Harvard appoints four University Professors

Catherine Dulac, Noah Feldman, Claudia Goldin, and Cumrun Vafa were recognized with appointments as University Professors, the highest distinction a faculty member can receive at the University. The title was created in 1935 to honor individuals whose groundbreaking work crosses the boundaries of multiple disciplines, allowing them to pursue research at any of Harvard’s Schools.

“University Professors embody the academic excellence that Harvard seeks to nurture in every generation,” said President Alan M. Garber. “Catherine, Claudia, Noah, and Cumrun are outstanding colleagues and superb University citizens. They represent not only the potential of individual scholars but also the timelessness of our mission to expand the frontiers of knowledge for the benefit of humanity. It is an honor to acknowledge their achievements and to celebrate their contributions to academia and to our community.”

• Dulac, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who was most recently the Samuel W. Morris University Professor, will now be the Xander University Professor. The professorship was created for “an eminent scholar whose work focuses on new or emerging areas of scientific inquiry, especially areas at the intersection or interstices of existing scientific disciplines and fields.” Dulac succeeds Douglas Melton, who remains at Harvard as Catalyst Professor.
• Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, chair of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, has been named the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor. The appointment honors a scholar in the humanities.
• Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics and the Lee and Ezpeleta Professor of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed the Samuel W. Morris University Professor. The professorship was established to support a faculty member in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
• Vafa, the Hollis Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy and chair of the Department of Physics, has been appointed the Timken University Professor. The appointment was established to honor a distinguished scholar in any field of science.

“These four appointments represent the extraordinary breadth of excellence across our University,” said Harvard University Provost John F. Manning. “Not only are they great scholars and teachers, they are also extraordinary institutional contributors.”

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“It is a great honor to be named the Xander University Professor, and I wish to express my deep gratitude for this distinction and for the recognition of the research in my group,” Dulac said. “I feel extremely fortunate to be a faculty at Harvard and have the chance to interact daily with so many highly talented students, amazing lab members, and inspiring staff and colleagues, while fulfilling our scientific and teaching mission.”

Dulac has spent nearly two decades at Harvard working to expand the understanding of the neural processes underlying instinctive social behaviors, a set of brain functions that are typically impaired in mental illness. These functions include parental care and the brain’s responses to sickness and social isolation.

She has long been driven by a deep fascination with the interplay between social interactions and the human brain. In 2021, Dulac was awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her research, which identified the neuronal circuits that control these behaviors and questioned the long-held belief that different circuits develop in male and female brains.

Dulac also started investigating social isolation and its effects on the brain in a new project that became particularly relevant during the pandemic. Her research indicates that the need for social connection has similar neural circuitry as physiological needs, such as those for food, water, and sleep.

In addition to the Breakthrough Prize, Dulac has received the 2006 Richard Lounsbery Award and the 2015 National Academy of Sciences’ Pradel Research Award.

She is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the French Academie des Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, she is an officer of the French Legion d’Honneur.

Dulac graduated from École Normale Supérieure in Paris and received her Ph.D. from the University of Paris VI at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Embryology of the College de France.

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Feldman is a constitutional scholar whose work uses history, philosophy, literature, and religious studies to shed light on how we form and sustain communities in keeping with our values.

A prolific author, Feldman has written 10 books, including an ongoing series that traces the history of American constitutional ideas through the major figures who shaped them and another sequence on the trajectory of contemporary Islamic political thought.

“I’m deeply moved by this honor,” Feldman said. “I’m working on a book about the importance of being human in an age of artificial intelligence, so it is especially meaningful to hold a chair associated with humanistic study.”

Since 2020, Feldman has chaired Harvard’s Society of Fellows, the oldest and most eminent postdoctoral program in the U.S., which draws scholars from all disciplines. He was a junior fellow of the Society from 1998 to 2001 and became a senior fellow in 2010.

At Harvard Law School, Feldman is founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program, which strives “to present the full range of opinion and critique, internal and external, consistent always with the academic values of civility, openness, and mutual respect.”

In 2024, Feldman co-chaired the University’s Institutional Voice Working Group, which issued a report on official University statements about social and political matters.

“The main point of the report is that the University’s leadership can and should speak out on anything relevant to the core function of the University, which is creating an environment suitable for free, open inquiry, teaching, and research,” Feldman said at the time of the report’s release. “At the same time, the University as an institution should not make official statements on issues outside its core function.”

Feldman received his A.B. from Harvard summa cum laude, finishing first in his class. He earned his D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and J.D. from Yale Law School, after which he clerked for Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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A pioneer in the field of economic history, Goldin has explored women’s job market outcomes, their experiences balancing career and family, educational change, and the gender earnings gap across U.S. history.

In 2023, Goldin was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes.”

After winning the prize, Goldin explained why she chose her area of study.

“When I first started working on this subject, I realized that most economic historians were studying child labor, or they were studying the labor of men,” she said. “But they didn’t really know what women were doing. And so that’s what I worked on.”

Goldin is known for her dedication to her students. The day after her Nobel win, she kept previously scheduled meetings, staying late at the office in Littauer Center with her “muses.”

Goldin is currently co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Gender in the Economy group and is a member of various academies and societies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Society of Labor Economists.

She received the 2019 BBVA Frontiers in Knowledge Award, the IZA Prize in Labor Economics in 2016, and the Mincer Prize in Labor Economics in 2009.

“The Race between Education and Technology,” a book by Goldin and Lawrence Katz, the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, was awarded the 2008 R.R. Hawkins Award. Goldin’s most recent book, “Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity,” has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Goldin received her B.A. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

As a University Professor, Goldin will explore the expansion of women’s rights, the tensions between traditionalists and feminists, and why rights in the U.S. have increased but caregiving benefits have not kept up.

“I am deeply honored and thank President Garber for this unique opportunity,” Goldin said. “I look forward to creating a course to introduce our undergraduates to the cross-disciplinary insights of economic history that will reflect the true meaning of being a University Professor.”

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A prominent theoretical physicist, Vafa’s mathematical creativity has redefined modern theoretical physics and deeply influenced the fields of string theory, quantum gravity, and mathematical physics. His extensive achievements include developing topological string theory, uncovering holographic aspects of black holes, and formulating observable implications of string theory in cosmology and particle physics.

Vafa has also deepened the understanding of duality — showing how distinct theories can describe the same phenomena — through seminal work that yielded the Strominger-Vafa explanation of black hole entropy and the Gopakumar-Vafa invariants linking physics and enumerative geometry.

More recently, his leadership in the Swampland Initiative yielded predictive models for dark energy and dark matter, offering one of the most coherent theoretical frameworks consistent with the latest cosmological observations.

“It is truly humbling to receive this news,” said Vafa. “Every day at Harvard, I’m reminded that I am simply one faculty member among so many extraordinary colleagues, remarkable students, and dedicated staff.”

Vafa earned his B.S. in math and physics at MIT and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Princeton. He joined Harvard as a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows and became a faculty member in 1988. Vafa has been honored with the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the 2013 Physics Frontiers Prize.

“I was born in Iran, the home of many eminent scientists and mathematicians. In my pursuit of science, I was inspired by their legacy,” Vafa said when accepting the Frontiers Prize. “I view science as a timeless, borderless adventure where everyone can participate, and it can bring out the best in humanity.”

Vafa also received the Dirac Medal of International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 2008, the 2016 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, and an Honorary Doctors Appointment at Uppsala University in 2019. In addition, he was honored with the 2017 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which “celebrates inspiring Americans who are selflessly working for the betterment of our country and its citizens.”

Vafa is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.