BornCurious

An Oncologist’s Origin Story

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:07:00 -0000

As a young person deeply concerned with social justice, Naomi Ko thought she might become a lawyer—then, reality intervened. After a stint with Teach for America, a volunteer job at the Berkeley Free Clinic would set her on her current path as a breast oncologist. In this episode, Ko shares her unique journey.

Released on April 23, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Naomi Ko is section chief of Breast Cancer Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Health and an associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She is writing a book, “Seeing the Unseen Among Us,” based on patient stories from her 15 years practicing medicine at Boston Medical Center.

Related Content

The Boston Globe: “A Double Diagnosis—Cancer While Poor”

Fellowship bio: Naomi Ko

Episode 508: The Importance of Access in Breast Cancer Care

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The Importance of Access in Breast Cancer Care

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:59:00 -0000

Naomi Ko has spent her career as a breast cancer oncologist working in safety-net hospitals—medical institutions with high rates of uninsured patients. What she’s learned is that poorer patients have worse cancer outcomes, and it has made her passionate about health equity. Now she’s writing a book about the patient stories and themes that keep recurring in her cancer-fighting career.

Released on April 7, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Related Content

The Boston Globe: “A Double Diagnosis—Cancer While Poor”

Fellowship bio: Naomi Ko

Episode 509: An Oncologist’s Origin Story

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

How America Got into This Mess and How We Recover: Reflections from a Columnist’s Life

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:17:00 -0000

In a conversation with Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, the columnist and author David Brooks discusses his career and his perspectives on American politics, society, and higher education.

Released on March 26, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

David Brooks is a best-selling author and a political analyst who has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and PBS News Hour, among other outlets. He serves as a senior advisor to the University of Chicago, Leadership and Society Initiative and recently began a five-year appointment as a presidential senior fellow at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished scholar in the fields of law and history.

Related Content

The Harvard Gazette: How Academia Can Help America Heal

Academic Freedom and Connecting Across Difference

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

What Makes a Universal Story?

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:58:00 -0000

In storytelling, can the personal be universal? For the animator and filmmaker Domee Shi, the answer is a resounding yes. In this episode, Shi talks with Ju Yon Kim, a Harvard professor, about how she’s turned her own personal history into successful Pixar movies.

Released on March 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Ju Yon Kim is the Patsy Takemoto Mink Professor of English at Harvard University.

Domee Shi is an Academy Award–winning director, writer, and storyteller and a creative vice president at Pixar.

Related Content

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Our Plant Teachers

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:07:00 -0000

Many think of plants as passive, but in fact, these organisms display complex behaviors—and we have much to learn from them. In this episode, we continue our conversation with the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who wrote about the wisdom of the natural world in Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021).

Released on February 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montgomery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

Related Content

Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

Beronda L. Montgomery Personal Website

Lessons from Plants

Episode 504: The Stories Trees Hold—America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The Stories Trees Hold—America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:16:00 -0000

The history of African American people in the United States is inextricably linked to the cotton shrub, but seven other species of tree also have deep meaning for this community. In this episode, we learn about these trees from the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who has just published a book examining America’s Black botanical legacy.

Released on January 22, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montmogery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

Related Content

Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

Beronda L. Montgomery Personal Website

What Can We Learn from the Trees That Witnessed Our History? (Boston Globe, 1/29/26)

Episode 505: Our Plant Teachers

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

GuestRelated ContentCredits

Battling Burnout and Keeping Women Doctors in Medicine

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 19:23:00 -0000

On This Episode

Although as many women as men enter medical school, six years after graduating from their residencies, 40 percent of women have either transitioned to part-time or left the profession altogether. Why? The answer is career and life demands that lead to higher burnout rates. In this episode, Ashwini Nadkarni, who coled a seminar on the topic, talks about the ramifications of this—for both doctors and patients—and some potential remedies.

Released on December 17, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ashwini Nadkarni is a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital—where she is vice chair of faculty enrichment and associate medical director of Brigham Psychiatric Specialties—and a professor at Harvard Medical School. With her colleague John Fromson, Nadkarni led a Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar that addressed burnout among women physicians.

Related Content

Ashwini Nadkarni: Professional Bio and Personal Website

“Reducing Burnout in Women Physicians: An Organizational Roadmap from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute Exploratory Seminar,” Journal of Women's Health

Stanford Model of Professional Well-Being

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Chimp Change—What Great Ape Adolescence Reveals About Us

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:49:00 -0000

Rachna Reddy has spent more than a decade observing chimpanzees in the wild, tracking how they grow up, navigate friendship, rivalry, loss, and even the anxieties that come with adolescence—emotions that might feel surprisingly familiar to us. In this episode, she shares how her research sheds light on what it means to come of age—not just for chimps but for humans, too, revealing the roots of our own empathy, conflict, and connection.

Released on November 20, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Rachna Reddy teaches anthropology and environment, society, and sustainability at the University of Utah, and she also codirects the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project. Through her study of chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, she is trying to understand the evolutionary foundations of human social relationships and development.

Related Content

Fellowship Biography: Rachna Reddy

Ngogo Chimpanzee Project

Series: Chimp Empire

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Substance Use Disorders Among Women: Reasons for Concern—and Hope

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 19:13:00 -0000

Rates of substance use disorder are rising among women and adolescent girls. In this episode, the psychiatrist Shelly F. Greenfield, whose research focuses on gender differences in addiction, explains the situation—and what can be done. Through her work, Greenfield helps us see addiction as what it truly is: a treatable health condition.

Released on October 30, 2025.

Part of this podcast was recorded in early 2025, before the current federal administration, and reflects the situation at that time. Since then, significant cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration—the agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services that leads efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation—and the termination of grants have dramatically affected federal resources. The resources posted for this podcast, however, reflect the current moment and are accurate as of the date of its release (October 30, 2025).

Episode Transcript

Guest

Shelly F. Greenfield is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Kristine M. Trustey Endowed Chair in Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Women’s Mental Health at McLean Hospital. Her research investigates the rising rates of substance use, substance-related health and social consequences in women and girls in the United States, and treatment and health services delivery.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Jodie Foster: Power, Privacy, and Purpose

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:42:00 -0000

On Radcliffe Day 2025, we honored Jodie Foster in recognition of her barrier-breaking six-decade career in front of and behind the camera. In this episode, the newly minted Radcliffe Medalist chats with the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.—a friend and former mentor—and gets deep about her beginnings, her life path, motherhood, and how she’s grown.

Released on June 26, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Jodie Foster is an actor and filmmaker. In her six-decade career, she has won Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award alongside a Cecil B. DeMille Award and an Honorary Palme d’Or.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, cultural critic, and institution builder, Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted documentary films.

Radcliffe Day 2025 in Photos

Radcliffe Day 2025

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The Importance of Representation in Film

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:41:00 -0000

Women have played essential roles in the American film industry since its inception—as actors, writers, directors, producers, and an array of other positions—but they have long been both underrepresented and underrecognized when compared with men. On Radcliffe Day 2025—as part of a program honoring the 2025 Radcliffe Medalist Jodie Foster—industry insiders took part in a panel discussion to consider the evolving nature of women’s representation and recognition in the film and television industries, both as subjects and as creators.

Released on June 13, 2025.

⁠Episode Transcript⁠

Guests

Amy Brenneman ’86 is a television, stage, and film actor, writer, and producer and a founding member of Cornerstone Theater Company, which produces site-specific, community-based theater on themes of social justice.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin RI ’17 is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Naomi McDougall Jones is an award-winning filmmaker, author, and ancestral energy healer.

Mira Nair ’79 is an Academy Award–nominated director.

Saladin K. Patterson is executive producer and showrunner of the revival of the hit animated series King of the Hill, set to premiere on Hulu later this year, as well as The Wonder Years, The Last O.G., The Cops, and The Bernie Mac Show.

Stacy L. Smith is an associate professor of communication at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where she founded the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the leading global think tank studying inequality in entertainment.

Related Content

Radcliffe Day 2025

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Storytelling and Grief in Palliative Care

Thu, 22 May 2025 18:03:00 -0000

There is a long-held belief in the medical field that doctors should maintain a professional distance from their patients. But it’s only human to be affected by one’s everyday experiences—and for professionals who work with serious illness, these experiences can range from distressing to profound. In this episode, a collaboration with Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch, we discover how the Palliative Story Exchange uses storytelling to center human connection and meaning in this setting.

Released on May 22, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest Host

Lisa Keefauver is a social worker, a grief activist, and the founder of Reimagining Grief. She hosts the podcast Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch, and she recently published her first book, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss (University of Texas Press, 2024).

Guests

Alexis Drutchas is a palliative care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a cofounder of the Palliative Story Exchange. Her work has appeared on CNN, on NBC News, and in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Richard Leiter is a palliative care physician, writer, and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a cofounder of the Palliative Story Exchange. He also directs the adult inpatient palliative care consult service and leads the Dana-Farber Department of Supportive Oncology Writing Core. His writing has been published in Cell, the New York Times, and STAT News.

Related Content

Palliative Story Exchange

Podcast: Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch

Radcliffe Accelerator Workshop Program

Lisa Keefauver Personal Website

Alexis Drutchas Personal Website

Richard Leiter Institutional Website

The Palliative Story Exchange on Instagram

Palliative & Supportive Care: “The Palliative Story Exchange: An Innovative Storytelling Intervention to Build Community, Foster Shared Meaning, and Improve Sustainability”

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media, including the sound engineer Jeff Hayash and editors Katie Toulmin and Justin Callahan, for their contributions to the production and editing of this episode.

Gifts of Intergenerational Friendship

Thu, 01 May 2025 14:05:00 -0000

When Devi Lockwood, then a Harvard undergraduate, encountered the papers of the poet Cora Brooks in the Schlesinger Library, she couldn’t have known that the discovery would spark an in-person friendship with a woman her grandmother’s age. In this episode, she talks about how that friendship developed—and the lasting gifts it provided—along with archives, activism, and the power of unexpected discoveries.

Released on May 1, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Devi Lockwood is an editor, a journalist, and the author of 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World (S&S/ Simon Element, 2021). Her writing has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and WIRED, and she currently serves as the commentary and ideas editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Related Content

Radcliffe Moments: Friendship through the Archives

Devi Lockwood’s personal website

New York Times: The Trick in Life Is to Keep Moving

Schlesinger Library: Papers of Cora Brooks

1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World (S&S/ Simon Element, 2021)

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is your guest host, the executive producer of BornCurious, and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Dartmouth College, namely Mike Murray and Signe Taylor, for generously providing their media studio, and to Cabin 3 Media—especially sound recordist Jeff Hayash—for their expert work in recording and post-production.

Memory in Poetry

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 14:32:00 -0000

The poetry of Gabeba Baderoon often reaches into memory and the small moments that show the complexity of love. In this episode, Baderoon talks about what spurred her to try the art form, reads from her previous work, and shares how memory plays into her next collection, on which she’s working this year.

Released on April 17, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Gabeba Baderoon is a poet and an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, African studies, and comparative literature at the Pennsylvania State University, where she codirects the African Feminist Initiative. The History of Intimacy (Kwela Books, 2018) is her third published collection, and at Radcliffe, she is working on her fourth.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is your guest host and the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Music and Chaos

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:33:00 -0000

A chance encounter with an engineering journal changed the life trajectory of Diana Dabby, who was then working as a concert pianist. Now, Dabby uses electrical engineering to innovate musical works that have variation at their center. In this episode, she talks about her career and approach to various projects.

Released on April 3, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Diana Dabby is a concert pianist, a composer, and an engineer who teaches at Olin College of Engineering, where she is the music program director and a professor of electrical engineering. At Radcliffe, she is working on a potentially disruptive technology for variation of musical works; a “variation concert” in which seat location determines what is heard; and a book about artists with a knack for science.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is your guest host, the executive producer of BornCurious, and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

America’s Authoritarian Turn

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 14:12:00 -0000

In his recent—and timely—lecture, Gary Gerstle looks beyond the figure of Donald Trump to inquire into the roots of America’s authoritarian turn. In it, he dissects the events, policies, and resentments that have led to the breakdown of the neoliberal political order, under which the United States has functioned for the past 40 years, and energized the right.

Released on March 20, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Beverly Gage is the John Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University and an expert in modern American political history.

Gary Gerstle, a historian of modern America, is the 2024–2025 Joy Foundation Fellow at Radcliffe and the Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus and Paul Mellon Director of Research in American History at the University of Cambridge. He has published eight books, most recently The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Related Content

Fellowship Bio: Gary Gerstle

Institutional Bio: Beverly Gage

A Deep Look into Trump-Era America

Event: America’s Authoritarian Turn

Report of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group

Credits

Max Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in the Arts and Humanities was established to honor the late Julia S. Phelps, a longtime instructor in the Radcliffe Seminars, and is supported by the generous contributions of her family, friends, and colleagues.

Conversation with Noah Feldman

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:47:00 -0000

As part of a pair of programs featuring open dialogue about issues related to the Middle East, Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin sat down with Noah Feldman to discuss his new book, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2024).

Released on March 6, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Noah Feldman is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School.

David Stern is the Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature and a professor of comparative literature at Harvard University. He was the 2011–2012 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute.

Related Content

Noah Feldman’s Institutional Biography

Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s Institutional Biography

Episode 402: Conversation with Aslı Ü. Bâli

To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People

Report of Harvard University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group

David Stern’s Institutional Biography

Credits

Max Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute gratefully acknowledges the Morton S. Waldfogel Memorial Fund, which is supporting this event.

Cosponsored by Harvard Law School Library

Conversation with Aslı Ü. Bâli

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:47:00 -0000

As part of a pair of programs featuring open dialogue about issues related to the Middle East, Aslı Ü. Bâli participated in a conversation with Asim Ijaz Khwaja about modern Arab and Muslim identities in the context of university, local, and worldwide communities and events.

Released on March 6, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Aslı Ü. Bâli is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the president of the Middle East Studies Association.

Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at Harvard Kennedy School, faculty director at the Harvard Center for International Development, and cochair of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias at Harvard University.

Related Content

Event: Conversation with Aslı Ü. Bâli

Aslı Ü. Bâli Institutional Biography

Asim Ijaz Khwaja Institutional Biography

Episode 403: Conversation with Noah Feldman

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute gratefully acknowledges the Mishra Family Dean's Leadership Fund, which is supporting this event.

Black Traditions of Mardi Gras

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:26:00 -0000

Every year around this time, New Orleans clads itself in the green, purple, and gold of carnival, which culminates in Mardi Gras. But the celebration is much more than a bacchanalia—it’s a citywide expression of community. In this episode, we speak to a guest intimately familiar with these traditions, especially how they play out in the city’s Black communities.

Released on February 20, 2025.

Episode transcript

Guest

Kim Vaz-Deville, a scholar in residence at Dillard University in New Orleans, conducts research on the lives of African Americans in New Orleans from the early 20th century to the present. As the 2023–2024 Lillian Gollay Knafel Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, she worked on her second book about New Orleans Black Mardi Gras traditions, “The Art of Resistance.”

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media, including sound engineer Jeff Hayash and editors Katie Toulmin and Justin Callahan, for their contributions to the production and editing of this episode.

How to Be a Better Sexual Citizen

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 15:22:00 -0000

What is sex for? This is only one of the questions we must consider to be better sexual citizens. In this episode, we talk to an anthropologist who hopes that thinking through such questions will alleviate the problem of sexual assault in the context of our institutional lives, such as college. And she tells us about her current work, a case study.

Released on December 19, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Jennifer S. Hirsch is a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who works at the intersection of social science and public health. Hirsch’s research examines gender, sexuality, and migration; the anthropology of love; social dimensions of HIV; and sexual- and gender-based violence. She is the coauthor, with Shamus Khan, of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus (W. W. Norton, 2020), named an NPR book of the year.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Honoring Mexico's Disappeared

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:48:00 -0000

More than 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since the late 1960s—who are they, and why have they gone missing? We talked to two Radcliffe fellows who have devoted their work to telling this history, from an institutional as well as a personal level, as a way to honor the disappeared and empower their families.

This episode contains intense subject matter that may be distressing to some listeners.

Released on December 12, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, a professor and senior researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, is an anthropologist whose work promotes indigenous and women’s rights in Latin America. She is working on an ethnographic account of family collectives searching for their disappeared loved ones throughout Mexico. She was the 2023–2024 Perrin Moorhead Grayson and Bruns Grayson Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Oscar Lopez is is a writer and freelance journalist who covers human rights, politics, and violence. His book in progress examines disappearances in Mexico—and how they became both state policy and organized crime practice. He was the 2023–2024 Shutzer Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sean Hennessy is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Minipod: Ayodele Casel on Creativity

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 16:04:00 -0000

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Ayodele Casel, whose “unquestionable radiance” has been called out by the New York Times, shares her thoughts on creativity.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on December 5, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ayodele Casel is a tap dancer and choreographer. She was the 2019–2020 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at Radcliffe and can be seen in the American Repertory Theater production Diary of a Tap Dancer from December 12, 2024, to January 4, 2025.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Minipod: Nikolas Bowie on Justice

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 16:03:00 -0000

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Nikolas Bowie, who is currently working on a book contesting the idea that the Supreme Court should have final say on what our Constitution allows, talks about justice.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on December 5, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Nikolas Bowie is a 2024–2025 Shutzer Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is a historian whose research critically examines the absence of democracy in institutions that construct and constrain our political lives.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Who Gets Autism?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 16:03:00 -0000

Diagnosing autism spectrum disorder can be difficult because there is no medical test—like a blood test—to detect the disorder. Doctors draw on an individual’s developmental history and behavior to make a diagnosis. But some populations receive notably more diagnoses than others. It is not clear how many individuals with autism may be overlooked, which means not all who are affected are equally likely to be treated. We know that four times as many boys as girls are diagnosed with autism. In this episode, we talk to a researcher who is challenging that gender ratio by working to establish a broader context for the intersectionality of female gender and autism. Her hope is to create a better roadmap that includes autistic females in research, advocacy, and service delivery.

Released on November 21, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ruth B. Grossman is a speech and language pathologist, a professor at Emerson College, and the director of the FACE Lab. She was the 2023–2024 Mary Beth and Chris Gordon Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Minipod: Durba Mitra on Gender

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 17:37:00 -0000

As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, members of our community delivered “lightning talks”—seven minutes on a particular topic delivered by an expert in the field. In this mini episode, Durba Mitra, whose research sits at the intersection of feminist and queer studies, tackles the topic of gender.

This episode was recorded on September 27, 2024.

Released on November 15, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Durba Mitra is the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. Her scholarship brings together feminist studies, sexuality studies, and global intellectual history. She is the author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton University Press, 2020), and her next book is The Future That Was: Third World Feminism and the Crisis of Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, forthcoming). She was a Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor and a 2018–2019 fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she also served as an interim faculty director at the Schlesinger Library.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

In Their Own Words—The Diaries of the Schlesinger Library

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 13:55:58 -0000

The Schlesinger Library is home to more than 3,000 volumes of personal diaries. In this episode, we talk to Kathryn Allamong Jacob, who recently retired as the Schlesinger’s curator of manuscripts, about her intention to read—and describe—as many of these diaries as she can. Not only are these intimate documents crucial for a fuller portrayal of American women’s experiences, but they also include stories that are amusing, confounding, heartbreaking, infuriating, and inspiring.

This episode was recorded on May 2, 2024.

Released on October 24, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Kathryn Allamong Jacob is a historian affiliated with Harvard University’s Department of History and the former Johanna-Maria Fraenkel Curator of Manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America. Jacob is currently reading and describing the Schlesinger’s diaries, and she recently coauthored, with Frank Costigliola, “Elizabeth Morrison Diary—UN 1945” in the September 2024 issue of Passport.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Should Universities Voice Opinions?

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 15:10:00 -0000

Since last fall, communities across the country—including our campuses—have questioned the role of universities in public debates. In this panel discussion, cosponsored by Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin and three legal scholars consider whether institutions of higher ed should take stances on the issues of the day.

This episode was recorded on March 5, 2024.

Released on October 10, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is the dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An award-winning legal historian and an expert in constitutional law, Brown-Nagin is most recently the author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality (Pantheon, 2022).

Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law, the Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, a professor of political science, a faculty director of the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity, and a faculty director of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at University of Chicago Law School. In his work, he focuses on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Janet Halley is the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and she is an expert on feminist legal theory; sex, sexuality, gender and the law; family law; law and humanities; and critical legal studies.

Robert C. Post is the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He specializes in constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on the First Amendment.

Credits

Max Doyle is the A/V technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Lily Roberts is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

What Is the Heliosphere—and What Happened to It 3 Million Years Ago?

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:33:00 -0000

Did you know that our Sun’s wind generates a kind of protective cocoon that shields our solar system from harmful galactic material, such as radiation? So how did iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope created by exploding stars, end up here on Earth? In this episode, the astronomer Merav Opher talks us through her discovery that explains how iron-60 got into Antarctic ice and tiny shells at the bottom of our oceans—and what this may tell us about some of the key historical moments for planet Earth.

This episode was recorded on April 29, 2024.

Released on September 26, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Merav Opher, the 2021–2022 William Bentinck Smith Fellow, is a professor of astronomy at Boston University. Her research is focused on understanding the heliosphere, the cocoon around the solar system, and lays the groundwork to predict habitable astrospheres.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sean Hennessy is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Sky Jung is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Emerson Prond is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

An Unconventional Path to Computer Science

Thu, 09 May 2024 13:53:00 -0000

In her work as a computer scientist, Fernanda Viégas focuses on data visualization and people-centered machine learning—but her background is in graphic design. So how did she land where she is today? In this episode, our hosts talk with Viégas about her unconventional path, her experience in the world of STEM, and what it’s like to sometimes be the only woman in the room. In addition, they talk about how taking a people-centered approach can make the field more inclusive.

This episode was recorded on February 29, 2024.

Released on May 9, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Fernanda Viégas is a Sally Starling Seaver Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and an affiliate with Harvard Business School. With her longtime collaborator, Martin Wattenberg, she coleads Google’s People + AI Research (PAIR) initiative, which advances the research and design of people-centric AI systems.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Mahbuba Sumiya is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Artificial Intelligence—How Does It Work?

Thu, 02 May 2024 18:14:00 -0000

These days, it seems everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and machine learning—think ChatGPT. But how do these work, and where do they fall short? In this week’s episode, we do a deep dive on these tools with Fernanda Viégas, whose work in academia and industry focuses on people-centered machine learning.

This episode was recorded on February 29, 2024.

Released on May 2, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Mahbuba Sumiya is a multimedia intern at HRI and a Harvard College student.

Kindness—It’s Good for You!

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:11:00 -0000

We’ve long known that our kindnesses benefit others, but did you know that they also benefit our own health? In this episode, our hosts sit down with the coauthors of a new book, The Biology of Kindness: Six Daily Choices for Health, Well-Being, and Longevity (MIT Press, 2024), that lays out the ways that science has shown prosocial behaviors to benefit us.

Guests

Immaculata De Vivo is the Melanie Mason Niemiec ’71 Faculty Codirector of the Sciences at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School for Public Health, and an international leader in the area of molecular and genetic epidemiology of cancer.

Daniel Lumera is a wildlife biologist, a research fellow in the sociology of cultural and communicative processes, and a lecturer and international reference in the area of wellness sciences, quality of life, and the practice of meditation.

This episode was recorded on February 29, 2024.

Released on April 18, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is your cohost, the executive producer of BornCurious, and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Let’s Talk about Climate Resilience

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 14:08:00 -0000

Heat waves, floods, droughts—catastrophes attributed to climate change seem to be happening more often. But is there reason for hope? In this episode, the climate change and disaster policy expert Rob Verchick outlines the challenges of climate change, especially when it comes to the law, along with why—despite the bad news—he remains hopeful.

This episode was recorded on December 5, 2023.

Released on April 11, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Rob Verchick is a legal scholar who specializes in climate change and disaster policy. He is the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar and Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans, a senior fellow in disaster resilience at Tulane University, and the author, most recently, of The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience (Columbia University Press, 2023).

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Tackling Environmental Inequality across Academic Disciplines

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:03:00 -0000

Such environmental changes as pollution and climate change affect not only our ecosystem but also our people—those in low-income communities most of all. In this episode, our hosts talk to two recent Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant awardees from different disciplines—healthcare policy and the law—both of whom used the funds to study environmental inequality.

This episode was recorded on November 30, 2023.

Released on April 4, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Seth Gertz-Billingsley is a Harvard Law School student who was awarded a Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant to study air-conditioning and tenants’ rights.

Sonya Gupta is pursuing a master’s degree in regional studies—Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia—at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and was awarded a Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant to fund her project GeoAdvocates (formerly Mapping Chicago).

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

A Conversation with Ruth J. Simmons

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 19:58:00 -0000

The scholars and university leaders Ruth J. Simmons and Tomiko Brown-Nagin discuss Simmons’s recent memoir, Up Home: One Girl’s Journey (Random House, 2023). Along the way, they consider her personal journey, her pioneering work researching and sharing publicly universities’ historical ties to slavery, and her perspectives on the future of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and higher education in light of recent Supreme Court rulings.

This episode was recorded on November 14, 2023.

Released on March 21, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Ruth J. Simmons is a distinguished presidential fellow at Rice University and senior adviser to the president of Harvard University on engagement with HBCUs. She served as president of Prairie View A&M University until March 2023. Prior to joining Prairie View, she was president of Brown University from 2001 to 2012 and president of Smith College from 1995 to 2001.

Tiya Miles is a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Michael Garvey Professor of History at the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She leads the audience Q and A in this episode.

Guest Host

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Harvard Gazette: Ruth Simmons Named to Senior Post Advising on HBCU Partnerships

Event Page

Tiya Miles: Radcliffe Professor Biography

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe’s event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

The Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture Series was established through the generosity of Kim G. Davis AB ’76, MBA ’78, and Judith N. Davis, longtime friends and champions of Harvard Radcliffe Institute. This annual lecture series invites leading figures from across the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences to share their expertise, ideas, and diverse perspectives with the Harvard community and the broader public.

Math—It’s Not Just Numbers

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:41:00 -0000

More than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, mathematics is a “whole unexplored universe which has no boundaries,” says our guest, Laura DeMarco. In this episode, we reconsider not only what math is but also what it can do—and who can do it.

This episode was recorded on November 9, 2023.

Released on March 14, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Laura DeMarco is a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor of mathematics at Harvard University whose research focuses on the theory of dynamical systems and number theory. She is currently investigating the mathematical concepts of stability—if you bump into something, will that knock it out of position?—and complexity, along with how the two are related.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Is Losing an Hour of Sleep Really That Big a Deal?

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 15:47:00 -0000

With daylight saving time coming up this weekend, one might wonder whether losing a single hour of sleep is that big of a deal. In this episode, we talk with a neurologist who specializes in daily rhythms about what might be lost along with that hour—and finally answer the question, Are you getting enough sleep?

This episode was recorded on December 14, 2023.

Released on March 7, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Elizabeth B. Klerman is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a neurologist at Mass General Research Institute whose research focuses on the influences of circadian and sleep rhythms in normal and pathological states. With her colleague Charles Czeisler, Klerman convened a Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar to consider how to better publicize the physical effects of Daylight Saving Time.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

A Conversation with Sherrilyn Ifill

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:29:00 -0000

In June 2023, a US Supreme Court ruling on two cases essentially ended affirmative action in higher education. In a 6–3 ruling, the court decided that accounting for race in admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In this deep dive into the ruling, the civil rights lawyer and legal scholar Sherrilyn Ifill and our dean, Tomiko Brown-Nagin—herself an award-winning legal historian and an expert in constitutional law—unpack the issues underpinning affirmative action and provide analysis of the decision for the layperson.

This episode was recorded on October 18, 2023.

Released on February 29, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Sherrilyn Ifill is a civil rights lawyer and the inaugural Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University, where she leads the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy in collaboration with a variety of institutions in law, business, and the arts, including the Charles Hamilton Houston Center at Harvard Law School. She was the 2022 recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, the Institute’s highest honor.

Guy-Uriel E. Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he also directs the Charles Hamilton Institute for Race and Justice. He writes about how law mediates political power and how law addresses racial subordination. He leads the audience Q and A in this episode.

Guest Host

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Event Page

Tomiko Brown-Nagin: Leadership Biography

Radcliffe Day 2022

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe’s event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute gratefully acknowledges the Perrin Moorhead Grayson and Bruns Grayson Dean's Leadership Fund for Academic Ventures, which is supporting this event.

Riding the Radcliffe Wave

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:25:00 -0000

Today’s episode—released to coincide with the announcement of an astronomical discovery—brings us inside the exciting world of scientific inquiry. In 2020, a group of scientists discovered a star-producing cosmic ripple in the local arm of the Milky Way that changed scientists’ understanding of the galaxy that our solar system calls home. They named it the Radcliffe Wave after the generative environment that inspired the finding. And the discoveries keep coming: new research published in Nature confirms that the Radcliffe Wave is indeed in motion, as its name suggests. Today, we talk to four of the scientists who collaborated on this groundbreaking research about what it all means.

This episode was recorded on February 6, 2024.

Released on February 20, 2024.

Episode Transcript

Guests

João Alves is a professor of stellar astrophysics at the University of Vienna. During his Radcliffe fellowship year in 2018–2019, he combined both space and ground-based observational data to build the first map of the space motion of gas and to investigate how giant gas clouds, the nurseries of stars, came to be.

Alyssa A. Goodman is the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard University, a former codirector for science at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a research associate of the Smithsonian Institution, and the founding director of the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing. She was a Radcliffe fellow in 2016–2017, and her work spans astrophysics, science education, data science, data visualization, and prediction.

Ralf Konietzka is a PhD student in astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard University. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of the Milky Way, and he uses a combination of analytic theory, observations, data visualization, and numerical simulations to investigate the structure and dynamics of the local interstellar medium and examine how stars originate.

Catherine Zucker, who earned her PhD from Harvard University in 2020, is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian whose research focuses on developing novel techniques to tease out the 3D structure and dynamics of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Much of her work involves the use of “big data” and high-performance computing.

Credits

Maxwell Doyle is the A/V support technician at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI).

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Free Speech, Political Speech, and Hate Speech on Campus

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 14:48:00 -0000

In response to recent events, protest and discord have reached a fever pitch on university campuses. It is in this context that Harvard Radcliffe Institute gathered interdisciplinary experts for a crucial discussion about hate speech, academic freedom, and the legal norms that govern how universities can respond to protest.

In this episode, we explore the underpinnings of how antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other identity-based hatreds—issues that have received increased attention in the context of the ongoing Gaza crisis and attendant campus controversies—fit into a broader set of questions about the role of institutions of higher education.

This episode was recorded on December 12, 2023.

Released on December 20, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School; and professor of history, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Erica Chenoweth, Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; academic dean for faculty engagement and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment, Harvard Kennedy School; and faculty dean at Pforzheimer House, Harvard College

Jeannie Suk Gersen, John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; past president, American Civil Liberties Union

Keith E. Whittington, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe’s event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

The Thrill of Archival Discovery

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 13:33:00 -0000

Tamar Gonen Brown, head of education and outreach at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library, gives us a peek into the fascinating world of archives. She uses rare archival materials not only to teach students research skills but also to train them on how to be “history detectives” in their own right and to share the thrill of discovery.

Some useful background from Gonen Brown:

The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America collects material that documents the history of women, gender, and sexuality in the United States, and the scope and extent of our collections means that there are many topics beyond gender history that researchers can investigate through our holdings. The Library is certainly not the only repository dedicated to documenting gender and US women’s history—there is the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University, the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History at Smith College, and the Pembroke Center Archives at Brown University, for example. The historian Mary Ritter Beard was an important early advocate, beginning in the 1930s, for the need to collect documents that reflect women’s lives and work, and the Schlesinger Library was in fact called the Women’s Archives until it was renamed in honor of Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger in 1965. Beard’s idea of a singular archives dedicated to documenting all aspects of women’s lives on a global scale never came to pass, and we are now among a cohort of repositories that are explicitly dedicated to documenting the history of women and gender. At the Schlesinger, one of our priorities is working to ensure that the collections document the full range of women’s experiences in American history, including the stories of women of color, immigrant women, queer and trans women, and other historically marginalized communities.

This episode was recorded on August 9, 2023.

Released on December 19, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Tamar Gonen Brown, a research and teaching librarian, is the head of education and outreach at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America. She earned a PhD in English and American language and literature from Harvard, a master’s in library and information science from Simmons University, and a bachelor’s from the University of Chicago.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Using Machine Learning to Listen to Whales

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 21:26:00 -0000

For millennia, humans have regarded other species with curiosity and wonder. We have tried to decode their behaviors and imagine what they are saying—but truly speaking with animals has traditionally been the stuff of stories, such as those featuring Dr. Dolittle. In this episode of BornCurious, we talk with the oceanographer David Gruber, who is spearheading Project CETI, a multidisciplinary collaboration. We learn that understanding animals is rapidly moving beyond the realm of fiction: Gruber and his colleagues are using hard science—state-of-the-art robotics and machine learning—to listen to and translate sperm whale communication.

This episode was recorded on May 12, 2023.

Released on November 30, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

David Gruber is a visiting researcher at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard and a distinguished professor of biology at Baruch College of the City University of New York. He also founded Project CETI—the Cetacean Translation Initiative—which aims to apply technology to bring us closer to nature.

Special Acknowledgment

David Gruber and Harvard Radcliffe Institute would like to acknowledge the passing of the environmental scientist and technology expert Karen Bakker RI ’23 in August 2023. Her contributions to the field of bioacoustics, particularly through her book The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants (Princeton University Press, 2022), have had an enormous impact. Her book Gaia's Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth (MIT Press, 2024), on which she worked during her Radcliffe fellowship, will be published in April.

Credits

Whale recordings are provided courtesy of Dominica Sperm Whale Project and Project CETI.

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Justice-Impacted Brilliance

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 20:41:00 -0000

In this episode, Meek Mill, an award-winning rapper and one of the nation’s top voices for parole and probation reform, talks with Brittany White—a practitioner in residence at Radcliffe and Harvard Law School, an organizing fellow at the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, and a formerly incarcerated Black woman—and others. This conversation brings together people with lived experience of incarceration as experts to discuss their efforts to change the probation and parole system, helping to make the US justice system more just.

This episode was recorded on May 1, 2023.

Released on November 16, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Ayana Bean is an activist and founder of A Year and a Day Foundation.

Meek Mill is a rapper and cofounder of REFORM Alliance.

Wallo is a podcaster, an influencer, and a speaker on prison reform.

Brittany White is a 2022–2023 visiting practitioner in residence at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, an organizing fellow at the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, and a voice for formerly incarcerated Black women.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe's event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

Language and Thought around the World, Part 2

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 14:12:00 -0000

In the continuation of a conversation about language and thought, the cognitive psychologist Asifa Majid talks about why most studies on the topic have focused on English speakers, where in the brain language is processed, why some languages have trouble describing sensory input while others do not, and where language studies should go next.

This episode was recorded on June 2, 2023.

Published on November 8, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Asifa Majid is a professor of cognitive science at the University of Oxford who studies the relationship among language, culture, and mind. At Radcliffe, she worked on a book that will synthesize her wide-ranging empirical work to elucidate which aspects of cognition are fundamentally shared and which are language- or culture-specific.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Language and Thought around the World, Part 1

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 14:05:00 -0000

We think of language as a way to express what we think, but language can actually shape how we think. An estimated 7,000 distinct languages are spoken around the world, and many of them are unstudied or undescribed. It is estimated that there are already over 500 extinct languages. The loss of a language is no less worrisome than the loss of a species. In the first of two episodes, our hosts talk to the cognitive psychologist Asifa Majid about linguistic diversity and why we must preserve it.

This episode was recorded on June 2, 2023.

Published on November 8, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

A Conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:40:00 -0000

In a wide-ranging conversation, the cultural critic and essayist Tressie McMillan Cottom and the legal scholar and Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin explore such topics as what it means to exist as a Black woman in the world, why Cottom keeps her grandmother in mind when writing her essays, and pop culture’s relationship to the aesthetics of power. The conversation was part of the Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture Series at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

This episode was recorded on March 30, 2023.

Published on November 3, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Tressie McMillan Cottom is a New York Times columnist, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, a sociologist, a public thinker, and a professor with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Guest Host

Tressie McMillan Cottom on TikTok

Tomiko Brown-Nagin: Leadership Biography

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Kevin Grady and Max Doyle from Radcliffe's event streaming team for their invaluable contributions to recording this podcast episode.

Wounds across Borders

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 18:42:00 -0000

What do bodily injuries tell us about borders, violence, and our society? In this episode, Omar Dewachi and Ieva Jusionyte talk about the role of ethnography in answering that question. Both are anthropologists who conduct site-specific work in areas of conflict.

This episode was recorded on April 20, 2023.

Released on October 26, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Omar Dewachi examines the effects of war on medicine and public health in the Middle East. He is a medical doctor, holds a master’s in public health, and earned a doctoral degree in anthropology. Dewachi is an associate professor of medical anthropology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Ieva Jusionyte has focused her work on political issues at national borders, most recently that of the United States and Mexico. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of legal and medical anthropology, and she has trained as a paramedic and EMT. She is the Watson Family University Associate Professor of International Security and Anthropology at Brown University.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Healthcare Disparities for People with Disabilities

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

For 25 years, Lisa I. Iezzoni’s research has focused on improving the lived experiences, healthcare quality, and health equity of adults with disability, particularly mobility disability. It’s only recently, though, that research she conducted revealed the depths of medical inequity for people with disabilities. In this conversation, our hosts ask Iezzoni about her life’s work—and the difficulties in making healthcare more accessible.

This episode was recorded on November 16, 2022.

Released on September 21, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Lisa I. Iezzoni is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, based at the Health Policy Research Center and the Mongan Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

The Unique Power of Cartoons

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

Cartoons have evolved since their Sunday-edition comic strip days. With the popularity of graphic novels on the rise, visual storytelling is becoming ever more sophisticated. In this episode, our hosts talk with the cartoonist Ebony Flowers about her journey, motivation, and process as she marries drawing with the written word.

This episode was recorded on June 22, 2023.

Released on September 21, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ebony Flowers is a cartoonist and ethnographer who earned a PhD in curriculum and instruction. Her most recent book, Hot Comb (Drawn and Quarterly, 2019), is a collection of stories about Black women’s hair, and her creative fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Paris Review. She is currently editing her second book, tentatively titled Baltimore Brownfield (Drawn and Quarterly, forthcoming). As a Radcliffe fellow, Flowers worked on a multimodal graphic novel that will be read through both sight and touch.

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial lead at Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI), where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Jeff Hayash is a freelance sound engineer and recordist.

Marcus Knoke is a multimedia intern at HRI, a Harvard College student, and the general manager of Harvard Radio Broadcasting.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The US Pain and Overdose Crises

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths have risen fivefold in the past two decades. What’s driving this crisis, and what can be done to alleviate it? Our hosts discuss the issue with Liz Chiarello, a sociologist who is finishing a book about how the dual US crises of pain and overdoses have transformed law enforcement and healthcare.

This episode was recorded on June 30, 2023.

Released on September 21, 2023.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Liz Chiarello, an associate professor of sociology at Saint Louis University, is a medical sociologist and sociolegal scholar whose research lies at the intersection of healthcare and law. During her fellowship year, Chiarello worked on a book about the US overdose and pain crises, using the overdose crisis as a case study in how medical providers make decisions about opioid provision—and in how these decisions affect patient care.