Reconnect with friends, colleagues, and mentors at Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day. This annual event brings alumni, faculty, students, and friends together to take part in conversations with some of the world’s leading scholars, engage with alumni across the disciplines, and hear from Dean Emma Dench about the future of graduate education. In between the talks and activities, network with your fellow alumni and recapture the magic of being back on campus with friends old and new.
Registration Fees
Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni and Guests: $65
Recent Harvard Griffin GSAS Graduate ('18-'22): $25
2023 Harvard Griffin GSAS Graduate: Free
Advanced registration required by April 2. Registration is closed.
Schedule
Friday, April 5
6:00 p.m.
(Optional) Networking, Cocktail Reception, and Dinner*
10th Floor, Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
*Additional $30 fee
Saturday, April 6
8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Check-In and Registration
Emerson Hall Lobby, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
8:30 a.m.–9:30 a.m.
Breakfast Reception
Reading Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
9:45 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
Welcome and Conversation with the Dean
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Emma Dench, dean of the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics
John J. Moon, AB ’89, PhD ’94, Graduate School Alumni Association Council chair
10:30 a.m.–11:45 a.m.
Keynote Address
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Thomas Kane, PhD ’91, faculty director for the Center for Education Policy Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
In the wake of the pandemic, many US school districts are struggling to catch up. Achievement gaps—already wide before the pandemic—have widened. This talk will explore the evidence on what’s working and what’s not and the need for continued efforts to make students whole following the pandemic disruptions.
11:45 a.m.
Celebrating Milestone Anniversaries
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Honoring alumni celebrating 50, 25, or 10 years since their graduation from Harvard Griffin GSAS.
Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club
Main Dining Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Afternoon Sessions with Harvard Faculty and Harvard Griffin GSAS alumni
1:45 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
Reducing Methane Emissions to the Atmosphere
Emerson Hall, Room 101, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Steven C. Wofsy, PhD ’71, Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science
Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and Director of Center for History and Economics
Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere have tripled since pre-industrial time, contributing to human-caused warming of the climate. This talk will introduce MethaneSAT and MethaneAIR imaging spectrometers intended to observe methane emissions from the oil and gas value chain and other sources (landfills, intensive agriculture), with the goal to provide actionable data to mitigate methane emissions and slow climate warming.
Being, Training, and Employing Data Scientists: Wisdoms and Warnings from Harvard Data Science Review
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Xiao-Li Meng, PhD ’90, Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics and founding editor-in-chief of the Harvard Data Science Review
"What Does It Take to Be a Successful Data Scientist?" "Is Data Science Education a Jack of All Trades?" "How Can We Train Data Scientists When We Can’t Agree on Who They Are?" These thought-provoking questions are the titles of articles in Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR). This talk surveys and reflects on data science training, employment and deployment in the BIG (Business, Industry, and Government) world based on such articles, and many more.
3:15 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
War in Ukraine: Causes and Consequences
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Alexandra Vacroux, PhD ’05, executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
The full-scale war in Ukraine will be two years old in February, and the end is nowhere in sight. Why did the war start? What will be the long-term impact for Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world? This talk will cover what is happening on the ground and why it matters.
Narrating (Environ)mental Distress
Emerson Hall, Room 108, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Karen Thornber, PhD ’06, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Inspired by her work in environmental humanities, medical humanities, mental health, and indigeneity, Professor Thornber will explore the intersections of environmental health, climate change, mental health concerns, and inequality within and between nations globally.
4:45 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Closing Reception
Reading Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Speaker Biographies
In order of appearance
Emma Dench
Dean of the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics
Emma Dench was born in York, grew up near Stratford-Upon-Avon, and studied at Wadham College, Oxford (BA Hons Literae Humaniores), and at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford (DPhil in Ancient History). Before taking up a joint appointment in the Departments of the Classics and of History at Harvard in January 2007, she taught classics and ancient history at Birkbeck College, University of London. She has been a Craven Fellow at the University of Oxford, a Rome Scholar and a Hugh Last Fellow at the British School of Rome, a Cotton Fellow, a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a Visiting Professor of the Classics and of History at Harvard, and a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellow.
Dench is the author of From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples from the Central Apennines, Romulus’ Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian, and “Imperialism and Culture in the Roman World” for the Cambridge University Press series Key Themes in Ancient History. Other current projects include a study of the retrospective writing of the Roman Republican past in classical antiquity.
While at Harvard, Dench received a Harvard College Professorship in recognition of “outstanding contributions to undergraduate teaching, mentoring, and advising,” a Marquand Award for Excellent Advising and Counseling, and an Everett Mendelsohn.
John J. Moon, AB ’89, AM ’93, PhD ’94
Graduate School Alumni Association Council Chair
John Moon, AB ’89, AM ’93, PhD ’94, business economics, is managing director and head of Morgan Stanley Energy Partners. He served as a senior member of the Morgan Stanley Private Equity team from 1998–2004 and then rejoined Morgan Stanley in 2008 after serving as managing director of Riverstone Holdings LLC where he served on the investment committees of the Carlyle/Riverstone Global Energy and Power Funds. Prior to Riverstone, Moon was a founding partner and managing director of Metalmark Capital LLC. He currently chairs the investment committee of the North Haven Energy Capital Fund. He has also served as a member of the investment committees of several Morgan Stanley Capital Partners and Metalmark Capital Partners funds and on the boards of directors of a number of affiliated portfolio companies. Previously, Moon worked in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. He is also an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School.
Thomas Kane, PhD ’91
Faculty Director for the Center for Education Policy Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Thomas Kane is an economist and Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research, a university-wide research center that works with school districts and state agencies. Between 2009 and 2012, he directed the Measures of Effective Teaching project for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His work has spanned both K-12 and higher education, covering topics such as the design of school accountability systems, teacher evaluation, financial aid for college, race-conscious college admissions and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. From 1995 to 1996, Kane served as the senior economist for labor, education, and welfare policy issues within former President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. From 1991 through 2000, he was a faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government. Kane has also been a professor of public policy at UCLA and has held visiting fellowships at the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Steven C. Wofsy, PhD ’71
Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science
Steven C. Wofsy is professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Chemistry in the John A. Paulsen School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University. He has degrees in chemistry from University of Chicago (BS '66) and Harvard (PhD '71). His scientific work spans the broad range of processes affecting the chemistry of the atmosphere, including measurements and inverse modeling of emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from ground based, aircraft, and remote sensing measurements. The work spans spatial scales from ecosystems (30+ years at Harvard Forest) to regional and global remote sensing. His studies aim to understand underlying causes for changes in atmospheric composition in order to mitigate human impacts and to help provide scientific information for societal decisions. He is the science lead for the MethaneSAT (satellite) and MethaneAIR (aircraft) imaging spectrometers to measure methane emissions worldwide. Wofsy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Macelwane Award and the Revelle Medal of the American Geophysical Union as well as NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Emma Rothschild
Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and Director, Center for History and Economics
Emma Rothschild is Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University and director of the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard and the University of Cambridge and Sciences Po, Paris. She is the author of books Paradise Lost: the Decline of the Auto-Industrial Age (1973), Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment (2001), and An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries (2021). She coordinates the 1800 Histories of Methane project.
Xiao-Li Meng, PhD ’90
Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Data Science Review
Xiao-Li Meng, founding editor-in-chief of Harvard Data Science Review, and the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics, is well known for his depth and breadth in research, his innovation and passion in pedagogy, his vision and effectiveness in administration, and his engaging and entertaining style as a speaker and writer. Meng was named the best statistician under the age of 40 by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) in 2001, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his more than 150 publications in at least a dozen theoretical and methodological areas, including in areas of pedagogy and professional development. In 2020, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has delivered more than 400 research presentations and public speeches on these topics, and he is the author of “The XL-Files," a thought-provoking and entertaining column in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Bulletin. His interests range from the theoretical foundations of statistical inferences (e.g., the interplay among Bayesian, fiducial, and frequentist perspectives; frameworks for multi-source, multi-phase and multi-resolution inferences) to statistical methods and computation (e.g., posterior predictive p-value; expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm; Markov chain Monte Carlo; bridge and path sampling) to applications in natural, social, and medical sciences and engineering (e.g., complex statistical modeling in astronomy and astrophysics, assessing disparity in mental health services, and quantifying statistical information in genetic studies). Meng received his BS in mathematics from Fudan University in 1982 and his PhD in statistics from Harvard in 1990. He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago from 1991 to 2001 before returning to Harvard where he served as the chair of the Department of Statistics (2004–2012) and the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2012–2017).
Alexandra Vacroux, PhD ’05
Executive Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
Alexandra Vacroux is executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Her scholarly work addresses Russian and Eurasian policy issues including the war in Ukraine. As director of graduate studies for the Davis Center’s MA program in regional studies, she has mentored dozens of Harvard’s best and brightest students and regional experts. She also directs the Center's Scholars Without Borders program.
Vacroux lived in Moscow from 1992 to 2004 and was a consultant for the Russian Privatization Agency, partner and head of sales at the Brunswick Warburg investment bank, and an active member of the board of United Way Moscow. While completing her dissertation on corruption in Russian pharmaceutical markets, she was affiliated with the Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), a Russian think tank associated with the New Economic School. Prior to joining the Davis Center in 2010, Vacroux lived in Washington, DC, where she was a scholar at the Kennan Institute, part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Vacroux holds a PhD in government from Harvard University.
Karen Thornber, PhD ’06
Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
A 2006 PhD from Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literatures), Karen Thornber is a cultural historian and scholar of Asian literature and media working primarily in the fields of environmental humanities; medical and health humanities; gender justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and other forms of justice; and transculturation (e.g., translation studies, world literature, comparative literature). Thornber conducts research in more than a dozen Asian and European languages, modern and classical. In addition to publishing actively (6 single-author scholarly books, 80 scholarly articles/chapters, several (co)edited volumes, Japanese literature translation), Thornber has held a range of leadership and service positions at Harvard and beyond and taught, advised, and mentored graduate and undergraduate students from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
Parking
Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day attendees may park in the Broadway Garage located at 7 Felton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please inform the parking attendant that you are attending the Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day.
Hotels and Accommodations
The following hotels may offer Harvard-preferred rates. Please contact the hotel directly to coordinate your bookings.
Hotel Veritas
1 Remington St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-520-5000
Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Cambridge
120 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-349-0700
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville
515 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
Phone: 617-341-9040
Questions? Email gsaa@fas.harvard.edu.
Reconnect with friends, colleagues, and mentors at Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day. This annual event brings alumni, faculty, students, and friends together to take part in conversations with some of the world’s leading scholars, engage with alumni across the disciplines, and hear from Dean Emma Dench about the future of graduate education. In between the talks and activities, network with your fellow alumni and recapture the magic of being back on campus with friends old and new.
Registration Fees
Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni and Guests: $65
Recent Harvard Griffin GSAS Graduate ('18-'22): $25
2023 Harvard Griffin GSAS Graduate: Free
Advanced registration required by April 2. Registration is closed.
Schedule
Friday, April 5
6:00 p.m.
(Optional) Networking, Cocktail Reception, and Dinner*
10th Floor, Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
*Additional $30 fee
Saturday, April 6
8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Check-In and Registration
Emerson Hall Lobby, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
8:30 a.m.–9:30 a.m.
Breakfast Reception
Reading Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
9:45 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
Welcome and Conversation with the Dean
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Emma Dench, dean of the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics
John J. Moon, AB ’89, PhD ’94, Graduate School Alumni Association Council chair
10:30 a.m.–11:45 a.m.
Keynote Address
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Thomas Kane, PhD ’91, faculty director for the Center for Education Policy Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
In the wake of the pandemic, many US school districts are struggling to catch up. Achievement gaps—already wide before the pandemic—have widened. This talk will explore the evidence on what’s working and what’s not and the need for continued efforts to make students whole following the pandemic disruptions.
11:45 a.m.
Celebrating Milestone Anniversaries
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Honoring alumni celebrating 50, 25, or 10 years since their graduation from Harvard Griffin GSAS.
Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club
Main Dining Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Afternoon Sessions with Harvard Faculty and Harvard Griffin GSAS alumni
1:45 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
Reducing Methane Emissions to the Atmosphere
Emerson Hall, Room 101, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Steven C. Wofsy, PhD ’71, Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science
Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and Director of Center for History and Economics
Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere have tripled since pre-industrial time, contributing to human-caused warming of the climate. This talk will introduce MethaneSAT and MethaneAIR imaging spectrometers intended to observe methane emissions from the oil and gas value chain and other sources (landfills, intensive agriculture), with the goal to provide actionable data to mitigate methane emissions and slow climate warming.
Being, Training, and Employing Data Scientists: Wisdoms and Warnings from Harvard Data Science Review
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Xiao-Li Meng, PhD ’90, Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics and founding editor-in-chief of the Harvard Data Science Review
"What Does It Take to Be a Successful Data Scientist?" "Is Data Science Education a Jack of All Trades?" "How Can We Train Data Scientists When We Can’t Agree on Who They Are?" These thought-provoking questions are the titles of articles in Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR). This talk surveys and reflects on data science training, employment and deployment in the BIG (Business, Industry, and Government) world based on such articles, and many more.
3:15 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
War in Ukraine: Causes and Consequences
Emerson Hall, Room 105, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Alexandra Vacroux, PhD ’05, executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
The full-scale war in Ukraine will be two years old in February, and the end is nowhere in sight. Why did the war start? What will be the long-term impact for Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world? This talk will cover what is happening on the ground and why it matters.
Narrating (Environ)mental Distress
Emerson Hall, Room 108, 29 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Karen Thornber, PhD ’06, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Inspired by her work in environmental humanities, medical humanities, mental health, and indigeneity, Professor Thornber will explore the intersections of environmental health, climate change, mental health concerns, and inequality within and between nations globally.
4:45 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Closing Reception
Reading Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Speaker Biographies
In order of appearance
Emma Dench
Dean of the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics
Emma Dench was born in York, grew up near Stratford-Upon-Avon, and studied at Wadham College, Oxford (BA Hons Literae Humaniores), and at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford (DPhil in Ancient History). Before taking up a joint appointment in the Departments of the Classics and of History at Harvard in January 2007, she taught classics and ancient history at Birkbeck College, University of London. She has been a Craven Fellow at the University of Oxford, a Rome Scholar and a Hugh Last Fellow at the British School of Rome, a Cotton Fellow, a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a Visiting Professor of the Classics and of History at Harvard, and a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellow.
Dench is the author of From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples from the Central Apennines, Romulus’ Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian, and “Imperialism and Culture in the Roman World” for the Cambridge University Press series Key Themes in Ancient History. Other current projects include a study of the retrospective writing of the Roman Republican past in classical antiquity.
While at Harvard, Dench received a Harvard College Professorship in recognition of “outstanding contributions to undergraduate teaching, mentoring, and advising,” a Marquand Award for Excellent Advising and Counseling, and an Everett Mendelsohn.
John J. Moon, AB ’89, AM ’93, PhD ’94
Graduate School Alumni Association Council Chair
John Moon, AB ’89, AM ’93, PhD ’94, business economics, is managing director and head of Morgan Stanley Energy Partners. He served as a senior member of the Morgan Stanley Private Equity team from 1998–2004 and then rejoined Morgan Stanley in 2008 after serving as managing director of Riverstone Holdings LLC where he served on the investment committees of the Carlyle/Riverstone Global Energy and Power Funds. Prior to Riverstone, Moon was a founding partner and managing director of Metalmark Capital LLC. He currently chairs the investment committee of the North Haven Energy Capital Fund. He has also served as a member of the investment committees of several Morgan Stanley Capital Partners and Metalmark Capital Partners funds and on the boards of directors of a number of affiliated portfolio companies. Previously, Moon worked in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. He is also an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School.
Thomas Kane, PhD ’91
Faculty Director for the Center for Education Policy Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Thomas Kane is an economist and Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research, a university-wide research center that works with school districts and state agencies. Between 2009 and 2012, he directed the Measures of Effective Teaching project for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His work has spanned both K-12 and higher education, covering topics such as the design of school accountability systems, teacher evaluation, financial aid for college, race-conscious college admissions and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. From 1995 to 1996, Kane served as the senior economist for labor, education, and welfare policy issues within former President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. From 1991 through 2000, he was a faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government. Kane has also been a professor of public policy at UCLA and has held visiting fellowships at the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Steven C. Wofsy, PhD ’71
Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science
Steven C. Wofsy is professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Chemistry in the John A. Paulsen School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University. He has degrees in chemistry from University of Chicago (BS '66) and Harvard (PhD '71). His scientific work spans the broad range of processes affecting the chemistry of the atmosphere, including measurements and inverse modeling of emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from ground based, aircraft, and remote sensing measurements. The work spans spatial scales from ecosystems (30+ years at Harvard Forest) to regional and global remote sensing. His studies aim to understand underlying causes for changes in atmospheric composition in order to mitigate human impacts and to help provide scientific information for societal decisions. He is the science lead for the MethaneSAT (satellite) and MethaneAIR (aircraft) imaging spectrometers to measure methane emissions worldwide. Wofsy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Macelwane Award and the Revelle Medal of the American Geophysical Union as well as NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Emma Rothschild
Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and Director, Center for History and Economics
Emma Rothschild is Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University and director of the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard and the University of Cambridge and Sciences Po, Paris. She is the author of books Paradise Lost: the Decline of the Auto-Industrial Age (1973), Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment (2001), and An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries (2021). She coordinates the 1800 Histories of Methane project.
Xiao-Li Meng, PhD ’90
Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Data Science Review
Xiao-Li Meng, founding editor-in-chief of Harvard Data Science Review, and the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics, is well known for his depth and breadth in research, his innovation and passion in pedagogy, his vision and effectiveness in administration, and his engaging and entertaining style as a speaker and writer. Meng was named the best statistician under the age of 40 by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) in 2001, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his more than 150 publications in at least a dozen theoretical and methodological areas, including in areas of pedagogy and professional development. In 2020, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has delivered more than 400 research presentations and public speeches on these topics, and he is the author of “The XL-Files," a thought-provoking and entertaining column in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Bulletin. His interests range from the theoretical foundations of statistical inferences (e.g., the interplay among Bayesian, fiducial, and frequentist perspectives; frameworks for multi-source, multi-phase and multi-resolution inferences) to statistical methods and computation (e.g., posterior predictive p-value; expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm; Markov chain Monte Carlo; bridge and path sampling) to applications in natural, social, and medical sciences and engineering (e.g., complex statistical modeling in astronomy and astrophysics, assessing disparity in mental health services, and quantifying statistical information in genetic studies). Meng received his BS in mathematics from Fudan University in 1982 and his PhD in statistics from Harvard in 1990. He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago from 1991 to 2001 before returning to Harvard where he served as the chair of the Department of Statistics (2004–2012) and the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2012–2017).
Alexandra Vacroux, PhD ’05
Executive Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
Alexandra Vacroux is executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Her scholarly work addresses Russian and Eurasian policy issues including the war in Ukraine. As director of graduate studies for the Davis Center’s MA program in regional studies, she has mentored dozens of Harvard’s best and brightest students and regional experts. She also directs the Center's Scholars Without Borders program.
Vacroux lived in Moscow from 1992 to 2004 and was a consultant for the Russian Privatization Agency, partner and head of sales at the Brunswick Warburg investment bank, and an active member of the board of United Way Moscow. While completing her dissertation on corruption in Russian pharmaceutical markets, she was affiliated with the Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), a Russian think tank associated with the New Economic School. Prior to joining the Davis Center in 2010, Vacroux lived in Washington, DC, where she was a scholar at the Kennan Institute, part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Vacroux holds a PhD in government from Harvard University.
Karen Thornber, PhD ’06
Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
A 2006 PhD from Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literatures), Karen Thornber is a cultural historian and scholar of Asian literature and media working primarily in the fields of environmental humanities; medical and health humanities; gender justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and other forms of justice; and transculturation (e.g., translation studies, world literature, comparative literature). Thornber conducts research in more than a dozen Asian and European languages, modern and classical. In addition to publishing actively (6 single-author scholarly books, 80 scholarly articles/chapters, several (co)edited volumes, Japanese literature translation), Thornber has held a range of leadership and service positions at Harvard and beyond and taught, advised, and mentored graduate and undergraduate students from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences.
Parking
Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day attendees may park in the Broadway Garage located at 7 Felton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please inform the parking attendant that you are attending the Harvard Griffin GSAS Alumni Day.
Hotels and Accommodations
The following hotels may offer Harvard-preferred rates. Please contact the hotel directly to coordinate your bookings.
Hotel Veritas
1 Remington St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-520-5000
Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Cambridge
120 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-349-0700
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville
515 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
Phone: 617-341-9040
Questions? Email gsaa@fas.harvard.edu.