Harvard Still Employs Professor Whose Emails With Epstein Mentioned Spies And Torture

Even as the class of 2030 prepares to arrive to the Harvard campus in two weeks, it’s not yet clear how much longer Martin Nowak — who cryptically discussed a “captured spy” and “torture” with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in an unearthed 2014 email — will remain on the university’s payroll.

Epstein deeply enmeshed himself with Nowak’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) just off of leafy Harvard Yard. Epstein maintained an office there, describing it as “my istittue [sic] at harvard” in an email released last fall.

It’s back to school season, but many questions about Epstein’s relationship to the Ivy League remain unanswered. Some of the individuals who lent Harvard’s prestige to the sex trafficker — eager to launder his reputation and remain ensconced in elite circles — maintain their positions.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that Nowak remains on administrative leave, but did not respond when asked about the status of a formal inquiry launched nearly six months ago.

Harvard shuttered the PED in 2021, shifting its research to the Mathematics Department, then reinstated Nowak’s advising and research privileges in 2023, per the Harvard Crimson. In February, Harvard placed Nowak on administrative leave following the legally compelled release of three million records about the Epstein controversy by the Department of Justice, including the 2014 exchange.

In a statement posted to his website, Nowak said the email referred to a video game.

“On social media, there is confusion over an email exchange that was released with the Epstein files. … 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,” he said. “When you get this response in the game, then what you wanted to do had worked out. It is a moment of success. Strangely, this silly line stuck with me. I sometimes think about it, after having solved a small mathematical problem. This led to the email.”

Nowak said he does not know why Epstein responded about “torture.”

“I have no idea what triggered Epstein’s response. The email exchange did not refer to an actual spy, nobody got captured, nobody was on a mission, and nobody was tortured,” he continued.