Harvard continues to employ a professor whose relationship with Jeffrey Epstein came under renewed scrutiny after federal records revealed an email exchange about a “captured spy” and “torture.” Mathematics and biology professor Martin Nowak remains on paid administrative leave while the university examines his conduct. Nearly six months after that inquiry began, Harvard has not publicly announced its findings or said when the process will end.
The renewed scrutiny followed the Justice Department’s January release of more than three million Epstein-related records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Among those records was a short March 10th, 2014, exchange between Nowak and Epstein that offered no explanation for its strange wording. The discovery drew fresh attention to Epstein’s long relationship with Nowak and the Harvard research program that Epstein helped finance.
In the released message, Nowak wrote, “our spy was captured after completing her mission.” Epstein replied, “did you torture her.” The exchange occurred more than five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to charges involving the solicitation of minors for prostitution. Nowak later claimed that the message had an innocent explanation tied to a computer game he played years earlier.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences confirmed to the Daily Caller that Nowak remains on administrative leave. The school did not answer the outlet’s questions about the formal inquiry Harvard launched in February or explain when it expects to reach a decision. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi Hoekstra previously said the investigation would examine whether Nowak violated university policy or professional-conduct standards. For now, the professor remains employed while that review continues.
Nowak addressed the email on his website, saying the spy language came from the computer game “Civilization II.” He said the phrase stayed with him and sometimes came to mind after he solved a small mathematical problem. “The email exchange did not refer to an actual spy,” Nowak wrote, adding that nobody was captured, sent on a mission, or tortured. He said he did not know what prompted Epstein’s reply and condemned Epstein’s crimes.
Epstein’s connection to Nowak went far beyond one email. In 2003, Epstein gave Harvard $6.5 million to establish the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, which Nowak directed from a separate facility near Harvard Yard. A university-commissioned 2020 report found that Epstein maintained a relationship with Nowak for the next 15 years, including after Epstein left prison. Harvard’s investigators also found that the program kept an office available for Epstein and that he visited its offices more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018.
The relationship also gave Epstein a way to attach his name to Harvard after his 2008 conviction. According to Harvard’s review, Epstein’s publicist asked the program in 2014 to create a page about him on a Harvard-controlled website because the association would help his Google results. Nowak approved the request, and the page was placed on the harvard.edu domain. The Daily Caller reported that later emails also described the research operation as Epstein’s program or institute at Harvard.
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Harvard closed the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics in 2021 and moved its research into the Mathematics Department. The university later restored Nowak’s research and student-advising privileges in 2023, but placed him on leave again in February after the new federal records emerged. The renewed investigation was announced as an examination of both university policy and professional conduct. As of the Daily Caller’s August 18th report, Harvard would only confirm that Nowak remained on administrative leave.