Radcliffe Moments Past, Present, and Future

The Radcliffe Wave is an enormous star-forming structure (9,000 light years long) that defines the shape of the Milky Way. Its discovery at Radcliffe dramatically changed scientists’ understanding of the galaxy that we call home, and it remains one of the Institute’s most defining collaborations.

Before the new field of neuroaesthetics flourished, a physicist and a dancer led scientists across disciplines in seminars that explored the effects of natural movements on the human mind, body, and soul. Fifteen years later, they’re still inspired by their collaboration.

Four years after a fellowship supported an author in writing a biography of the first woman to play Negro League baseball, a Radcliffe workshop allowed her to collaborate with another Radcliffe fellow in adapting the book for the stage. Toni Stone premiered off-Broadway in 2019.

The award-winning playwright Shaina Taub turned to Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library, its expert staff, and its vast collection on the woman’s suffrage movement to research her Broadway musical Suffs. In 2024, Suffs—starring Taub as the suffragist Alice Paul—won Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

Three Radcliffe fellows came together around a common interest in decoding whale communication using machine learning. The result is Project CETI, a bold nonprofit whose mission is to translate what sperm whales are saying.

In 2011, Devi Lockwood ’14, a Harvard sophomore, received a Schlesinger Library grant to support research on 13 poets whose papers are housed there. As Lockwood later wrote about her research, “I started alphabetically: Brooks, Cora. I never made it to the others”—so began a friendship that spanned the archives and generations.

The seeds of future Radcliffe Moments are being sown through Radcliffe’s Emerging Leaders Program (ELP), which pairs Harvard undergraduates with local high school students to expand limited notions of leadership and build critical skills to drive social change.

The impacts of climate change are catastrophic, yet scientists have found it challenging to communicate its urgency and complexity to the public using data alone. Three fellows explore how conveying data using music and visuals might spur action.

In 2015, the astrophysicist Merav Opher challenged a long-held idea about the shape of the heliosphere. As a fellow at Radcliffe, Opher continued her “disruptive” research, leading to another revelation about the heliosphere that made international news.

An experimental physicist and a novelist met during their Radcliffe fellowship, became best friends, and are now coteaching Thinking through Writing: Science Themes. This Harvard course reimagines the traditional writing workshop as a class open to all students, regardless of discipline or experience.