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Students in our PhD programs are encouraged from day one to think of this experience as their first job in business academia—a training ground for a challenging and rewarding career generating rigorous, relevant research that influences practice.

Our doctoral students work with faculty and access resources throughout HBS and Harvard University. The PhD program curriculum requires coursework at HBS and other Harvard discipline departments, and with HBS and Harvard faculty on advisory committees. Faculty throughout Harvard guide the programs through their participation on advisory committees.

How do I know which program is right for me?

There are many paths, but we are one HBS. Our PhD students draw on diverse personal and professional backgrounds to pursue an ever-expanding range of research topics. Explore more here about each program’s requirements & curriculum, read student profiles for each discipline as well as student research , and placement information.

The PhD in Business Administration grounds students in the disciplinary theories and research methods that form the foundation of an academic career. Jointly administered by HBS and GSAS, the program has four areas of study: Accounting and Management , Marketing , Strategy , and Technology and Operations Management . All areas of study involve roughly two years of coursework culminating in a field exam. The remaining years of the program are spent conducting independent research, working on co-authored publications, and writing the dissertation. Students join these programs from a wide range of backgrounds, from consulting to engineering. Many applicants possess liberal arts degrees, as there is not a requirement to possess a business degree before joining the program

The PhD in Business Economics provides students the opportunity to study in both Harvard’s world-class Economics Department and Harvard Business School. Throughout the program, coursework includes exploration of microeconomic theory, macroeconomic theory, probability and statistics, and econometrics. While some students join the Business Economics program directly from undergraduate or masters programs, others have worked in economic consulting firms or as research assistants at universities or intergovernmental organizations.

The PhD program in Health Policy (Management) is rooted in data-driven research on the managerial, operational, and strategic issues facing a wide range of organizations. Coursework includes the study of microeconomic theory, management, research methods, and statistics. The backgrounds of students in this program are quite varied, with some coming from public health or the healthcare industry, while others arrive at the program with a background in disciplinary research

The PhD program in Organizational Behavior offers two tracks: either a micro or macro approach. In the micro track, students focus on the study of interpersonal relationships within organizations and the effects that groups have on individuals. Students in the macro track use sociological methods to examine organizations, groups, and markets as a whole, including topics such as the influence of individuals on organizational change, or the relationship between social missions and financial objectives. Jointly administered by HBS and GSAS, the program includes core disciplinary training in sociology or psychology, as well as additional coursework in organizational behavior.

Accounting & Management  

Business economics  , health policy (management)  , marketing  , organizational behavior  , strategy  , technology & operations management  .

Explore programs available at Harvard

Welcome to the  Harvard University PhD in Population Health Sciences  (PHS). Our full-time doctoral degree is a joint collaboration between the  Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)  and the  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health   and offer s a  Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD)  in  P opulation Health Sciences .   Our research program is designed to allow students to benefit from connections between public health disciplines and a broader range of academic disciplines represented across the Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).  

A  PHS   PhD   offers advanced doctoral-level research and training that builds on multiple disciplinary perspectives to understand the origins and determinants of health and disease across populations. Our students are based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and belong to one of the following department-based   Fields of Study :  

• Environmental Health (EH)
• Epidemiology (EPI)
• Global Health & Population (GHP)
• Nutrition (NUT)
• Social & Behavioral Sciences (SBS)

This  PhD in Population Health Sciences (PHS)  is intended for students who are looking to pursue careers in academia in one of five   Fields of Study   as well as in organizations related to population health or research-related positions beyond academia. In addition to nurturing the development of the next generation of population health researchers and scientists , PHS provides tremendous opportunities for students to build scientific communication and mentoring, and teaching skills – while all along, building lasting connection s ac ross students, alumni, and faculty at our world- r enown ed Harvard University .  

Harvard University and the PHS PhD program do not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry or any other protected classification.

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Psychology Graduate Program

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Please note that our GRE General Test score requirements for admission have changed. For candidates seeking Fall 2025 admission: -  required for applicants to the Clinical Science area  -  optional but recommended for applicants to the Social, Developmental, and CBB areas*  As  of Ma y 2024, GRE General Test scores will be required for all applicants seeking Fall 2026 admission.  The  Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences welcomes applications for admission from individuals who have or will have by the time of matriculation a BA, BS, or equivalent undergraduate degree (for prospective international students, a three- or four-year undergraduate degree from an institution of recognized standing) and actively seeks applicants from groups historically  underrepresented in graduate schools . All degree candidates are admitted for full-time study beginning in the fall term.

Immigration status does not factor into decisions about admissions and financial aid. For more information, see  Undocumented at Harvard .

If you already hold a PhD or its equivalent, or are an advanced doctoral candidate at another institution, you may apply to a PhD program only if it is in an unrelated field of study; however, preference for admissions and financial aid will be given to those who have not already had an opportunity to study for a doctoral degree at Harvard or elsewhere. You may also want to consider pursuing non-degree study through our  Special Student or Visiting Fellow  programs.

Eligible Harvard College students with advanced standing may apply in the fall of their junior year to earn an AM or SM degree during their final year of undergraduate study. Interested students must contact the  Office of Undergraduate Education  for eligibility details before applying.

Questions about the application or required materials should be directed to the Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions Office at  [email protected] or 617-496-6100. 

Harvard Griffin GSAS does not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry or any other protected classification. 

Required Application Materials

Please refer to Completing Your Application on the Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions site for details.  A complete application consists of:

Online application form

Application fee payment ($105) -  Application fee waivers are available to those for whom payment of the application fee would be financially challenging. Applicants can determine eligibility for a fee waiver by completing a series of questions in the Application Fee section of the application. Once these questions have been completed, the application system will provide an immediate response regarding fee waiver eligibility.

Transcripts

Letters of recommendation (at least 3)

Statement of purpose

Personal statement

Demonstration of English proficiency

GRE General Test scores:   -  required for applicants to the Clinical Science area  -  optional but recommended for applicants to the Social, Developmental, and CBB areas* As of May 2024, GRE General Test scores will be required for all applicants seeking Fall 2026 admission. 

Harvard Griffin GSAS may request additional academic documents, as needed.

*Graduate student admissions are among the most important decisions we make as a department. Like many other PhD programs around the US and abroad, we have wrestled with the question of whether we should continue to require that applicants to our PhD program submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as part of their application. After extensive review of the scientific literature and robust discussion among our faculty, we have decided to continue to make submission of GRE scores optional, but to Recommend that students submit GRE scores if they are able to do so. We wanted to share our candid thoughts on this here.  

A number of empirical and review papers have noted that performance on the GRE is not a strong predictor of performance on a number of graduate school metrics (e.g., correlation with graduate school GPA = .21-.31, which represent small to medium effect sizes; Woo et al., 2023) and that the fact that the significant group differences (by race/ethnicity and gender) in GRE scores suggest it may discourage those from underrepresented groups from applying to PhD programs. Other research has shown that although there are limitations to the GRE, other potential predictors of success in graduate school have even smaller correlations with such outcomes, and removing the GRE would lead us to rely on these other potentially biased factors, such as where a person received their undergraduate degree, what research lab they had the opportunity to train in, and letters of recommendation.(1) We have heard anecdotally from current and former PhD students (including those historically underrepresented in PhD programs) who argue that the GRE helped them demonstrate their abilities when they didn’t attend a top undergraduate institution or work in a well-known research lab.  

On balance, we acknowledge that the GRE is an imperfect test and should not be used as the single deciding factor in admissions; however, we fear that excluding it altogether will introduce more, not less, bias into the admissions decision-making process. Thus, we have decided to keep the submission of GRE scores optional, but to recommend that students submit their scores if they are able to do so.  

We know that many students might expect that we are looking for near-perfect scores as a requirement for admission. We are not. We do not use a rigid threshold for GRE scores, and take it into consideration with other factors (e.g., strong performance in undergraduate statistics might be used to demonstrate quantitative abilities in place of strong performance on the quantitative section of the GRE). To be transparent about this, we note that our past 10 years’ of admitted PhD applicants have had scores on the GRE ranging on the Quantitative section from the 38th to the 98th percentile, and on the Verbal section ranging from the 59th to the 99th percentile.(2 )

We will continue to work toward determining how to make admissions decisions in a way that identifies the candidates who match best with what our PhD training program has to offer and in doing so may make further adjustments to our admissions requirements in future admissions cycles.  

(1) For a review of these issues, see: Woo, S. E., LeBreton, J. M., Keith, M. G., & Tay, L. (2023). Bias, Fairness, and Validity in Graduate-School Admissions: A Psychometric Perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211055374  

(2) Note: Test scores were not required for the past 3 years and so are largely unavailable for that period. 

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Program Overview

The Department of Philosophy offers programs covering a wide range of fields in philosophy. The department’s graduate program is primarily a PhD program. In addition to the standard PhD in Philosophy, the department offers a PhD in Classical Philosophy in collaboration with the Department of the Classics, a PhD in Indian Philosophy in collaboration with the Department of South Asian Studies, and a joint JD/PhD program in conjunction with the Harvard Law School. Below you will find a list of the requirements for each program. The department does not admit applicants who wish to study only for the master’s (AM) degree. The AM may be taken as a step toward the PhD after a minimum of two terms in residence.

PhD in Philosophy

Graduate advising.

The department’s arrangement for advising students is structured to correspond to four stages of a student’s progress toward the PhD. These stages include the first year, the second-year paper, reading and research toward a dissertation topic, and work on the dissertation.

• The director of graduate studies is assigned as an advisor to all first-year students and continues to meet with all students at the beginning of each term and sign their study cards throughout their time in the program. Their advising role is particularly important during the coursework stage (generally through the second year), because they have principal responsibility for monitoring the student’s progress toward fulfilling the general requirements for the degree: the preliminary requirement, and the distribution requirement. In addition, each first-year student is assigned an informal faculty advisor.
• At the end of the first year, students should arrange with a member of the faculty to supervise the student’s second-year paper. That faculty member will be the student’s advisor during the second year. If necessary, the director of graduate studies is available to assist a student in finding a suitable faculty member.
• At the beginning of the third year, after the second year paper is completed, a student arranges for a faculty member to be their advisor during the process of exploring areas for a possible dissertation and formulating a topic and a prospectus. This advisor may be the same person as the second-year paper advisor but need not be. Normally, a student will continue with this advisor until the topical examination, but change is possible by arrangement among the parties involved.
• When a prospectus is well along, the student should discuss the formation of a dissertation committee with the advisor, the director of graduate studies, and possible committee members.  Normally, this committee has three members, two of whom must be Harvard faculty as members; however, the committee may consist of only two members at the time of the topical examination.  Committees may have a fourth member, who may be, with permission of the DGS, a faculty member in another Harvard department or at another institution. This committee conducts the topical examination and, after a successful topical, will continue supervising the student’s work on the dissertation. Normally it conducts the dissertation defense when the dissertation is completed.
• During work on the dissertation, change is possible by arrangement with the parties involved and with the approval of the director of graduate studies. At this stage, one member of the committee will be designated as the student’s advisor. The significance of this will vary as the supervision of dissertations is more collective in philosophy, for example, than in many other fields. In some cases, the advisor will be the principal supervisor, in others the role of the committee members will be close to equal and the choice of one advisor is a matter of convenience.

Preliminary Requirement

Candidates must pass at least twelve approved philosophy courses or seminars. The norm is that these course are completed during the first four terms in the department. Courses numbered 301 or above do not count toward this preliminary requirement, save that the two required terms of Philosophy 300, the First Year Colloquium, may be counted as two of the twelve. Independent Studies (Philosophy 305) may also be used to satisfy distribution requirements but not the preliminary requirement with the prior approval of the DGS. For a letter-graded course philosophy course to be considered satisfactory, the candidate’s grade in the course must be B or higher.  The average grade for all letter-graded philosophy courses taken during the candidate’s time in the program must be at least B+.

Courses taken to meet the preliminary requirement must be approved in advance by the department’s director of graduate studies. Students must take and complete Philosophy 300a plus two letter-graded courses or seminars during their first term and Philosophy 300b plus three letter-graded courses or seminars more in their second term, thus completing five letter-graded courses during the first two terms of residence.

These courses, like the rest of the twelve, should be among those designated “For Undergraduates and Graduates” or “Primarily for Graduates” in the course catalogue. At least ten of the courses must be taught by members of the Department of Philosophy (including visiting and emeritus members). This requirement can be modified for students specializing in Classical or Indian Philosophy.

All graduate students must complete two semesters of the Pedagogy seminar, Philosophy 315hf. Normally this is done during a student's third year in the program, when students begin functioning as teaching fellows. Exceptions to taking 315hf in the third year must be approved in advance by the DGS.

Students who have done graduate work elsewhere may petition the DGS to obtain credit for up to three courses, which may be counted toward the preliminary requirement. If they are in philosophy (as would normally be the case), such courses will be regarded as equivalent to those taught by members of the department.

Distribution Requirement

This requirement, intended to ensure a broad background in philosophy, is met by completing eight distribution units of work, normally before the beginning of the fourth year of graduate study. A distribution unit may be fulfilled (i) by completing an approved course or seminar (which may also be counted toward the preliminary requirement), or (ii) by writing a paper under the guidance of a faculty member, with the approval of the director of graduate studies. In the latter case the work does not count toward the preliminary requirement.

The units are to be distributed as follows:

• Contemporary Theoretical Philosophy: Three units in core areas of twentieth- and twenty-first century metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and the like.
• Practical Philosophy: Two units in contemporary or historical ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and the like.
• History of Philosophy: The distribution requirement in history is intended to assure that students have knowledge of the philosophical tradition out of which contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has grown, as well as an ability to work though texts whose philosophical presuppositions are different enough from those of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy that careful historical and philosophical analysis is required to bring them to light.

Three sorts of courses satisfy the requirement:   A. Courses in ancient Greek, Roman, or medieval philosophy.   B. Courses in early modern European philosophy up to and including Kant.   C. Courses on the foundations of philosophical traditions other than contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. These might include courses on traditional South Asian or East Asian philosophy, 19th century Continental European philosophy, early 20th century work of Heidegger, and so on.   A student must take three history courses to satisfy the requirement; at most one of these may be in practical philosophy. Save in the most exceptional circumstances (and with the approval of the DGS), at least one of these courses must be of category A and at least one must be of category B. Students should verify (with the DGS) in advance of taking a course to satisfy the requirement that the course will in fact satisfy it.

The First-Year Colloquium (Philosophy 300a and 300b) may not be used to fulfill any part of the distribution requirement. Philosophy 299hf, the second-year paper, may be used to fulfill a distribution requirement.

Logic Requirement

Candidates for the Ph.D. are expected to have mastered the fundamentals of logic and to have an understanding of the elements of logic’s metatheory. Normally, this requirement is satisfied by successfully completing one of the Department’s 100-level courses in logic: 140 (Introduction to Mathematical Logic), 144 (Logic and Philosophy), or 145 (Modal Logic). It can also be satisfied by taking an appropriate mathematics course (for example, Mathematics 143, 144a, or 145b). The requirement may also be satisfied by an examination set by the DGS in consultation with appropriate Department members or by serving as a TF in a Department logic course.

Second-Year Paper

Students are required at the end of their second year in residence to submit a paper whose length is between 7,500 and 12,000 words including footnotes.

The expectation is not that the second-year paper should constitute a kind of Master’s Thesis; a better model is that of a journal article: i.e., an essay that sets out a focused philosophical problem, articulates its significance, and makes a significant contribution rather than a mere intervention. Given this goal, the second-year paper may under no circumstances be over 12,000 words, and generally will be significantly shorter. Students must annotate the paper with an accurate word count.

By the end of the first year, students need to have a faculty advisor who will supervise the second year paper. Together the advisor and advisee will write a plan of study for the summer and the first term of the second year, and submit it to the DGS. This plan of study will specify a schedule for submitting work and receiving feedback, and will also specify a benchmark to be met before the beginning of the second semester.

A preliminary draft of the second-year paper is to be submitted by the end of the spring vacation of the second semester, and a final draft is due by June 1st. Under extraordinary circumstances and with the written approval of both advisor and the DGS, the final version of the paper may be submitted after June 1st, but no later than August 1st.

Once the second-year paper is submitted to the advisor, the advisor forwards the paper to the DGS, who selects a faculty member to act as the paper’s reader. The author, advisor, and reader meet in a timely manner to discuss the paper, after which the examiner in consultation with the advisor awards the paper a grade. This grade will be recorded as the student’s grade for their two semesters of 299hf.

Normally, a student is not allowed to participate in a dissertation workshop until they have submitted their second-year paper.

The Third Year

In a successful third year, graduate students do two things: they acquire pedagogical skills and confidence as teachers; they make enough progress on isolating a dissertation topic that they are able, at the end of that year or by the end of the first term of the fourth year, to write a prospectus and have a successful topical exam.

Normally, at the end of a student's second year, the student's 2YP advisor and the DGS consult and then assign a pre-prospective advisor to the student. The pre-prospectus advisor need not, and often will not, be someone who specializes in the area in which a student expects to write a dissertation. Rather, the advisor is someone with whom the student is comfortable discussing philosophy and who can advise about directions of research. In many cases the pre-prospectus advisor may be the 2YP advisor, since the student has formed a working relationship with that faculty member.

The student and pre-prospectus advisor should meet before the end of spring exams. The meeting's purpose is to discuss the student's general area(s) of interest for a dissertation and, if the student is ready, to devise a tentative list of articles or books which the student will read and reflect on over the next twelve months.

G3s meet with their pre-prospectus advisor in the first days of the fall term. The aim of this meeting is to give the student a manageable set of concrete tasks to complete toward settling on a prospectus topic. In this meeting, advisor and student should decide on: a collection of at least six articles or book chapters to discuss at meetings; a schedule for meetings during the fall (the norm being a meeting roughly every two weeks); the written work the student commits to doing in advance of each meeting. This work need not be elaborate --it might, for example, be a few pages of critical summary and discussion of the reading for the meeting.

Until a successful defense of a prospectus, students register of that section of Philosophy 333 associated with their pre-prospectus advisor.

The norm is that in the fall term of year 3 students do research in the area in which they expect to write so that they can fashion a fairly specific topic for the prospectus; spring term is then devoted to writing a prospectus. Students normally aim at having a prospectus and a topical before the beginning of classes in the fourth year; the expectation is that students have done a topical by the end of the first term of their fourth year.

Students who have completed their second year paper are required to enroll each term in one of the two dissertation workshops, Philosophy 311, Workshop in Moral and Political Philosophy or Philosophy 312, Workshop in Metaphysics and Epistemology. In an academic year in which a student is actively seeking post Ph.D. employment, they are not required to enroll in a workshop.

This a requirement for the Ph.D.; it is only in unusual personal circumstances that students may fail to enroll in a workshop. Permission not to enroll in a Workshop must be granted by the director of graduate studies. G3s are not required to present more than once a year in a workshop, and it is understood that their presentations may consist of such things as (constrained) literature reviews, overviews of the particular area in a sub-discipline, or drafts or presentations of a prospectus.

Prospectus and Topical Examination

When the prospectus is complete, a candidate must pass an oral topical examination on the prospectus. The examining committee consists of at least two Philosophy Department faculty members. If the topical examination is not passed, it must be taken again and passed by the beginning of the winter recess in the year immediately following. Normally students have a successful topical by the end of their fourth year in the program.

Requirements for a prospectus are set by a student's dissertation committee and may vary with committee membership. That said, in many cases a good default model for a prospectus will simply be a list of clear, straightforward answers to the following five questions: (1) What question(s) do you intend your dissertation to answer? (2) Why do you consider these questions to be important? (3) What is a good summary of what you consider to be the most important contributions to these questions in the literature? (4) Why, in your view, do these contributions leave more work to be done? (5) What is your tentative plan of attack (including a list of sources you anticipate using)? Think of your answers to these questions as building a case for why your dissertation project needs to be done , along with a sketch of how you in particular plan to do it. Finally, limit yourself to about 5000 words.

Although called an examination, a topical (which is approximately ninety minutes in length) is in fact a conference on the dissertation topic, not an occasion on which the candidate is expected to produce a complete outline of arguments and conclusions. The conference is intended to determine the acceptability of the topic on which the candidate wishes to write a dissertation, the candidate’s fitness to undertake such a dissertation, and the candidate’s command of relevant issues in related areas of philosophy. A dissertation on the proposed topic may be submitted only if the topical examination is passed.

Application to take the topical examination must be made to the director of graduate studies at least two weeks in advance. At the same time, the candidate must submit copies of a dissertation prospectus to the director of graduate studies and members of the student’s prospective committee.

Financial Support, Travel and Research Funding, and Teaching

Beyond tuition remission, Ph.D. students receive the following financial support from the Graduate School.

· A stipend for their first two years. During this period, students do not teach.

· Financial support via guaranteed teaching in the third and fourth year . During this period, students are hired as teaching fellows; the normal workload for a teaching fellow is two sections a term.

· A dissertation completion fellowship. This includes a full stipend for one academic year.

In addition, various university fellowships (for example: Term Time and Merit Fellowships, Fellowships at the Safra Center) are available on a competitive basis.

The Department also grants each Philosophy graduate student one academic term of stipend support through Philosophy Department Fellowships and also a total of $5500 in fellowships for professional development. For details see: Funding | Department of Philosophy (harvard.edu)

Dissertation and Dissertation Defense

Once the topical exam is passed, the examining committee (which must consist of at least two faculty members of the Philosophy Department) normally becomes the dissertation advisory committee.  One member of the committee is the dissertation’s primary advisor (aka, the dissertation director).  It is expected that a student will have a committee of at least three members within a few months of the defense; the committee must have three members at the time of the defense.  It is possible, with the approval of the primary advisor and the DGS, to add a faculty member from another institution.  Normally a dissertation committee has no more than four members; larger committees must be approved by primary advisor and the DGS.

The primary advisor has primary responsibility for supervision for the dissertation.  The norm is that the student and the dissertation committee set out in advance how often students will meet with and receive feedback from advisors.  The expectation is that the committee and the student will meet as a body once a term to discuss progress on the dissertation.

At least three months before a final defense of the dissertation can be scheduled, the candidate must submit a draft of the dissertation or at least a substantial part of it to the committee.  Until this is done, a defense of the dissertation cannot be scheduled.  Assuming the committee approves scheduling a defense, the candidate completes a draft and circulates it to the committee. While it is a matter for the committee and the candidate to decide, the expectation is that the complete draft of the dissertation which will be defended will be circulated to the committee at least three weeks before the date of the defense . 

Dissertation defenses are public, and may be attended both by department members and other interested parties.  They are normally two hours in length, and normally begin with a brief summary by the candidate of what the candidate has accomplished in the dissertation, followed by a conversation between the candidate and the committee.  The purpose of this conversation is not so much to test the range and detail of the candidate’s knowledge as to judge the candidate’s skill in presenting and discussing matters considered in the dissertation as well as the candidate’s ability to meet friendly but searching criticism.

PhD in Classical Philosophy

The departments of the Classics and Philosophy collaborate in an interdisciplinary PhD program in Classical Philosophy for students registered in either department. Candidates whose major field is philosophy are expected to take the Proseminar for graduate students in the classics, as well as attend seminars or other courses in classics relevant to their interests. With the approval of the director of graduate studies, students in the Classical Philosophy program may be permitted to count an appropriate course in ancient philosophy toward the distribution requirement in metaphysics and epistemology and one (in addition to the one already required) toward the requirement in history of philosophy.

Language requirements:

Candidates who plan to write a dissertation in Classical Philosophy are expected to have learned at least one of the classical languages (Greek or Latin) before they are admitted. Depending upon the level of fluency they have reached before entering the program, they may be asked to take additional language or reading courses. If they have not previously studied the second language, they will be required to reach the level of one year of college coursework. This can be done either by taking courses or by passing a language examination. In addition, candidates will be expected to have acquired a reading knowledge of German sufficient for reading scholarly literature and to pass a departmental examination on a suitably chosen text. The rules and procedures for the dissertation will, in general, be those established for candidates in philosophy.

PhD in Indian Philosophy

The departments of Philosophy and South Asian Studies collaborate in an interdisciplinary PhD program in Indian Philosophy for students registered in either department. Candidates whose major field is Philosophy are expected to take advanced language courses in South Asian studies and pass AM qualifying examinations. Candidates whose major field is South Asian studies are expected to fulfill the requirements of students in Philosophy, including distribution and logic requirements. With the approval of the director of graduate studies, students in Indian Philosophy may be permitted to count appropriate course in advanced Sanskrit or Tibetan toward the distribution requirement in metaphysics or epistemology and one toward the requirement in history of philosophy.

Language Requirements:

Candidates who plan to write a dissertation in Indian Philosophy are expected to have learned at least one of the relevant classical languages (Sanskrit or Tibetan) before they are admitted to the program. Depending upon the level of fluency they have reached before entering the program, they may be asked to take additional language or reading courses. In addition, candidates will be expected to satisfy the specific language requirements of their home department. The rules and procedures for the dissertation will, in general, be those established for candidates in Philosophy.

For more information please see the PhD in Indian Philosophy section .

JD/PhD in Philosophy and Law

A coordinated JD/PhD in Philosophy and Law is available. Students wishing to obtain the coordinated degrees must be admitted separately to both programs. Students admitted for the coordinated degrees must begin either with the first full year of law school or the first two years of philosophy; after that they may alternate terms as they choose. The program in Law may be completed in five terms. The requirements for philosophy are the same as for regular philosophy graduate students. For more information please see the JD/PhD Coordinated Program section .

The Master of Arts (AM) in Philosophy

The Department does not admit students for degrees other than the PhD. Students who have been admitted for the PhD and who have completed all course requirements for the degree may apply to be awarded an AM in Philosophy.

Harvard PhD students from programs (such as African and African-American Studies) which require PhD students to take courses required for an AM in another program are not required to take the first year colloquium required of Philosophy PhDs. (Students from these programs who wish to the take the colloquium must consult with the DGS.) Students from these programs who have completed 10 philosophy courses which satisfy the course requirements for a PhD and who have satisfied the distribution requirements for the PhD may apply to be awarded an AM in Philosophy.

A student who is pursuing an ad hoc degree administered in part by the Philosophy Department may petition to receive a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy. To receive this degree the student must have taken a total of 10 courses in Philosophy at the level of 100 or higher. At least two of these courses must satisfy the graduate distribution requirement in metaphysics and epistemology, two must satisfy the practical philosophy distribution requirement, two the history distribution requirement, and one must be a logic course. All must be passed with a grade of B or better. Students may receive this degree only when the Department has voted to support their petition.

Secondary Field in Philosophy

Much work in philosophy speaks directly to one or more disciplines which have Harvard PhD programs --literature, physics, statistics, science, mathematics, linguistics, and economics, to name a few. A secondary field in Philosophy gives students from other disciplines an opportunity to step back and look at the big picture in their discipline, putting students from discipline X in a position to do "philosophy of X" as part of doing X, thereby helping them both to understand their field more deeply and to open a path to developing it in innovative ways.

Graduate students may apply to the Philosophy Department to do a secondary field after their first term as a graduate student at Harvard. Secondary field students normally begin the secondary field in the second or third semester at Harvard, normally taking one or two courses a semester until they have completed the secondary field requirements.

Applicants should contact the Philosophy DGS before applying to do a secondary field in Philosophy. Applications must include: a brief statement explaining what the applicant hopes to achieve with the secondary field, including a brief summary of the applicant's background in philosophy; a copy of the undergraduate transcript (this can be a copy sent from the student's home department at Harvard) and a brief letter from a Harvard faculty member of the student's home department discussing how a secondary field in philosophy would contribute to the student's work in the home department.

To complete a secondary field in philosophy, a student completes four courses in philosophy at the 100 level or higher with a grade of B+ or better. One course must be in the area of one of the Department's PhD distribution requirements: moral and political philosophy; metaphysics and epistemology; logic; history of philosophy. A second course must be in another of these areas. At least one course must be a graduate seminar. In principle, an independent study with a member of the Department may be used to complete the secondary field. A capstone project is not required. Courses are counted towards satisfying the secondary field requirements only when approved to do so by the Philosophy DGS.

A student completing a secondary field in philosophy is assigned an advisor from the Philosophy Department, normally the DGS.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Students may study for a PhD degree in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning. An additional track in Architectural Technology is also available. This degree is administered jointly by the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Therefore, students benefit from a dual affiliation with both schools.

The program is mainly geared towards individuals who wish to enter academic teaching and research careers. Students are afforded a high degree of flexibility in their studies, however areas of work are broadly organized into the following areas: the Theory and History of Architecture, Architectural Technology, the Theory and History of Landscape Architecture, and the Evolution of Cities and Regions. 

• Theory and History of Architecture:  

Students interested in this area typically study buildings, architectural texts, technologies, and their political, social, and cultural contexts through the early modern, modern, and contemporary eras. 

• Architectural Technology:  

Doctoral research in architectural technology at the GSD aims to advance current  knowledge in green building, for example, and will typically involve issues related to engineering, computation, and digital simulations. 

• Theory and History of Landscape Architecture : 

Students whose research focuses on the theory and history of landscape architecture typically investigate the  ways in which the  natural environment has been thought of, represented, and transformed, from the early modern to the contemporary period. 

• Evolution of Cities and Regions:

Students may be interested in the subject of cities  from a formal standpoint and/or develop an additional emphasis on various social, economic, technological, infrastructural, and ecological dimensions of urban life.

For biographies of current students and more information about their research interests, click here .

After graduation, PhD program alumni typically teach in design schools, or in history or history of art and architecture departments, landscape architecture and environmental studies departments, and urban studies and/or urban planning departments. Some alumni also work in the science, technology, and society domain on governmental and policy issues of particular relevance to their research.

Program Director and Administrator

Antoine Picon , G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the GSD is the current director of the program.

Margaret Moore de Chicojay is the PhD program administrator and key point of contact for incoming and current students. Contact: [email protected]

Science, Technology and Policy Studies Track

In this section.

• Degree Requirements
• What We Look For

The Science, Technology and Policy Studies track provides rigorous interdisciplinary training, drawing on methodological tools from science and technology policy, science and technology studies, policy analysis, political theory, law, and economics.

At HKS, students have access to leading scholars from across Harvard in the social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering, with specialties in areas such as security studies, energy policy, innovation and development, environment and climate, biotechnology, data science, and information. The HKS faculty includes practitioners with wide experience at the highest levels of government and industry in science and technology policy.

Graduates are qualified for academic teaching and research in public policy schools, interdisciplinary programs, and traditional social science departments, as well as for leadership positions in national and international science and technology policy in both the public and private sectors.

Recent News

Faculty Member Julie Reuben writes on indoctrination in the classroom for The Chronicle . Jewel Pereyra, current doctoral candidate, will be presenting Afro-Filipina Aesthetics: Transnational Sound Cultures and Dance Performances . Hua Hsu, PhD ’08, wins the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography for his book Stay True. Karen Kramer, current doctoral candidate, was a recipient of the 2023 Curatorial Award for Excellence for her work at the Peabody Essex Museum .

Upcoming Events

American Studies Fall Reception Wednesday, September 4, 2024 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. American Studies Suite, Barker Center

“America” is vast. The “United States” is non-unified. These words name a geographical place (with borders that shift over time), a nexus of power, a set conjunction of cultures, an idea, and an ever-changing, ever-moving group of people. Because “America” exceeds standard categories of evidence, American Studies approaches it in interdisciplinary ways. Scholars in American Studies integrate disciplinary methods to grapple with big issues: environment and climate, labor, democracy, colonialism and empire, religion, capitalism, carcerality, indigeneity and migration, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and much more. American Studies is problem-based : we train students to ask bold questions, to identify the right evidence to answer those questions, and to develop the methodological skills needed to analyze the evidence. American Studies cultivates a “both/and” perspective: we are capacious, nimble, politically engaged, sometimes contentious, often quirky, and always in process. We consider the U.S. in global context, and global forces within the U.S. In Harvard’s American Studies doctoral program—the second-oldest in the nation—we unite around the goal of understanding how historical events and cultural acts of meaning-making affect each other.

How do we, at Harvard, practice American Studies? What characterizes our approach to the field?

1. We integrate methods from at least two disciplines. Early in the doctoral program, each student in American Studies identifies at least two methods that will be primary to the dissertation research. The most common methods in our program are cultural analysis (of texts, images, performances, material objects, and more), archive-based historical analysis, and ethnography. Some students employ quantitative analysis, legal studies, archaeology, big data analysis, or other approaches. Emphasizing a sense of responsibility and craft, American Studies students take courses that enable them to develop skills in their chosen methods. Many students earn an MA degree in a discipline en route to the PhD in American Studies. Our most frequently earned MA degrees are in English or History; students are also eligible to earn MA degrees in Sociology, Government, Anthropology, Music, and other departments. Many students deepen their skills by completing a Secondary Field . Crucially, we integrate our disciplinary methods, infusing each with the other. Some classic works in American Studies analyzed literary works as forces for historical change; others performed close literary readings of historical artifacts. Contemporary scholars in the field draw from a larger methodological toolbox. One recent graduate in American Studies analyzed the cultural-political work of 1970s record albums through sonic studies, material culture studies, and Black feminist theory. Another used quantitative analysis to understand the historical relationship between slavery and capitalism. We cross-fertilize disciplines to innovate new approaches and produce new knowledge about America and the world. 2. We lead with archival research. Harvard is uniquely rich in archives and museums. Our doctoral program partners with these repositories to provide our students with unrivaled opportunities for research and professional development. Our courses train students to conduct archival research, and some of our courses are integrated with these repositories. Many American Studies doctoral students work at Harvard’s archives and museums, and some graduates parlay this on-the-job training into careers in public history. Of the many archives and museums at Harvard, one of the most important to our program is Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library , which is widely considered the world’s best archival source on American women. Houghton Library has unparalleled resources in American printing, visual culture, theatre and performance , and more. Our students examine rare materials at the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Divinity School Library , the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute, the Countway Library for health and biomedical sciences, Tozzer Library for anthropology and archaeology, and many other repositories . The Harvard Film Archive and the Loeb Music Library provide the evidence base for many dissertations. Harvard’s museums, too—from the Harvard Art Museums to the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art to the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts —are stunning resources that benefit our students’ dissertations, teaching, and careers. 3. Our graduates excel. Harvard’s PhDs enter tenure-track jobs at almost three times the national average for programs in American Studies. Our recent graduates teach at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, Harvard School of Law, the University of California-Irvine, Tufts University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, the University of Connecticut, Vassar College, Rutgers University, Dartmouth College, Boston College, Bard, CUNY Queens College, and elsewhere. Our students regularly win top fellowships and postdocs including from the Fulbright Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian, and many others. Beyond the academy, our graduates become museum curators, editors, directors of grants, ministers, and more. Our graduates publish books and other works that win top honors, including Pulitzer Prizes , the National Book Award , and the National Book Critics Circle Award . Across the United States and around the world, Harvard American Studies graduates are shaping conversations about the American past and the global future, the relationship between the stories we tell and the world we co-create, who we are and who we can become.

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Harvard University professors announced the founding of the school’s first “Faculty for Israel” group in a new op-ed for the…

Harvard Professors Launch ‘Faculty for Israel’ Group

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Graduating students rise in support of 13 students not able to graduate because of their participation in anti-Israel protests during the 373rd Commencement Exercises at Harvard University, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Harvard University professors announced the founding of the school’s first “Faculty for Israel” group in a new op-ed for the campus newspaper.

“Israeli students and faculty are targets of pervasive anti-Israel hatred,” Jesse Fried and Matthew Meyerson wrote in the Harvard Crimson , explaining the need for such a group. “At Harvard, students have disrupted an Israeli professor’s lecture, an undergraduate has reported that a professor forced her to leave a classroom after she said she was Israeli, and an outside law firm engaged by Harvard found that another instructor discriminated against Israeli students on the basis of their national origin and identity.”

They added, “The message is clear: Zionists are not welcome,” and discussed the fits of antisemitism that have come over Harvard University students since Oct. 7, including an incident in which pro-Hamas students flooded a messaging forum with antisemitic tropes. They posted comments such as “we got too many damn jews [sic]…supporting our economy” and “she looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.”

Harvard Faculty for Israel’s founding comes at an inflection point in the history of Harvard, whose reputation as the finest institution of higher education in the US has been besmirched by a series of crises which called into question not only the competence of its school officials but also the quality of the faculty and students being selected to share in its prestige.

Just this week, the Crimson reported, a Jewish student’s mezuzah “went missing” and could not be found by its owner for “several hours.” Later, Harvard University police found the prayer scroll “three doors down from the student’s room,” leaving the victim, Sarah Silverman, resolute in her belief that it was returned once a police investigation of the theft was launched.

In response, Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi implored Harvard to “recognize” the incident as a “hate crime.”

He added, “To tear down a mezuzah is to send a message of intimidation and erasure. It’s not just a matter of vandalism; it is an attack on the very identity of the Jewish community at Harvard.”

Meanwhile, the Crimson — a paper which has time and time again published articles which took as fact accusations of racial bias and just two years ago endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to destroy the world’s only Jewish state — saw it fit to note that there is not “any evidence” that a crime took place.

Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas across southern Israel, the school has been accused of fostering a culture of racial grievance and antisemitism, while important donors have suspended funding for programs. In just the past year, its first Black president, Claudine Gay, resigned in disgrace after refusing to say she would punish inciting antisemitic language and being outed as a serial plagiarist ; a Harvard Faculty for Palestine group shared an antisemitic cartoon social media; and pro-Hamas protesters were filmed surrounding a Jewish student and shouting “ Shame !” into his ears.

According to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Harvard has repeatedly misrepresented its handling of the explosion of hate and rule breaking, launching a campaign of deceit and spin to cover up what ultimately has become the biggest scandal in higher education.

A report generated by the committee as part of a wider investigation of the school claimed that the university formed an Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) largely for show and did not consult its members when Jewish students were subject to verbal abuse and harassment, a time, its members felt, when its counsel was most needed. The advisory group went on to recommend nearly a dozen measures for addressing the problem and offered other guidance, the report said, but it was excluded from high-level discussions which preceded, for example, the December congressional testimony of former president Gay — a hearing convened to discuss antisemitism at Harvard.

So frustrated were a “majority” of AAG members with being an accessory to what the committee described as a cynically crafted public relations facade that they threatened to resign from it.

Harvard must still tend to outstanding issues which resulted from the events of this past academic year. A congressional investigation of its handling of antisemitism is ongoing and six Jewish students are suing it for allegedly ignoring antisemitic discrimination.

In April, attorneys representing the school attempted to have the suit tossed out of court, arguing that the plaintiffs lack legal standing. A federal judge disagreed and ruled in a decision rendered in August that the university’s handling of antisemitism was “indecisive, vacillating, and at times internally contradictory.” He also noted that at one point Harvard dean Stephen Ball attended a “vigil for martyrs” which commemorated terrorists and that Harvard police officers declined to intervene when a Jewish student “was openly ‘charged’ and pushed.”

It is this climate of hatred, deception, and spin that inspired Fried and Meyerson to assume roles as Jewish leaders and defenders of Israel.

“Harvard bends over backwards to prevent individuals of any other religion or nationalist from being singled out for harassment, discrimination, and shunning. The university should similarly have zero tolerance when the victims are Jewish or Israeli,” they wrote in Thursday’s op-ed. “We fondly remember a Harvard where Jews and Israelis were warmly welcomed, just like everyone else. It can be that way again.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre .

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