This is the Radcliffe Institute at 10, a place where extraordinary women and men conduct transformative research and produce pathbreaking creative work.
A YOUNG SCIENTIST ponders whether her research has any relevance outside her field because it doesn’t appear to help solve the world’s problems. Then gradually—through conversations with other Radcliffe fellows and after hearing a presentation by a Radcliffe alumna who’s an authority on math and science education—she becomes passionately convinced that all knowledge improves the quality of our lives. She begins finding ways to communicate her excitement about biology to young people.
A MULTIMEDIA HISTORIAN uses his precious time as a Radcliffe fellow to write his first book, relieved that he doesn’t have to rush to complete it. When the book is published, it wins several prestigious prizes and earns him tenure offers from four major research universities.
A CULTURAL COMMENTATOR and Radcliffe College alumna explores ideas for her next book during her Radcliffe fellowship, using the voluminous archives of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. The library’s collections include the papers of Susan B. Anthony, Julia Child, Amelia Earhart, Betty Friedan, Adrienne Rich, and other notable women.
A HISTORY PROFESSOR FROM YALE University conducts research at the Schlesinger Library during her Radcliffe fellowship, immersing herself in the papers of Pauli Murray, a heroine of the civil rights movement. The New York Times calls the resulting book “remarkable . . . an eye-opening book [on] the freedom struggle that changed the South, the nation, the world.”
A COMPUTER SCIENTIST AND A LEGAL SCHOLAR collaborate on a Radcliffe seminar about cooperation and human systems design. Doctoral students and faculty members from across Harvard University attend the seminar, forging relationships that continue today.
AN ARTIST whose work is represented in museums throughout the world spends his time at Radcliffe developing three ambitious installations, two of which he has since completed and exhibited.
Photo credits: (Top) Sheila Patek by Tony Rinaldo; Vincent Brown by Lolita Parker Jr.; (Middle) Shimon Attie, David C. Parkes, and Glenda Gilmore by Tony Rinaldo; (Bottom) Yochai Benkler by Jean Baptiste Labrune; Susan Faludi by Tony Rinaldo
