Nowak, a Harvard professor who remains on administrative leave, drew renewed scrutiny after the release of a 2014 email exchange with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In the email, Nowak referred cryptically to a “captured spy,” while Epstein responded with a reference to “torture.” Nowak has since said the exchange was harmless and that his message was inspired by the computer game Civilization II.
Epstein had unusually deep ties to Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, or PED, which operated near Harvard Yard. He maintained an office there and, in one email released last fall, described the program as “my istittue at harvard.”
As another school year approaches, Harvard is still facing questions about the extent of Epstein’s relationships with people connected to the university. Some of those who helped give Epstein access to prestigious academic circles remained in influential positions long after his 2008 conviction.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that Nowak is still on administrative leave. It did not answer questions about the status of a formal inquiry launched nearly six months ago.
Harvard shut down the PED in 2021 and transferred its research to the Mathematics Department. Two years later, the university restored Nowak’s advising and research privileges, according to the Harvard Crimson. In February 2026, Harvard placed him on administrative leave after the Department of Justice released roughly three million records related to Epstein, including the 2014 email exchange.
In a statement posted to his website, Nowak said his reference to a captured spy came directly from Civilization II.
“Some have missed that ‘Our spy was captured after completing her mission’ is a line from a computer game called Civilization II, a game I played many years ago,” Nowak wrote. He said the phrase stayed with him over the years and would occasionally come to mind after he solved a small mathematical problem.
As for Epstein’s reply, Nowak said he could not explain it.
“I have no idea what triggered Epstein’s response,” he wrote. “The email exchange did not refer to an actual spy, nobody got captured, nobody was on a mission, and nobody was tortured.”
Nowak has not been charged with any crime. He did not respond to a request for comment about either his relationship with Epstein or the university’s ongoing inquiry.
Documents released over the years show just how closely Epstein associated himself with the PED. Some of his contacts even appeared to think of the program as Epstein’s own laboratory. In a December 2017 email, science writer Robert Kuhn referred to “Evolutionary Dynamics – your program at Harvard” while discussing possible television topics with Epstein.
The records also suggest Epstein had practical reasons for cultivating his relationships with Nowak and other scientists. While recipients of his scientific funding sometimes portrayed him as an intellectually curious patron, Epstein was also using his connections to prominent researchers to rehabilitate his public image and improve what appeared about him in online searches.
That effort was already underway by 2010. Epstein was trying to push down damaging coverage of his 2008 criminal case and the unusually favorable non-prosecution agreement surrounding it. At the time, at least 18 young women still had civil lawsuits pending against him.
Epstein paid an aide to create two websites devoted to presenting him as a supporter of cutting-edge scientific work: jeffreyepsteinscience.com and jeffreyepstein.org. Both prominently highlighted his support for Nowak.
One of Epstein’s websites claimed that he had provided $30 million to the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics by 2010. Harvard has disputed that number, saying Epstein’s support totaled $6.5 million. Former Harvard president Larry Summers helped establish the program in 2003 alongside mathematician Benedict Gross, according to the PED’s website at the time.
Summers announced his retirement in February 2026 after the release of emails showing years of frequent and personal correspondence with Epstein.
Harvard’s own 2020 fact-finding report documented another revealing episode. In 2014, Epstein’s publicist asked Nowak’s lab to create a Harvard-hosted webpage about Epstein because it would help improve his Google search results.
“It would be very helpful in terms of Google results if his name were attached to a Harvard.edu url,” the publicist told the lab, according to the report.
Nowak agreed to the request.
The newly released records reinforce the extent to which Epstein viewed prestigious academic affiliations as tools for managing his reputation. In a 2018 text exchange about funding another Cambridge scientist, MIT researcher John De La Parra, Epstein made the strategy unusually explicit.
“Press brutality. Wow. Will need to cure cancer. To move this down the page,” Epstein wrote.
The documents also raise questions about the completeness of Harvard’s 2020 review. That report estimated that Epstein’s final visit to campus took place in October 2018. Newly released records, however, appear to contain evidence of another visit in November of that year.
Harvard opened a new investigation into its Epstein connections on Nov. 19, 2025.
Six days later, the university added Mary Erdoes, CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, to the governing board of the Harvard endowment, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Erdoes had extensive contact with Epstein while he was one of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients, according to a Nov. 19 Senate memo. The New York Times has reported that she played an important role in keeping Epstein as a client even as compliance officials raised concerns about suspicious financial activity.
A Senate investigation released earlier this month said Epstein made about $3 million in direct payments to women or girls, including payments involving accounts in Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Latvia and Lithuania. Investigators said those transactions should have prompted concerns not only about possible money laundering, but also about sex trafficking.