Harvard students will soon return to campus for another academic year, but the university still has unresolved questions surrounding professor Martin Nowak and his longstanding association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Nowak remains on administrative leave, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The university reportedly did not provide an update on the formal inquiry launched nearly six months ago.
The investigation followed the release of millions of Epstein-related records by the Department of Justice, including an unusual 2014 email exchange between Nowak and Epstein discussing a “captured spy” and “torture.”
Nowak has publicly explained that his message was an obscure reference to the computer game Civilization II.
“Some have missed that ‘Our spy was captured after completing her mission’ is a line from a computer game called Civilization II, a game I played many years ago,” Nowak wrote on his website.
According to Nowak, the phrase remained in his memory and occasionally came to mind after solving mathematical problems.
“I have no idea what triggered Epstein’s response,” Nowak said. “The email exchange did not refer to an actual spy, nobody got captured, nobody was on a mission, and nobody was tortured.”
Nowak has not been charged with a crime.
The controversy surrounding him extends considerably beyond that email, however. Epstein developed extensive connections with Nowak’s former Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, or PED, at Harvard. Epstein maintained an office associated with the program and, in one email, referred to it as “my istittue [sic] at harvard.”
Harvard closed the PED in 2021 and transferred its research to the Mathematics Department. Nowak regained research and advising privileges in 2023 before being placed on administrative leave in February 2026.
Documents also indicate that Epstein’s connection to the program became useful to him for something unrelated to scientific research: managing his reputation online.
Following his 2008 Florida conviction, Epstein faced damaging news coverage and civil litigation. In 2010, he had an aide establish websites emphasizing his financial support for scientists and research.
Nowak and the PED figured prominently in that effort.
Epstein’s website claimed that he had provided $30 million to the program by 2010. Harvard disputes that number and has placed his financial support at approximately $6.5 million.
The relationship dated back years. Harvard’s previous review said Epstein provided financial support for establishing the PED in 2003, when Larry Summers was Harvard’s president.
By 2014, Epstein’s publicist was explicitly interested in using Harvard’s website to improve his client’s Google search results.
“It would be very helpful in terms of Google results if his name were attached to a Harvard.edu url,” the publicist told Nowak’s program, according to Harvard’s 2020 fact-finding report.
Nowak agreed to the request.
Other communications indicate Epstein remained acutely conscious of unfavorable search results. In a 2018 exchange concerning possible financial support for another Cambridge researcher, Epstein wrote, “Press brutality. Wow. Will need to cure cancer. To move this down the page.”
The latest document releases are also prompting questions about whether Harvard’s 2020 investigation captured the full extent of Epstein’s activities at the university.
That report estimated Epstein’s final Harvard campus visit occurred in October 2018. Newly released material reportedly contains evidence indicating he visited again in November.
Harvard opened another investigation into its Epstein connections in November 2025. Summers, whose later correspondence revealed years of personal communications with Epstein, announced his retirement from Harvard in February.
