Student Research Supporters

Student Research Supporters is sponsored by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Enables Harvard students to work as researchers in support of Radcliffe’s programs.

for Students | Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University Search for people, topics, events, etc. Photo by Tony Rinaldo/Harvard Radcliffe Institute Harvard Radcliffe Institute is one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration.

We bring students, scholars, artists, and practitioners together to pursue curiosity-driven research, expand human understanding, and grapple with questions that demand insight from across disciplines. The Institute is unique among Harvard schools: Although we do not award degrees, we offer unparalleled opportunities for undergraduates and graduate students.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute provides learning and research experiences that are difficult to find in a traditional classroom setting. Radcliffe students work directly with our fellows and faculty, providing unique opportunities for mentorship, and they work across departmental boundaries, connecting with peers across the University.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute enriches the Harvard student experience by fostering interdisciplinary, engaged scholarship focused on the most pressing issues of our time.

Join the Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program Explore Academic Courses at Radcliffe Fund Your Research or Project Conduct Research with Faculty & Fellows Get Leadership Experience & Training Find Student Employment at Radcliffe Study in Radcliffe’s Community Spaces Celebrating Kashish Bastola ’26, Newly Named Marshall Scholar Five from Harvard Named Marshall Scholars Join the Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program The Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) is a youth leadership development program partnering local high school sophomores with current Harvard undergraduates in a mentoring relationship.

Together, mentees and mentors challenge limited conceptions of who can be a leader as they build critical skills to drive positive social change.

More on the Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Summer Academy This two-week intensive experience in July 2026 is designed for high school students interested in social change who want to deepen their knowledge, skills, and confidence to become leaders in their own communities.

More on the Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Summer Academy Explore Academic Courses at Radcliffe Radcliffe offers two types of academic courses for Harvard students: Radcliffe First-Year Seminars and Schlesinger Library Embedded Courses.

More on Academic Courses at Radcliffe Student Spotlight: Serafina Cortez ’27 Connecting Disciplines and People From sitting in the sunlight to sitting in the limelight at her mentor fellow’s private talk, Cortez has gained much from her RRP experience. Student Spotlight: Sena Park MPH ’26 Master’s student studying social behavior sciences at Harvard T. H.

Chan School of Public Health, research assistant for Immaculata De Vivo, the Melanie Mason Niemiec ’71 Faculty Codirector of the Sciences at Harvard Radcliffe Institute Park helped De Vivo prepare for a first-year seminar she is teaching this fall, titled Is Being Good Actually Good for the Body? The course is based on the book The Biology of Kindness (MIT Press, 2024), on how kindness and optimism can improve our well-being.

Student Spotlight: Shayna Leng ’27 Carol K.

Pforzheimer Student Fellowship recipient, Schlesinger embedded course student, and Radcliffe Research Partner One of the highlights of Leng's time at Radcliffe so far was presenting her research to the Schlesinger Library Council, where she shared about the importance of wide-ranging archival vision—consulting sources from multiple archives, multiple countries, and in multiple languages—and spoke about the long history of cross-cultural exchange at Radcliffe and Harvard.

Student Spotlight: Zoha Ibrahim ’26 Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellow, front desk assistant, and tour guide at Schlesinger Library Ibrahim's research at the Schlesinger Library has informed her advocacy for the study of diversity by helping her identify what has and has not worked in the past—it has helped her recover an institutional memory.

Student Spotlight: Kashish Bastola ’26 Emerging Leaders Program mentor, Student Advisory Board member, and Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant recipient Bastola wants students to realize that “Radcliffe will give you the mic,” helping them advance whatever they’re passionate about. Student Spotlight: Jamaal (Jama) Willis '25 Radcliffe Research Partner and Carol K.

Pforzheimer Student Fellowship recipient “If I didn’t start off looking at the Caribbean [while an RRP], I don’t know if I would’ve found my way to this senior thesis that I’m doing right now. ” Student Spotlight: Lily Roberts ’25 Communications multimedia intern “What I really study is storytelling and especially women’s narratives."

Student Spotlight: Akshay Dixit RIGF ’25 Graduate Student Fellow and Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant recipient “You have leading experts in all kinds of disciplines and involved in all kinds of creative pursuits, and that was, for me, the biggest draw. … That’s the kind of community I love engaging with because it expands my horizons about what an academic is and what an academic can do in the world.

” Student Spotlight: Rachel Vogel PhD ’23 Curatorial intern and publications editor for Radcliffe exhibitions "A lot of the challenge and pleasure of curatorial work... is filtering [it] and distilling it in ways that are compelling to someone who’s encountering the work for the first time.

” Student Spotlight: Connor Griffiths ’26 Multidisciplinary Student Research Collaborator for Exploratory Seminar on substance use "In my personal journey with education (and life) I’ve always tried to ask those ‘why’ questions. And I think that’s what stuck out to me about Radcliffe: they’re digging deeper than the surface level of ‘what’ and ‘how’ and going to the ‘why’ from an interdisciplinary lens, which is exciting for me.

” Student Spotlight: Mellen Masea ’26 Emerging Leaders Program mentor and Radcliffe Research Partner “My interests lie at the intersection between global health and sustainability. But the aspect of sustainability is not very explicit in what I study. So, Radcliffe allows me to explore my academic interests outside of the classroom.

” Student Spotlight: Chassidy Winestock PhD ’24 Visiting curator at Harvard Radcliffe Institute Exhibitions make arguments in much the same way that thesis papers make arguments, says Winestock, with the artworks on display being “the primary source of your evidence for the argument you’re making. ” Emerging Leaders Program mentor “There’s no other space on Harvard’s campus that is the same as the Emerging Leaders Program.

There’s so much care. There’s so much passion within the community. And it’s so inspiring and enlightening.

” Emerging Leaders Program mentor and intern with the Radcliffe Community Based Student Internship program “Education is often used as a barrier in this country, instead of an expansive opportunity. ” Sophia Scott ’25 and Elyse Martin-Smith ’25 Student contributors to In Their Own Voices exhibition Scott and Martin-Smith reviewed and responded to materials from the exhibition.

Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant recipient Gupta and her cofounder created and taught a two-part workshop series, with the goal of equipping workshop participants with tools to help improve their communities. Radcliffe Research Partner and research assistant for Queer Archives “You’re walking through the shelves and something catches your eye that you weren’t even looking for.

But it calls to you, and it ends up changing the arc of your life in ways you never would have expected. ” Research assistant for Gender, Race, and Law through the Archive “There’s a feeling from being in the archive that I don’t think you can replicate online.

” Research assistant for Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative Yapp worked on the Legacy of Leadership project, researching the stories of early Black graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe.

Emerging Leaders Program mentor and intern with Old West Church through Radcliffe’s Community Based Student Internship program “Nothing in the classroom compares to seeing how people want to create and are creating solutions to problems in real life. ” Radcliffe Research Partner and researcher at the Schlesinger Library “I got a sense of how much knowledge [Shere Hite] was constantly producing. ...

I found a program from an opera that she attended that had notes scribbled on it about something that she wanted to do in her work. Her mind was embedded, physically, everywhere I was looking. ” Emerging Leaders Program mentor “First and foremost, [ELP] is an opportunity for Harvard to branch out and think about its mission in the larger community that it serves.

” Navin Durbhakula ’25 and Camille Freedman ’25 Interns with the Multidisciplinary Student Research Collaborative Over the summer, Durbhakula and Freedman worked to create content for the Plant Futures accelerator workshop.

Radcliffe Student Advisory Board member “At HRI, students from different Harvard schools and across an array of disciplines work together to create meaningful initiatives that not only make the school but the world at large better. ” Radcliffe Research Partner and curatorial assistant at the Schlesinger Library “RRP really gave me an idea of what it might be like to go to grad school.

” Fund Your Research or Project Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program The Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program provides a grant of $1,500 per project to support the research, creative, and service work of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students on topics related to the Radcliffe Engaged focus areas. More on the Radcliffe Engaged Student Grant Program Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships Carol K.

Pforzheimer Student Fellowships provide funding to Harvard undergraduates to do research in the Schlesinger Library’s collections. Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library is committed to supporting students to pursue their own research. More on Carol K.

Pforzheimer Student Fellowships Graduate Student Fellowships PhD candidates at all Harvard faculties who plan to finish writing their dissertation in the next academic year are invited to apply. Graduate student fellows participate in the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program by attending all weekly fellows’ talks and lunches and presenting their own work to fellows.

More on Graduate Student Fellowships Learning from the Archives Conduct Research with Faculty and Fellows Radcliffe Research Partnerships The Radcliffe Research Partnership (RRP) program matches Harvard College students with Radcliffe fellows in a research and mentorship program.

Fellows act as mentors, while students provide research assistance, acquire valuable research skills, and participate in the Institute’s rich intellectual life.

More on Radcliffe Research Partnerships Student Research Supporters The Student Research Supporters (SRS) program enables Harvard undergraduate and graduate students to work as researchers in support of Radcliffe’s Exploratory Seminars and Accelerator Workshops, which are led by Harvard faculty and/or Radcliffe fellows.

These are short-term, project-based roles where SRS students contribute to preparing materials in the lead-up to the programs and to post-program outputs—such as publications, research projects, or other deliverables.

More on Student Research Supporters Gain Leadership Experience and Training Student Advisory Board (SAB) members shape student-related programs and experiences and represent the Institute at their respective schools and departments.

Through interdisciplinary and engaged work, SAB members collaborate with students across Harvard schools, departments, and classes to shape and share Radcliffe resources and opportunities with other Harvard students. The SAB is open to Harvard undergraduate and graduate students. More on the Student Advisory Board Harvard Radcliffe Institute has been a huge part of my College experience.

I first started working there as a research assistant to a fellow who was studying NOW [the National Organization for Women]. Then I was on the student advisory board, and now I’m working with Emerging Leaders. It’s a wonderful way to work with the Institute outside the realm of research, and it feels really good to be giving back to the wider community.

Former Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program mentor More on the Emerging Leaders Program Being a part of Harvard Radcliffe Institute has been one of the defining moments in my Harvard journey. Being a part of the Student Advisory Board has provided me the opportunity to step outside my own box and helped me become a better leader in the process.

When students from across multiple disciplines come together to share ideas over coffee and conversation, brilliant ideas are born. Student Advisory Board member More on the Student Advisory Board Working at Radcliffe is a great way to build research skills and meaningful relationships. I think that's the most important part of this, building these relationships that hopefully you'll take with you even when you leave Harvard.

Schlesinger Library curatorial assistant and former Radcliffe Research Partner More on the Radcliffe Research Partnership program I loved the idea that Harvard Radcliffe Institute—with its mission and legacy and the resources collected in the Schlesinger Library—was experimenting with new programs and trying to rethink how it can bridge different communities.

Former Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program mentor More on the Radcliffe Emerging Leaders Program Study in Radcliffe’s Community Spaces Radcliffe has multiple spaces on campus for students to study, socialize, take a break, and caffeinate! Learn more about Radcliffe Community Spaces Find Student Employment at Radcliffe Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s work spans all disciplines and professions.

The Institute provides invaluable support to scholars and students pursuing pathbreaking research and creative projects, including Radcliffe fellows, participants in seminars and workshops, and those inspired by the Schlesinger Library’s rich collections. Harvard Radcliffe Institute also offers a wide range of events and exhibitions, which are free and open to the public.

These programs reflect our commitment to expanding access to the University and to supporting the robust exchange of ideas. More on Employment at Radcliffe Get the latest Radcliffe news delivered to your inbox.

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