phd at harvard university

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Psychology Graduate Program

• Psychology Department

Welcome to the Psychology PhD program at Harvard University!

Our work is united in the focus on the science of mental life, yet highly interdisciplinary.

The Psychology Department is organized into four research areas: 

• Clinical Science/ Experimental Psychopathology  
• Developmental Psychology  
• Social Psychology
• Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (CBB)

Students enrolled in the PhD program may follow one of two tracks: Clinical Science or the Common Curriculum, which includes Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (CBB). Students may only be considered for Clinical Science during the graduate school application process, and may not transfer in at a later date.

Click here to view our current graduate student profiles. 

Clinical Student Admissions, Outcomes, and Other Data, as required by the American Psychological Association, can be found here . 

Methods for Policy Research

Political analysis.

PhD in Public Policy

In this section.

• Economics Track
• Judgment and Decision Making Track
• Politics and Institutions Track
• Science, Technology and Policy Studies Track
• Current Students
• Doctoral Student Handbook
• Dissertations & Job Placements
• PhD Student Life
• Faculty & Research

As an exceptional scholar, you want an exceptional graduate program.

The PhD in Public Policy (PPOL) program provides the advanced graduate training you need to successfully launch yourself into a research or related position in academia, government, a nongovernmental organization, or the private sector. 

You will get the training you need to conduct analytical research, help shape and execute policy, and teach the next generation of educators, researchers, and practitioners. The program encourages scholarly research that empowers public policy practitioners like you to make informed decisions and be leaders in their fields. 

Finding firm grounding for research in environmental economics

PPOL PhD alumnus Todd Gerarden’s fascination with bike mechanics mingled with his love of cycling and the outdoors; what emerged was a budding interest in energy and environmental policy. An undergraduate professor suggested he read  Economics of the Environment,  a collection of selected readings edited by HKS professor  Robert N. Stavins . That suggestion changed the course of his career.

Todd Gerarden PPOL PhD 2018

The complete phd.

The PPOL admits students to one of four tracks: Economics ; Judgment and Decision Making ; Politics and Institutions ; and Science, Technology and Policy Studies .    

PPOL graduates enter the workplace prepared to teach, carry out research, and make a profound impact in academia, while for others the degree leads to productive careers in think tanks, multinational organizations, NGOs, or the private sector.

"I've joined two research labs at HKS: Jennifer Lerner's and Julia Minson's. The brainstorming, feedback, and mutual pursuit of important research that comes from working in the labs is truly fulfilling."

Brad dewees ppol phd 2019, doctoral program admissions, funding your doctoral education.

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• Administration
• PhD Program

The Ph.D. Program in the Department of Economics at Harvard is addressed to students of high promise who wish to prepare themselves in teaching and research in academia or for responsible positions in government, research organizations, or business enterprises. Students are expected to devote themselves full-time to their programs of study.

The program prepares students for productive and stimulating careers as economists. Courses and seminars offered by the department foster an intellectually active and stimulating environment. Each week, the department sponsors more than 15 different seminars on such topics as environmental economics, economic growth and development, monetary and fiscal policy, international economics, industrial organization, law and economics, behavioral economics, labor economics, and economic history. Top scholars from both domestic and international communities are often invited speakers at the seminars.  The Harvard community outside of the department functions as a strong and diverse resource. Students in the department are free to pursue research interests with scholars throughout the University. Faculty of the Harvard Law School, Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Business School, for example, are available to students for consultation, instruction, and research guidance. As a member of the Harvard community, students in the department can register for courses in the various schools and have access to the enormous library resources available through the University. There are over 90 separate library units at Harvard, with the total collections of books and pamphlets numbering over 13 million.  Both the department and the wider University draw some of the brightest students from around the world, which makes for a student body that is culturally diverse and likely unequaled in the range of intellectual interests of its members. These factors combine to add an important dimension to the educational process. Students are able to learn from one another, collaborate on research projects and publications, and form bonds that are not broken by distance once the degree is completed and professional responsibilities lead them in different directions.

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PhD Program Requirements

• Introduction

Harvard Griffin GSAS strives to provide students with timely, accurate, and clear information. If you need help understanding a specific policy, please contact the office that administers that policy.

• Application for Degree
• Credit for Completed Graduate Work
• Ad Hoc Degree Programs
• Dissertations
• English Language Proficiency
• African and African American Studies
• American Studies
• Anthropology
• Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning
• Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
• Biological Sciences in Public Health
• Biostatistics
• Business Administration
• Business Economics
• Byzantine Studies
• Celtic Languages and Literatures
• Chemical Biology
• Chemical Physics
• Chemistry and Chemical Biology
• Comparative Literature
• Division of Medical Sciences
• Earth and Planetary Sciences
• East Asian Languages and Civilizations
• Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Film and Visual Studies
• Germanic Languages and Literatures
• Health Policy
• History of Art and Architecture
• History of Science
• Human Evolutionary Biology
• Inner Asian and Altaic Studies
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
• Organizational Behavior
• Political Economy and Government
• Population Health Sciences
• Public Policy
• Quantum Science and Engineering
• Religion, The Study of
• Romance Languages and Literatures
• Slavic Languages and Literatures
• Social Policy
• South Asian Studies
• Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology
• Secondary Fields
• Year of Graduate Study (G-Year)
• Master's Degrees
• Grade and Examination Requirements
• Conduct and Safety
• Financial Aid
• Non-Resident Students
• Registration
• Residence Halls
• Student Groups

In addition to the common degree requirements expected of Harvard Griffin GSAS students, students must meet additional requirements specified by their department or program. This section provides additional degree requirements by academic program.

CONTACT INFO

Academic programs, explore events.

• Harvard Business School →
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• PhD Programs

Accounting & Management

• Business Economics
• Health Policy (Management)
• Organizational Behavior
• Technology & Operations Management
• Program Requirements

Accounting & Management

Curriculum & coursework.

Our programs are full-time degree programs which officially begin in August. Students are expected to complete their program in five years. Typically, the first two years are spent on coursework, at the end of which students take a field exam, and then another three years on dissertation research and writing.

Students in the Accounting and Management program must complete a minimum of 13 semester-long doctoral courses in the areas of business management theory, economic theory, quantitative research methods, academic field seminars, and two MBA elective curriculum courses. In addition to HBS courses, students may take courses at other Harvard Schools and MIT.

Research & Dissertation

Students in accounting and management begin research in their first year typically by working with a faculty member. By their third and fourth years, most students are launched on a solid research and publication stream. In Accounting and Management, the dissertation may take the form of three publishable papers or one longer dissertation.

Recent questions students have explored include: the ways in which managers use retail-level marketing actions to influence the timing of consumer purchases in relation to their firms’ fiscal calendars and financial performance as well as those of their competitors; the role of accounting information in strategic human resource decisions; the evolution, consequences and institutional determinants of unregulated financial reporting practices; the effects of adopting rolling forecasts on forecast quality.

Elliot Tobin

“ I’m constantly inspired to look into new research angles by the brilliant people I run into on campus every day. ”

Current HBS Faculty

• Brian K. Baik
• Dennis Campbell
• Wilbur X. Chen
• Srikant M. Datar
• Aiyesha Dey
• Susanna Gallani
• Brian J. Hall
• Jonas Heese
• Robert S. Kaplan
• V.G. Narayanan
• Joseph Pacelli
• Lynn S. Paine
• Krishna G. Palepu
• Ananth Raman
• Clayton S. Rose
• Ethan C. Rouen
• Tatiana Sandino
• David S. Scharfstein
• George Serafeim
• Anywhere Sikochi
• Robert Simons
• Eugene F. Soltes
• Suraj Srinivasan
• Adi Sunderam
• Charles C.Y. Wang
• Emily Williams

Current Accounting & Management Students

• Ji Ho Kim
• Yiwei Li
• Trang Nguyen
• Konstantin Pavlenkov
• Ria Sen
• Terrence Shi
• Albert Shin
• Elliot Tobin
• Wenxin Wang
• Siyu Zhang

Current HBS Faculty & Students by Interest

Recent placement, yaxuan chen, 2024, hashim zaman, 2022, wei cai, 2020, matthew shaffer, 2019, botir kobilov, 2024, patrick ferguson, 2021, jihwon park, 2020, wilbur chen, 2022, alexandra scherf, 2021, jody grewal, 2019.

Doctor of Design Admissions

The admissions process for the DDes program is extremely competitive and requires that applicants hold a graduate level degree in a design related field such as a professional degree in architecture, landscape architecture, planning or urban design. Applicants with a degree in a related discipline such as engineering, geography, computer science, or industrial design also qualify for admission. Applicants are required to present a concise and clearly articulated research proposal as the core element of the application. Other critical elements include documentation of the academic record, a curriculum vitae including professional experience, the portfolio, and letters of recommendation. For non-native speakers, recent TOEFL scores are required. UPDATE : For the 2023 admissions cycle, the GRE requirement is waived. The GRE is not required for the 2023 application and will not be included in the review process for these programs. At this time, the change to the GRE requirement is for the 2023 application season only.

The program seeks applicants who have demonstrated research and analytical skills essential for advanced doctoral study as well as the ability to pursue such work independently. Applicants should submit a proposal describing the research in which they plan to engage during their studies. The proposal will be evaluated on (1) its promise for original contribution to the design professions, (2) the feasibility of its being completed within the time constraints of the program, and (3) its congruence with research interests of at least two GSD faculty members who will eventually serve on the thesis committee.

Portfolio Requirement

The portfolio for DDes applicants should consist of scholarly, academic and/or professional work and may or may not include visual material, at the discretion of the applicant and as related to the proposed research topic.

DDes students receive financial support and teaching fellowships from the GSD to cover a major part of their tuition. Additional support may be available through funded research and other resources at the school.

For more information, please contact the Admissions Office .

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Harvard’s Graduate Union Installs Third New President in Less Than 1 Year

Sara V. Speller, the former vice president of Harvard’s graduate union, assumed the presidency in late July after her predecessor stepped down, becoming the union’s third leader in less than a year.

Speller, a Music student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, took over the post from former Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers President Bailey A. Plaman , who resigned after serving just more than six months in office.

Plaman shared her decision at a HGSU-UAW general membership meeting on July 18.

The new presidency exchange is the latest in a series of recent vacancies in the union’s top post. Under the union’s bylaws, the vice president takes over as president for the remainder of the term if the president vacates their office.

Before assuming the presidency in late 2023, Plaman served as vice president under former HGSU-UAW President Evan C. MacKay ’19, who stepped down to run for Massachusetts State House.

Speller is expected to serve out the remainder of MacKay’s term, which expires in 2026.

Speller helms HGSU-UAW at a pivotal time for the young union, which is preparing to begin negotiating with Harvard for their third contract. The current contract, which expires on June 30, 2025, came after eight months of negotiations and a three-day strike.

Though the contract contained several union wins, there are likely to be many remaining sticking points between HGSU and the University in the upcoming negotiations, including Harvard’s treatment of student workers involved in campus activism and the use of nearly $3 million in emergency funds for union members.

“I’m really excited to see the union get even better benefits, have our rights recognized even more, have the protections that we need to really do our best work in the workplace,” Speller said.

Despite the rapid leadership turnover at the top levels of the union, Plaman said they did not feel the presidential transition would significantly affect negotiations.

“I don’t really see it as changing our preparedness,” Plaman said.

“Having new people on the executive board is just shuffling around who’s doing what,” Plaman added. “We still have a larger group of folks that are members, that are engaged, that are really leading the union forward.”

Speller said she believes the role of the executive board is to “uplift” rank-and-file members.

“While the person who may be possessing the role of president might be changing, I think the goals and the mission and the energy is very consistent and has been pretty consistent over the last few years,” she said.

—Staff writer Aran Sonnad-Joshi can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on X @asonnadjoshi .

—Staff writer Sheerea X. Yu can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @_shuhree_ .

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Meet Our New PhD Students!

We’ll be featuring mini-profiles of our new PhD students over the next few weeks. We look forward to welcoming them into our community!

Hello! My name is Madeleine (or Maddy) Carbonneau. I graduated from Harvard in 2020 with my undergraduate degree in applied math. After graduating, I worked for a couple years at Roivant Sciences, a biotech/ pharmatech company in New York. For the last two years, I have been a post- baccalaureate fellow at the Framingham (MA) Heart Study with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute asking questions about epigenetics, lifestyle factors, and biological aging.

Although I left college thinking I wanted to work in business development in the biotech industry, I quickly learned after starting my first job that I did not like being so far away from the research activities of the company. Luckily, my employer gave me the option to transition to more research-oriented roles. Here, I was able to work with powerful datasets to answer interesting questions and I felt much more motivated by my projects.

I started my position at the Framingham Heart Study to do some research in a more-academic environment and prepare for a doctoral program. In my current research, I work with a lot of genetic/multi- omics data and I’m very motivated to research the questions that arise from these data. I am particularly interested in using analytical structures that allow us to understand how genes work in synchrony. Although my research interests remain quite broad, in graduate school, I would like to explore how we can use statistics to better quantify and describe the relationships between genes and how their interrelated (dys)function can cause disease.

Outside of my research, I aim to surround myself with as many dogs as possible. My partner and I have two dogs of our own, Ginger and Sophie, and have fostered several other dogs. When that is not enough dog for me (it rarely is), I volunteer at an animal shelter where I walk and hang out with more dogs. I also enjoy spending time with my family, who lives in the Boston area. Most of all, I love hanging out with their dogs.

Hello! My name is Armelle Duston. I am of French origin but I grew up in the US in Lynchburg, Virginia. This past May, I graduated with a BS in Applied Math and Statistics from Colorado School of Mines.

At Mines, I first came across the field of mathematical biology which would eventually lead me to my interest in biostatistics. From the beginning, I was interested in using mathematical tools to better understand and improve human health.

My main research experience in undergrad was in investigating the circadian rhythms of adolescents under the mentorship of Dr. Cecilia Diniz Behn. This work involved some mathematical modeling work with systems of differential equations, but my main project was a statistical analysis of combined datasets leading to a finding about sex differences in the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Outside of research, I also participated in a summer institute in biostatistics (SIBS) at NC State and Duke. From taking a course on spatial statistics, I developed an interest in statistical methods in epidemiology and particularly environmental health.

In my free time, I love to read, travel, and do a variety of outdoor sports including hiking, mountain biking, and rock climbing. I’m excited to see what Boston has to offer, and I am looking forward to meeting everyone!

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Indigenous Philosophies for the Technological Age (at HKS)

The future of humanity depends on how we will manage to live with the technological revolutions that happen all around us. This is a good time to bring voices into the discussion that have long been excluded from impactful discussions about the future of humanity: voices of indigenous people, whose received wisdom reflects millennia of sustainable living in their respective contexts. Some of this wisdom has been worked out in distinctive indigenous philosophies, and the focus of this class is to explore some of these philosophies and assess what lessons they teach for the technological age. A focus is on indigenous authors from the U.S., but we encounter authors and perspectives from all continents. Topics we explore through the lens of indigenous philosophies include attitudes towards nature; views on technology generally; the Anthropocene; traditional ecological knowledge; artificial intelligence; genome-editing; geo-engineering; human rights; and the meaning of life. Engaging with indigenous perspectives on these matters is likely to have a transformative effect on how one approaches the big questions of the 21st century.

This course is offered by HKS as DPI 210. The course will meet in Wexner 436. See HKS website for pre-semester shopping information. 

Note that this course follows the HKS academic calendar, which has an irregular start of term with Monday, Friday, September 6th held as a Monday. The first class meeting will be on Friday, September 6th. It will meet regularly thereafter. 

HKS Shopping Days are September 3-4.  See Shopping Day schedule for more information. 

Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Quantitative [Module 2]

[pending P2P]

Location & Hours

[View Course Schedule]

Course Website

This course introduces students to quantitative analysis and research methods for urban planning. The course begins with an examination of how quantitative methods fit within the broader analytic landscape. It then exposes students to basic descriptive statistics (including measures of central tendency and dispersion), principles of statistical inference, and a wide variety of analytic methods and their practical application. By the end of the course, students will be comfortable with many analytic techniques relevant to urban planning and policy, including: z-tests, t-tests, ANOVA, chi square tests, correlation, and multivariate regression. On a broader level, students will gain the ability to understand and critically question the kinds of analyses and representations of quantitative data encountered in urban planning and allied disciplines. The aim of the course is to introduce students to key concepts and tools in quantitative analysis and research. Most importantly, however, the goal is to develop students’ intuition regarding data analysis and the application of statistical techniques. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with how common techniques of quantitative analysis can be applied to a wide variety of data. Students will also gain a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative data analysis and under what circumstances the tools learned in the class are best applied in practice. The course seeks to train technically competent, intellectually critical practitioners and scholars who are able to apply quantitative methods in a wide range of settings, and who are also aware of the wider analytic context into which these approaches fit. There is a focus throughout the course on epistemology and the ethics of claim-making. Over the course, students will deepen their understanding of how claims are made, how claims are connected to different forms of evidence, and what makes different kinds of claims credible.