in a September 24 ceremony.
People & Perspectives
Faculty, students, researchers, staff, and alumni who comprise the FAS community
Finding their way in ‘Masquerade’
This past summer, three Harvard students helped transport Manhattan audiences to Parisian rooftops, opera house dressing rooms, and a subterranean labyrinth in “Masquerade,” an immersive adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
In ‘Remake,’ Ross McElwee navigates the loss of his son
Ross McElwee has often set out to make a film about one thing, only for it to become about something else entirely.
‘I wrote poetry for the first time in my life’
The Mayo Clinic psychiatrist earned a master’s in creative writing and literature at Harvard Extension School.
Laser-focused on applied physics
Arman Amirzhan chose to study materials science as an undergraduate at Imperial College in the United Kingdom thinking he’d learn about cutting edge technology like nanomaterials. Instead, he got ceramics and metallurgy – classical areas of the field, but not his area of interest. He was worried he’d picked the wrong field of study, and because of the U.K. educational system, changing majors would be much harder than in the U.S.
Revelations about organizations and leadership
With 24 years of experience in financial services, Jose R. Quiles arrived at Harvard Extension School expecting to add a credential. Instead the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Master’s Degree Program redrew his career map.
‘It was a deliberate career pivot’
Now she’s pursuing ideas about climate finance and technology developed at Harvard Extension School.
On the path to research, teach, and curate
Working with the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture was formative for integrative biology concentrator Lauren Bartel
Lacrosse teammates, friends felt same call to military service
At Harvard, Francisco Cortes and Owen Guest also shared interest in history and commitment to their athletic regimen
Looking for Ireland’s ‘invisible people’
Andrew Bair is set to graduate from Harvard Griffin GSAS in May 2026 with a Ph.D. in anthropology. He talks about his research challenging the accepted chronology of Irish settlement in the Middle Ages, how his study of archaeology and computer science at Columbia led him eventually to Harvard Griffin GSAS, and about growing up in a curious family and literally growing out of his dream of being an astronaut.
Shaping the world his granddaughters will inherit
At 68, he earned a master’s in sustainability at Harvard Extension School.
Their senior project? Smart glasses for the visually impaired
Electrical engineering concentrators offered a sleek, low-profile navigational aid for visually impaired individuals. More specifically, their project aimed to track and alert users of low-hanging obstacles that are typically missed with a mobility cane.
Cancer turned her into a scientist
Diagnosis transformed Mary Cipperman ’26 into a hyperproductive student researcher with diverse interests in physics, medicine, and AI
From software engineer to design engineer
After three years as a Waymo software engineer, Luke Fiorante wanted a change. He’d been coding ever since he was a computer science major at Brown University, but the Vancouver native knew he could do more. Also interested in design and the arts, he decided to search for master’s programs focused on design and engineering.