Message from the Executive Director

Through the hustle and bustle of a busy semester, the throughline at Weatherhead has been our continued commitment to modeling civil discourse and debate. We continued our online forum series on Israel/Palestine, focusing on topics such as scenarios for peace, broader geopolitical ramifications, a philosophical dialogue, and peace activism. The series was covered extensively in the Harvard Gazette, as well as in the Harvard Crimson and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Time and again we heard that the Weatherhead Center is seen as a leader on campus by modeling measured discussions on current events with the same spirit of thoroughness and inquiry that undergirds our approach to tackling complex global issues. 

These efforts culminated with an in-person event on May 1 in Tsai Auditorium, as part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Civil Discourse Initiative and in collaboration with five other centers at Harvard. “Pernicious Prejudice: Scholarly Approaches to Antisemitism and Islamophobia” featured four leading social scientists in conversation with Faculty Director Melani Cammett on the conceptualization, measurement, and study of key forms of prejudice in the US context. 

Another major area of focus for our Center this semester was climate change. On the heels of Earth Day and before Harvard’s second annual Climate Action Week, we share with you two feature articles addressing climate from different angles. Our first feature, “Commodifying the Desert,” looks at the colonial history behind Morocco’s trailblazing status in the renewable energy sector. Our second feature spotlights our interview with Michael Hiscox, director of the Sustainability Transparency Accountability Research (STAR) Lab, our newest research group that collaborates with companies that tackle social or environmental problems. 

Other Weatherhead activities bolster our work on climate and the environment. Our research cluster on climate change hosted a successful conference on the Climate Pipeline Project in late April. We partnered with Class Act HR73 and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability to host the daylong symposium on "Climate Change, Public-Private Partnerships, and Social Equity: Lessons from Bangladesh" (the conference videos are available on the Class Act YouTube channel). Careful readers will spot several climate-related awards in our “Of Note” section, and a new book on veganism and the future of food in our “New Books” section.

In staffing news, we welcomed a new director of the Weatherhead Scholars Program, Walid Hammam, who joined us from Columbia University. I’d also like to recognize my colleague Shinju Fujihira in the Program on US-Japan Relations, who will receive a Harvard Hero award this June. This University-wide award recognizes Harvard staff who work at the highest levels of excellence. Finally, we bid farewell to Faculty Associate Jeffry Frieden, who will join Columbia University this fall. Professor Frieden served as interim director of the Weatherhead Center on multiple occasions over the past two-and-a-half decades, and we thank him for being such a beloved member of our community. 

I look forward to welcoming new and returning affiliates to the Weatherhead Center in the fall, and in the meantime I wish everyone a wonderful summer.

Erin Goodman
Executive Director