The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University fosters transformative works in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Each year, women and men arrive in Cambridge to undertake research and creative work as Radcliffe Institute fellows. Scientists, composers, fiction writers, filmmakers, historians, lawyers, literary critics, social scientists, and teachers all convene to interrogate, ponder—and sometimes reinvent—our understanding of the world. The Institute is also home to the unparalleled collections of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, the preeminent library for the study of American women.

Embodying the highest values of inquiry, learning, and creativity, the Radcliffe Institute is an integral part of Harvard University. It enriches the University's intellectual life by creating links between its fellows and Harvard schools and departments, and by making its broad range of lectures and conferences, as well as research and learning opportunities, available to Harvard students and faculty. The Radcliffe Institute serves as an intellectual convening force across Harvard's schools and as a site for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Women, Gender, and Society: A Continuing Commitment

The Radcliffe Institute sustains a special commitment to the study of women, gender, and society, and its research and programming include a substantial gender component. Recent fellows have explored issues related to women in law, music, the economy, medicine and health, religion, literature, and history, in settings from early modern Italy and nineteenth-century Iran to contemporary China, India, and the United States. The Institute holds a major conference on women each year, initiating discussion of topics such as the relationship of women to money and power, the place of African American women in United States history, and reproductive health.

The Schlesinger Library

For over half a century, Radcliffe's Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America has been critical to our expanding understanding of women's history. Its priceless collections include the papers of Susan B. Anthony, Julia Child, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Amelia Earhart, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Adrienne Rich, and other notable women.

Ideas That Reach Beyond Radcliffe Yard

The Radcliffe Institute provides public programming in an effort to reach beyond its walls and share its riches, including its collections, programs, and the work of faculty and fellows. The annual Dean's Lecture Series brings luminaries in the arts, academic disciplines, and professions to the Radcliffe Institute for public talks. Speakers have included author Zadie Smith, copyright lawyer Lawrence Lessig, historian Darlene Clark Hine, biologist Susan Lindquist, and philosopher Avishai Margalit. The Radcliffe Institute's conference topics reflect its broad mission and range from computer security to feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, from cultural citizenship to gender in the war zone. Harvard undergraduate students may participate in the Radcliffe Institute's work through the Research Partnership Program, acting as research assistants to Institute faculty and fellows.

The Radcliffe Institute is rooted in a belief in the power of intellectual connections and intellectual community. Through thought-provoking public programming and innovative research, the Radcliffe Institute reinforces and extends the results of that community and those connections into the world beyond Radcliffe Yard.  

Academic Leadership

The team working with dean Barbara J. Grosz to set the intellectual agenda of the Institute includes:
Joanna Aizenberg, Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences;
Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library and Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
Nancy E. Hill, Suzanne Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute and professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education;
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, senior advisor to the humanities program at the Radcliffe Institute and professor of the history of art and architecture in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
Brigitte Madrian, director of the social sciences program at the Radcliffe Institute and Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government;
Sophie Morel, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor and professor of mathematics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
Leah Price, senior advisor to the humanities program at the Radcliffe Institute and professor of English and Harvard College Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
Robert J. Sampson, senior advisor to the social sciences program at the Radcliffe Institute, chair of the Department of Sociology, and Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences;
Dimitar D. Sasselov, senior advisor to the science program at the Radcliffe Institute, professor of astronomy in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative;
and Rosalind A. Segal, senior advisor to the science program at the Radcliffe Institute, professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and member of the Department of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. 

Alumnae Support

Mindful of its roots in the Radcliffe College tradition of academic excellence and commitment to women, the Radcliffe Institute continues to recognize and serve alumnae of Radcliffe College. Services to Radcliffe alumnae are offered by the Radcliffe Institute in partnership with the Harvard Alumni Association and the College Alumni Programs office.

In July 2000, Harvard University President Rudenstine invited a group of distinguished scholars and academic leaders from outside Harvard to form a special ad hoc committee to assist founding dean Drew Gilpin Faust and the Institute in outlining more precisely directions for the years ahead. In February 2001, the committee issued its Report of the Radcliffe Institute Ad Hoc Committee.

For more information about the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, please call 617-495-8601 or e-mail info@radcliffe.edu.