Past Harvard University Professors
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Cornel West
At Harvard University, the title of University Professor is an honor bestowed upon a very small number of its tenured faculty members whose scholarship and other professional work have attained particular distinction and influence. [1] The University Professorship is Harvard's most distinguished professorial post. [2]
This honor was created in 1935 for "individuals of distinction ... working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties." [1] The number of University Professors has increased with new endowed gifts to the university. In 2006, there were 21 University Professors. [3] As of 2020 [update] , there are 25 University Professors. [4]
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Cornel West
Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States and among the most prestigious in the country.
Stephen Jay Greenblatt is an American Shakespearean, literary historian, and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare (2015) and the general editor and a contributor to The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
James Bryant Conant was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. During World War I he served in the U.S. Army, working on the development of poison gases, especially Lewisite. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919 and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of natural products, particularly chlorophyll, and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between chemical equilibrium and the reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia, helped to explain the structure of chlorophyll, and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry.
Cass Robert Sunstein is an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics. He is also The New York Times best-selling author of The World According to Star Wars (2016) and Nudge (2008). He was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.
Noam David Elkies is an American mathematician and professor of mathematics at Harvard University. At the age of 26, he became the youngest professor to receive tenure at Harvard. He is also a chess national master and a chess composer.
Marc Wallace Kirschner is an American cell biologist and biochemist and the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is known for major discoveries in cell and developmental biology related to the dynamics and function of the cytoskeleton, the regulation of the cell cycle, and the process of signaling in embryos, as well as the evolution of the vertebrate body plan. He is a leader in applying mathematical approaches to biology. He is the John Franklin Enders University Professor at Harvard University. In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Helen Hennessy Vendler is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University.
George McClelland Whitesides is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology. A prolific author and patent holder who has received many awards, he received the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists in 2011.
Charles M. Lieber is an American chemist, pioneer in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and a convicted felon. In 2011, Lieber was named the leading chemist in the world for the decade 2000–2010 by Thomson Reuters, based on the impact of his scientific publications. He is known for his contributions to the synthesis, assembly and characterization of nanoscale materials and nanodevices, the application of nanoelectronic devices in biology, and as a mentor to numerous leaders in nanoscience.
The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figures and scholars in the arts, including painting, architecture, and music deliver customarily six lectures. The lectures are usually dated by the academic year in which they are given, though sometimes by just the calendar year.
Irwin Ira Shapiro is an American astrophysicist and Timken University Professor at Harvard University. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982. He was the director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1982 to 2004.
The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering and applied sciences. Previously the Lawrence Scientific School and then the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the School assumed its current structure in 2007. Francis J. Doyle III has been the School's dean since 2015.
Eric Stark Maskin is an American economist and 2007 Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He is the Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University.
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world.
Carolyn Abbate is an American musicologist, described by the Harvard Gazette as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. From her earliest essays she has questioned familiar approaches to well-known works, reaching beyond their printed scores and composer intentions, to explore the particular, physical impact of the medium upon performer and audience alike. Her research focuses primarily on the operatic repertory of the 19th century, offering creative and innovative approaches to understanding these works critically and historically. Some of her more recent work has addressed topics such as film studies and performance studies more generally.
Danielle Susan Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. Currently on public service leave from the university, she is also on leave from her role as the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 2015, Allen was UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Allen is the daughter of political scientist William B. Allen.
This outline is provided as an overview of, and topical guide to Harvard University:
Harvard University celebrated the 300th anniversary of its founding in 1936 with elaborate festivities, hosting tens of thousands of alumni, dignitaries, and representatives of institutions of learning and scholarship from around the world.
Michelle Ann Williams is a Jamaican-American epidemiologist serving as the dean of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
The Samuel Zemurray, Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor is the first endowed chair at Harvard University created specifically to be filled by a woman.