Paul Doty is seen standing by his founder’s photo in the Belfer Center hallway during a 2005 gathering. Doty founded what is now the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1974.

Courtesy of Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Campus & Community

Paul Doty, 91, founder of Belfer Center

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‘A lifelong peacemaker, building bridges between Soviet and American scientists’

Paul Doty, the founder of Harvard Kennedy School‘s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, died Dec. 5 at the age of 91.

Graham Allison, former dean of the Kennedy School and director of the Belfer Center, advised colleagues of Doty’s passing: “Paul was a great man who had a great life and who made huge contributions to many of us personally, to the institutions of which we are a part, and to the purposes we care about. As we celebrated his 90th birthday in June 2010 I noted that he was a ‘serial institutional builder,’ having ‘entrepreneured’ not only today’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, but prior to that Harvard’s biochemistry department. Paul was a lifelong peacemaker, building bridges between Soviet and American scientists and promoting nuclear disarmament since the 1950s — work that helped the Pugwash Conferences earn the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.”

To learn more about Doty’s work and read his full obituary, visit the Belfer Center website.