Fifteen Questions
Fifteen Questions: Naomi Oreskes on Climate Change Denial, Apolitical Scientists, and Her Favorite Rocks
The historian and her dog sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about disinformation, climate change, and rocks. “Generally people don’t act — especially if you’re asking people to change how they're living, how they’re behaving, how they’re thinking — if you just give them dry scientific information,” Oreskes says.
Fifteen Questions: Jules Gill-Peterson on Trans DIY History, Deep-Fried Memes, and the End of the World
The historian sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss modes of transition and the current political moment. “Despite every attempt, people have been remarkably bad at stopping people from transitioning,” she says.
Jules Gill-Peterson
Jules Gill-Peterson is a 2023–24 Radcliffe fellow and an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University.
Fifteen Questions: Bruno Carvalho on Cities, Bike Lanes, and Punny Halloween Costumes
The urbanist sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss cities and urban studies. “I’m not sure I would say cities are inherently anything except for places where strangers live among each other and places where constructions are supposed to last beyond a single generation,” he says.
Fifteen Questions: Maria Dominguez Gray on PBHA, Leadership, and Public Service
The executive director of the Phillips Brooks House Association sat down with Fifteen Minutes to share her thoughts on what makes a good student leader and the value of community service.
Maria Dominguez Gray
Maria Dominguez Gray has been at the Phillips Brooks House Association for going on 25 years, and has been the executive director for 11.
Fifteen Questions: Rochelle Walensky on Pandemics, Public Health, and Reading for Fun
FM sat down with the former CDC director to discuss her experience as one of the nation’s public health leaders during an unprecedented global pandemic. "I don’t know that America appreciates how the people of CDC, the 12,000 people of CDC, work tirelessly, quietly,” she says. “You never know their name.”
rochelle walensky portrait
Rochelle P. Walensky served as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023.
Vijay Iyer
Vijay Iyer is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts as well as graduate advisor for the Music Department’s Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry program.
Fifteen Questions: Vijay Iyer on Cognition, Temporality, and Musical Community
Professional musician and Harvard professor of the arts Vijay Iyer sat down with Fifteen Minutes to chat about his career, his teaching philosophy, and the neuroscience of music.
Jocelyn Viterna Portrait
Jocelyn Viterna is the chair of Harvard’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a professor of sociology, and a researcher of sexual and reproductive rights.
Fifteen Questions: Jocelyn Viterna on El Salvador, Abortion Bans, and Finding Patterns
FM sat down with sociologist Jocelyn Viterna to talk about her research into gender politics and reproductive justice in El Salvador. “If a social movement is not based in actually changing the hearts and minds and practices of individuals, then I think it’s always going to be vulnerable,” she says.
David Yang
David Y. Yang is an Economics professor who studies change and stability in authoritarian regimes with a specific focus on China.
Fifteen Questions: David Yang on Chinese Authoritarianism, Political Economy, and Cookbooks
The Economics professor sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss his work on the political economy of authoritarian regimes in China. “There are people in China who eagerly want and fight for democracy. There are people in the U.S. who take on actions that go very much against democracy,” he says.
Mina Cikara Portrait
Mina Cikara is a Psychology professor that studies discrimination, conflict, and harm using social psychological and cognitive neuroscience approaches.
Fifteen Questions: Mina Cikara on Social Psychology, Intergroup Conflict, and Being a ‘Valley Rat’
Psychology professor Mina Cikara sat down with the magazine to discuss her influences and the psychology of discrimination. “Social psychology is rife with theorizing about all of the different inputs to intergroup conflict,” she says. “There are many, and they are multiply determined, and they are incredibly complex.”
Catherine Brekus Portrait
Catherine A. Brekus ’85 is a professor at Harvard Divinity School. She studies religion in America with a special emphasis in women’s religious history.
Fifteen Questions: Catherine Brekus on Historical Women, Christian Nationalism, and Religious Freedom
Divinity School professor Catherine A. Brekus ’85 sat down with Fifteen Minutes to talk about women’s history and religion. “For me, religion became a tool for asking questions about how women had made sense of their lives, and how they had made meaning,” she says.
Kathleen Coleman
Kathleen M. Coleman, a member of Harvard’s faculty for a quarter-century, is a Classics professor and the Department’s chair as well as a Senior Research Curator for the Harvard Art Museums.
Fifteen Questions: Kathleen Coleman on Gladiators, the Classics, and Poems
The former Chair of Harvard’s Classics Department discusses her experiences in apartheid South Africa, the gladiators of Ancient Rome, and the future of the Classics. She has been “privileged,” she says, “to spend my career basically pursuing my hobby.”
Susannah Tobin ’00 on Opinion Writing, Civil Rights, and the Gold Coast
The law professor sat down with Fifteen Questions to discuss her experience writing for The Crimson and working with Harvard students at the College and Law School. She shares her love of history and talks about what it can teach us, “I think about that and think about how far we’ve come and how much further we have to go.”
Susannah Tobin
Susannah B. Tobin ’00 is the Assistant Dean for Academic Career Advising and Ezra Ripley Thayer Senior Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She is also Managing Director of the Climenko Fellowship Program. She serves on the graduate council for The Harvard Crimson and Cambridge Historical Mission.
Orland Patterson portrait
Orlando Patterson is a Sociology professor who studies race, freedom, and slavery. He served as a special adviser for Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley from 1972 to 1979 and has written several novels.
Fifteen Questions: Orlando Patterson on the Sociology of Slavery, Advising the Jamaican Prime Minister, and Cricket
Historical and cultural sociologist Orlando Patterson sat down to discuss his upbringing and sociology research. “I didn’t get into academia just for the scholarship,” he says. “My work was motivated by the need to understand Jamaica.”
Ian Miller
Ian J. Miller is a historian studying empire and energy in modern Japan and East Asia. He is a history professor, Faculty Dean of Cabot House, and Director of Undergraduate Studies.