Martin Andreas Nowak is an Austrian-born mathematical biologist and the author of several books. Following the exposure of his role in allowing Jeffrey Epstein access to the campus, Nowak was placed on academic leave in May 2020 from his position as a Professor of Biology and Mathematics at Harvard University.
In 1989, he moved to the University of Oxford as an Erwin Schrödingerpostdoctoral Scholar to work with Robert May, becoming Head of Mathematical Biology in 1995 and Professor of Mathematical Biology in 1997. In 1998 he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study to establish the first program in Theoretical Biology there. In 2003, Nowak was recruited to Harvard University as Professor of Mathematics and Biology. He is Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics which was funded with a $30-million pledge by Jeffrey Epstein and his foundation, the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, a friend of Nowak who had supported his work in the past. Nowak works on the dynamics of infectious diseases, cancer genetics, the evolution of cooperation and human language. His first book, Virus Dynamics was published by Oxford University Press, 2000. Nowak is a corresponding member of the Austrian academy of sciences. He won the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize, the Akira Okubo Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize and the Henry Dale Prize. His 2006 book Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life was published in 2006 to critical acclaim and won the Association of American Publishers R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Work of 2006. Nowak was co-director with Sarah Coakley of the Evolution and Theology of Cooperation project at Harvard University, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. He is also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Templeton Foundation. In a lecture given at Harvard in March 2007 called "Evolution and Christianity", Nowak, a Roman Catholic, argued that "Science and religion are two essential components in the search for truth. Denying either is a barren approach." Harvard University suspended Nowak on May 1, 2020 because of his affiliation with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A commissioned by the university found that, although Nowak had repeatedly requested to be allowed access to Epstein's philanthropy in the years following Epstein's conviction, he was blocked by Harvard administrators. Nonetheless, Nowak allowed Epstein ongoing access to visit the university, to maintain an office and phone line, and to interact with students at PED. Wired stated that Nowak also played a role in substantiating Epstein's false claims to MIT administrators that he had given tens of millions of dollars to Harvard. Moreover, as noted by the Harvard Crimson, Epstein was at this time using his philanthropy and relationship with Nowak to rehabilitate his public image.
Academic research
In 1990, Nowak and Robert May proposed a mathematical model which explained the puzzling delay between HIV infection and AIDS in terms of the evolution of different strains of the virus during individual infections, to the point where the genetic diversity of the virus reaches a threshold whereby the immune system can no longer control it. This detailed quantitative approach depended on assumptions about the biology of HIV which were subsequently confirmed by experiment. In a paper in Science in 2006, Nowak enunciated and unified the mathematical rules for the five understood bases of the evolution of cooperation. Nowak suggests that evolution is constructive because of cooperation, and that we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection. In a paper featured on the front cover of Nature in 2007, Nowak and colleagues demonstrated that the transition of irregular verbs to regular verbs in English over time obeys a simple inverse-square law, thus providing one of the first quantitative laws in the evolution of language. He has over 300 scientific publications, of which 40 are in Nature and 15 in Science. Nowak's research interests include:
In 2011, Nowak’s book Supercooperators: The Mathematics of Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour was published, co-authored with Roger Highfield. Manfred Milinski in Nature describes the book as "part autobiography, part textbook, and reads like a best-selling novel" and suggests that whereas Nowak is right that the theories of kin selection and punishment need revisiting, it is too soon to tell whether his bold ideas will hold up to empirical testing. On the Nowak/Tarnita/Wilson paper Milinski says: "I anticipate that a better mathematical formulation of social evolution theory will be found that includes relatedness, is compatible with existing evidence and includes Hamilton's rule as a rule of thumb." David Willetts, in the Financial Times, described the book as an "excellent example" of using the nexus of evolutionary biology, game theory and neuroscience to understand the development of cooperation in society, and suggests that "all politicians can draw inspiration and ideas from the intellectual resources of this exciting approach"
