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V DEVELOPMENT NEWS Radcliffe on the Road V Events Online
to tenured professor of law at Harvard Law
School, where he is also a codirector of the
Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy,
Biotechnology, and Bioethics. He is one of the
world’s leading experts on the intersection of
bioethics and the law and on health law.
Jacqueline Bhabha is the Jeremiah Smith
Jr. Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School,
the director of research at the Harvard School
of Public Health’s François-Xavier Bagnoud
Center for Health and Human Rights, and an
adjunct lecturer on public policy at Harvard
Kennedy School. She is also the advisor on
human rights education to the provost of
Harvard University.
The Universe: Past,
Present, and Future
new york city
feryal özel phd ’02, ri ’13 and paul steinhardt
am ’75, phd ’78, ri ’13 gave a tour of
the universe’s history. The big bang, marking
the beginning of the universe, is thought to
have occurred about 14 billion years ago. Özel
focused on the period of star and galaxy formation,
from six million to nine billion years
ago, and Steinhardt discussed the earlier and
later periods.
Özel showed simulations—created by her
team at the University of Arizona—of how
galaxies form, a process about which scientists
have a good understanding. Steinhardt
discussed why the period of galaxy formation
came to an end. “What happened is that a
new form of energy overtook the universe,” he
said. Dark matter and ordinary matter (which
we’re made of) self-attract, but dark
energy pushes away from other bits of
energy. About 15 years ago, scientists discovered
that most energy does the same
thing. “We are the minority,” he said.
“Seventy percent of the stuff in the uni-
verse gravitationally repels.” This helps
“promote the expansion of the universe,
causing it to speed up in its expansion,
whereas if the universe were composed
mostly of us and dark matter, you’d have
the opposite effect. The universe would
have been slowing down in its expansion.”
When dark energy took over, about four
billion years ago, matter couldn’t cluster
fast enough to form any more galaxies.
Özel is an associate professor of
astronomy and astrophysics at the University
of Arizona. Steinhardt—who held
the Lillian Gollay Knafel Fellowship at the
Radcliffe Institute—is a theoretical physicist
whose research ranges from the origin, evolution,
and future of the universe to new states
of matter. He is the director of the Princeton
Center for Theoretical Science and the Albert
Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton
University, where he is also on the faculty of
the departments of physics and of astrophysical
sciences.
Transatlantic
Connections
london
Radcliffe on the Road held its fi
rst interna-
tional gathering in London in mid-June. Three
recent Radcliffe fellows whose work makes
connections with Great Britain or Europe met
with Radcliffe alumnae/i and friends at the
Royal Institution of Great Britain.
margot livsey ri ’13, who held an Evelyn
Green Davis Fellowship at Radcliffe, grew
up in a boys’ private school in the Scottish
Highlands and is the author of seven novels.
She discussed her work on a novel set in New
England. stephen mann ri ’12, a professor
of chemistry and a principal of the Bristol
Centre for Functional Nanomaterials at the
University of Bristol, talked about working in
transatlantic scientific communities. He was
Radcliffe’s Lillian Gollay Knafel Fellow. diane
mcwhorter ri ’12 discussed her work on one
of World War II’s most famous Nazi rocket
scientists and his ultimate rise to fame in the
US space program. McWhorter held a Mildred
Londa Weisman Fellowship at Radcliffe.
3 Author Diane McWhorter, left,
spoke about her book in progress,
while Leah Joy Zell ’71, AM ’72,
PhD ’79 introduced Dean Lizabeth
CHRIS GLOAG
Anson Chan:
Charting a Course
Toward Democracy
The director John Tiffany RI ’11
discussed The Glass Menagerie with
the A.R.T.’s artistic director, Diane
Paulus ’88, while Dean Lizabeth
Cohen moderated.
→ to read about their conversation,
visit www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/
news/in-news/director-john-tiffany-
talks-about-artistic-process.
Known for her
outspoken
commitment to
democracy, Anson
Chan, a former
chief secretary for
administration of the Hong Kong
special administrative region, noted
that relations between the United
States and China are deepening.
→ to watch the video, visit www.
radcliffe.harvard.edu/video/my-
country-my-hopes.
→ to read coverage, visit www.
radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/in-news/
anson-chan-charting-course-towarddemocracy.
TONY RINALDO
Save the Date
“Jane Franklin’s
Spectacles, or the
Education of Benjamin
Franklin’s Sister”
Lecture by Jill
Lepore BI ’00, the
David Woods Kemper
’41 Professor of
American History,
Harvard College Professor, chair of
History and Literature Program, and
staff writer at the New Yorker
Sept. 10, 5 PM, Sheerr Room, Fay
House
34 radcliffe magazine Summer 2013