Anne Robertson Selected as 2024-2025 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow

Harvard Radcliffe Institute is pleased to announce the selection of Anne Robertson as a fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year.

A yearlong Radcliffe fellowship provides the rare opportunity to intensely pursue ambitious projects in the unique environment of the Institute. Each fellowship class is drawn from some of the most thoughtful and exciting contemporary scholars in the humanities, science, social sciences, and arts – along with writers, journalists, playwrights, and other distinguished professionals. For this year’s historic 25th anniversary class, Radcliffe accepted just 3.3 percent of applicants.

Robertson, Distinguished Service Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, will delve into fundamental inquiries concerning the mechanical functions of various vascular calcification phenotypes and explore how this understanding can enhance medical approaches to diseases that affect brain arteries.

“As a former fellow and dean of the Institute, I know firsthand the impact that a Radcliffe fellowship can have. In the current moment, I have never felt more certain that Radcliffe’s approach—its embrace of interdisciplinary research and discourse across difference—is crucial to generating transformative art, scholarship, and writing” said Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “This talented class of fellows promises to do great things that will deeply impact how we live in today’s world.”

This year’s Radcliffe fellows will be part of a unique disciplinary and creative community that will step away from routines to tackle projects that they have long wished to move forward. Throughout the academic year, fellows convene regularly to share their work in progress with the community and public. With access to Harvard’s unparalleled resources, Radcliffe fellows develop new tools and methods, challenge artistic and scholarly conventions, and illuminate past, present, and future. Alumni are quick to say it was the best year of their career.

“This program provides a unique opportunity to immerse myself in a vibrant community of scholars with diverse expertise that extends beyond engineering,” Robertson said. “It's an opportunity I never previously imagined would be possible. I am extremely excited to spend a full academic year pursuing new research directions in soft tissue biomechanics, including collaborations with scientific leaders at Harvard, such as Elena Aikawa, co-director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Sciences and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. 

"I am deeply grateful for the support from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, my department and the Swanson School of Engineering for making this possible.”

The full list of the 2024-2025 cadre of fellows is online here.