Martin Nowak

Martin Andreas Nowak (born April 7, 1965) is an Austrian-born professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. He is a researcher known for his work in evolutionary dynamics, focusing on evolutionary theory and viral dynamics and was one of the primary recipients of funding from Jeffrey Epstein on the Harvard faculty.

Nowak held faculty positions at Oxford University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, before beginning a post at Harvard in July 2003. Around the same time as his hire, Jeffrey Epstein pledged $30 million to fund Nowak's work, helping to set up a center for studying cooperation in evolution. The same year, Nowak contributed several pages to Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book, referring to an "Epstein Institute" at Harvard. Ultimately, Harvard received $9.1 million in donations in total from Epstein, at least $6.5 million of which was earmarked for Nowak.

In response to the revelations of Epstein's support of Nowak and his lab (the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics), Nowak was suspended from supervising undergraduate research for two years, and the institute was permanently closed. Harvard's review, leading to the suspension, uncovered that Epstein had maintained access to a personal office in Nowak's lab for 9 years, even after his conviction for sex crimes, and used the office over 40 times, "typically accompanied by young women serving as his assistants".

In 2023, Harvard lifted the sanctions against Nowak and he remains on the faculty, jointly appointed in the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.