Martin Nowak

A Harvard University professor who had close ties with Jeffrey Epstein and is accused of giving the disgraced financier an office on campus will be barred from starting new research or advising students for at least two years, the school announced Thursday March 25 2021. Martin Nowak will be allowed to continue teaching during that period, but other contact with students will be limited and his research center is being shut down, according to a memo from Claudine Gay, dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Nowak, a math professor, was placed on paid leave after a May 2020 review found that he violated school security rules by giving Epstein “unrestricted” access to campus. The review found that Nowak gave Epstein an office in Nowak’s campus research center, along with a building key card, and allowed Epstein to visit even after the financier’s 2008 sex crimes conviction. Nowak devoted a page to Epstein on the center’s website and included links to the financier’s websites, both at the request of Epstein’s publicist. Epstein had no formal affiliation with Harvard at the time but had previously donated $6.5 million to help start Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics.