Graduate Consortia

GSAS is pleased to introduce a portfolio of exciting new interdisciplinary research opportunities to its faculty and PhD students, the Harvard Interdisciplinary Graduate Consortia. Graduate Consortia are non-degree, self-organized groups of affiliated scholars who collaboratively investigate broad topics such as human rights, global health, and climate change. Each consortium will serve as a structured hub around which interested faculty, students, and staff can rotate through a series of topical proseminars, courses, lectures, journal clubs, conferences, full-immersion boot camps, and other self-managed activities.

Two new Consortia have been launched this academic year. The Graduate Consortium in Microbial Sciences is being offered by the University's Microbial Sciences Initiative (MSI), and explores an expanding biological field that has attracted intense interdisciplinary interest. The Graduate Consortium on Energy and Environment will foster a new community of students and faculty who will be well versed in the broad, interconnected issues of energy and environment while maintaining their focus in their primary discipline.

Additional Consortia currently in the planning stages will examine the topics of Infectious Diseases and Human Rights. In each instance, the goal will be to draw together faculty and graduate students from across Harvard as a means of enhancing existing GSAS research programs, facilitating collaboration, and promoting innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to complex intellectual and social problems.