Welcoming the Belfer Center Community Back to Campus, Fall 2026

Dear Members of the Belfer Community and Friends of the Center,

As we begin a new academic year at Harvard Kennedy School, the Belfer Center is once again alive with the energy of new and returning students, faculty, fellows, and staff. Their arrival is a welcome reminder of what makes this community so special: bringing together people with different expertise, experiences, and perspectives to grapple with some of the world’s most consequential challenges.

Each year brings both the familiar and the new. I am pleased that our halls this year are filled with the largest-ever class of Kennedy School students, fortified by the first cohort of American Service Fellows, a new program for those with backgrounds in many forms of military or civilian service. We also have an extraordinary group of new faculty members, fellows, and research fellows in programs and projects across the Belfer Center. And our intellectual community must grapple with issues that were not on our agenda last year at this time, including the conflict with Iran, the evolving U.S. relationship with Venezuela, and the newest milestones achieved by AI. 

At the same time, we see many familiar faces as we begin the year. We also continue to confront issues that have long animated the Center’s work and impact, from great power competition to nuclear risks, from the Middle East to the Arctic, from applied history to frontier technologies. And as we have for more than 50 years, the Center is excelling by leveraging our interdisciplinary focus to conduct scholarship and training that cut across the traditional boundaries of disciplines and institutions. All of you are a vital part of this effort and this community.

At the center of what we do is our faculty—an extraordinary collection of scholars and teachers that I believe no other institution can match. Our faculty members carry out our mission by leading our research programs, overseeing our cohorts of fellows, and teaching and mentoring our students. I am so proud to welcome new faculty colleagues even as we continue to benefit from the vitality of those who have served for decades. I am equally grateful to our staff members across the Center, who daily demonstrate their own extraordinary commitment to our mission and who make possible all that we do.

I hope you will take full advantage of this community in the months ahead. Please consider attending a seminar outside your usual area of expertise, introducing yourself to someone new, and joining our weekly Belfer Community Calls, held every Monday at 9:30 a.m. via audio-only Zoom. These off-the-record conversations are open to the full Belfer community and offer a wonderful opportunity to hear from our leading experts about rapidly evolving news, new scholarship, and upcoming events at the Center.

I also hope you will mark your calendars for our signature fall event, a convening on soft power that we will hold on November 5. We will welcome distinguished policy leaders, scholars, and guests to consider soft power in today’s geopolitical landscape and to celebrate the legacy of the great Belfer Center scholar who coined it: our late friend and colleague Joe Nye. More information on the program will follow soon.

There is much to grapple with in the world around us. Luckily, I can think of few better places to do it than the Belfer Center. I am grateful to be part of this community with you and look forward to all that we will accomplish together this year.

With warm regards,

Meghan L. O'Sullivan

Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs 

Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs 

Harvard Kennedy School