‘He was surrounded by smart people’: academics in Epstein files

In August 2015, Jeffrey Epstein had dinner with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel at Baume Restaurant in California. Among the billionaires dining on the set tasting menu with optional wine pairing were Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Ed Boyden, and Joi Ito and Desiree Dudley, both formerly of the MIT Media Lab.

This particular gathering, a full seven years after the financier pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute, is representative of the kind of man revealed in the Epstein files – one deeply embedded within the academic community, despite his crimes.

Times Higher Education analysis of the Department of Justice files reveals that Epstein had a keen interest in academia, with associates of his regularly sharing articles about new research, science and even links about THE’s university rankings on occasion.

There is no suggestion that appearing in the documents implies any wrongdoing and many of those featured have denied any association with Epstein.

But the files show he cultivated personal connections with scholars even after he was charged with sex crimes.

John Brockman, an agent and founder of the Edge Foundation, which explores scientific and intellectual ideas, appears to have introduced Epstein to many people in scholarly circles.

And Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert is viewed as one of the instigators of the highly profitable subscription-based academic journal publishing model, is also known to have introduced him to other academics.

Featured in the files are Geoffrey West, a British theoretical physicist and former president and distinguished professor at the Santa Fe Institute, who agreed to meet Epstein at his New Mexico ranch in 2012.

Stephen Kosslyn, professor emeritus at Harvard University, visited him in jail in 2008 and met with him frequently. Renowned British neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick tried to tempt Epstein to the Scottish Highlands in 2017. Harvard physicist Lisa Randall flew on Epstein’s private jet to his notorious island in 2014. She has said she deeply regrets maintaining contact.

Although he “cannot remember” if he spent a night on the island, Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, ended one email to the sex offender with “Miss you” in 2013. Epstein helped get Woody Allen’s daughter into Bard College, the emails also show. Botstein has said that his contact with Epstein was “always and only for the sole purpose of soliciting donations for the college”.

He was close to wealthy donors such as philanthropist Mortimer Zuckerman, who has funded many projects at universities, as well as being a regular confidant of Deepak Chopra, and friends with Noam Chomsky. Both have admitted “errors in judgement” but stressed they were never involved in or witnessed inappropriate behaviour.

Marci Hamilton, professor of practice in political science at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of a non-profit to prevent child abuse, said Epstein’s “ego” led him to believe that this arena was where he belonged.

“He would hold conversations with scientists at length about their theories and then his theories and his questions about their theories.

“He really was persuaded that he was brilliant and on par with the smartest people and so he surrounded himself with people that he thought reflected his own intellect.”

Often the correspondence was about academic work – including with Nicholas Christakis, professor of social and natural science at Yale University – but occasionally had a darker side.

Former Stanford University human biology professor Nathan Wolfe discussed plans for research into sexual behaviour with Epstein, along with “hottie interns”.

Hamilton said the “extremely charming” Epstein was unusual as a donor in that he wasn’t “hands off”.

“He would call them and ask them scientific questions and treat them as his peer and expect them to treat him as a peer.

“He was one of these people that just could be chummy with everybody, and this was just another part of elite society that he could wrap himself in to keep the sex trafficking ring going.”

Several people at Columbia University lost their jobs after Epstein used his influence to get his girlfriend into the dental school, as have academics at several other institutions.

Although Ito stepped down from his MIT role in 2019 over his links to Epstein, he is now president of Chiba Institute of Technology. Many with close ties to the disgraced financier are still in position and some new links are still coming to light.

Christian Stohler, former dean of the Columbia College of Dental Medicine, wrote to Epstein in 2013 that it was “most enjoyable for me to get to know you” and praised him as “well fo=nded [sic] in a host of topics”. In 2016, he tried to add Epstein on LinkedIn. Stohler did not respond to requests for comment.

The files released by the Department of Justice also reveal Epstein’s plans to meet many academics – including on his frequent trips to Harvard. In April 2014, he agreed to see Andrew Strominger, professor of physics, and Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological sciences, on the same afternoon. 

After Epstein cancelled, Lieberman denied to THE ever meeting him and said he had “no memory of an email” agreeing to it.

On other relationships, the often heavily redacted files are more vague around whether emails led to meetings or funding. Stephen Greenblatt, professor of the humanities at Harvard, corresponded with Epstein’s former assistant Lesley Groff about a workshop that Epstein wanted to attend.

Ian Osborne, described as Epstein’s “fixer” to the rich and powerful, tried to arrange a meeting with British historian Niall Ferguson in April 2012.

“Niall Ferguson isn’t available today, but I will arrange a date to meet =t your house in New York when you will be in town the first week of =ay,” said Osborne. In another email from 2012, Osborne said Ferguson “owes me $100 from my bet with him in Aspen”.

Ferguson, a Harvard professor, and many other academics were scheduled to appear at a “Dialog Retreat” organised by Thiel in 2013 alongside Epstein, according to emails. The “two-day bipartisan retreat discussing how to change the world” in Utah was limited to 150 participants only and “100% off-the-record”.

Many of Epstein’s links to Harvard appear to have come through Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at the university, and his institute. Nowak appears more than 8,000 times in the Epstein files.

In one email in 2015, Epstein expressed his excitement to have dinner at the institute with Nowak, Chomsky and “all the boys”. In 2017, when it was revealed that Drew Faust was stepping down as Harvard president, Nowak asked Epstein if he could “bring [Larry] summers back”. Last year Summers, a former Treasury secretary and Harvard president, was forced to take leave from the university over his ties to Epstein.

Epstein’s money was obviously important. Joscha Bach, a well-known German AI researcher, received more than a million dollars from Epstein, according to Der Spiegel. He appeared to help fund a conference organised by Italian psychiatrist Giuseppe Bersani in Cuba in 2017.

And he was asked by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio to help fund robotics neuroscience at the University of Southern California, and by Mark Tramo, adjunct professor of neurology at UCLA, for a $500,000 donation towards his research. He has said he only received a fraction of the money, and regrets having anything to do with Epstein.

Shamus Khan, professor of sociology and American studies at Princeton University, said academia is a hugely status-oriented and hierarchical field.

“Resources provided for influence can considerably influence research output and status. Epstein likely recognised this and exploited it.

“Faculty, obsessed with their own status and power, chose to ignore what they should not have. I’m glad they are now experiencing the consequences of this.”

Joanna Bryson, professor at the Hertie School in Germany, said Harvard, where Epstein once had an office, MIT and Columbia University appear so frequently in the files because he was attracted to them as the most famous and influential institutions.

Although the prospect of money was a big factor, Bryson said it was not the only draw for some of these academics.

“When you have so much wealth, it just becomes an attractor, and then everybody wants to talk to the other smart people and be in the cool crowd.”

Zuckerman invited Epstein to a dinner at his home in 2013 with then-president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger.

Bollinger told THE that although they never met, he believes Epstein’s connections to the academics at the university was simply one source of his “accumulation of power”.

“He wanted access to people in every sector and that this was a base of power for him that he could use for his nefarious ends.”

Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist who communicated and met regularly with Epstein, has hit out at how the “moral panic” and “feeding frenzy” around the files was inflicting needless damage on higher education.

“Between his 2009 release and his 2019 arrest, it wasn’t obvious to us that it was bad for society for him to be allowed to contribute to philanthropy,” he writes in an op-ed for Quillette. 

Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while being held on sex trafficking charges. Hamilton said it was a scandal that so many within academia continued to associate with him until just a few years before his death.

Jason Locasale, a former tenured pharmacology professor at Duke University, said the affair revealed how money and influence are often put before principles. 

“Universities and their academics saw his wealth and connections as useful and prestigious – a pathway to money and access to powerful networks. Association with him was treated as a status signal because of his perceived wealth and power.

“This case made front-page headlines, so we all saw it. The larger question is how often similar compromises occur quietly inside universities, without public scrutiny.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com