BornCurious

In her decade-plus of food journalism, Priya Krishna has worked to make Indian cuisine more accessible to home cooks while telling the stories of unsung food laborers. At a recent Radcliffe event, Krishna sat down with the scholar Durba Mitra to talk about family, improvisation, authenticity, and “the America we live in today,” where we rely on human labor for greater access to a variety of cuisines while shopping for groceries at Walmart.

This program coincides with an exhibition in the Schlesinger Library, Cooking Up Change: Women’s Agency and Community Building Through Cookbooks, featuring selections from the Library’s renowned collection of cookbooks, which include the papers of Julia Child, Grace Zia Chu, Zarela Martinez, and Madhur Jaffrey, about whom Krishna and Mitra had much to say.

Released on September 24, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Priya Krishna is a food reporter, video host, and former restaurant critic at The New York Times as well as the best-selling author of the cookbooks Priya’s Kitchen Adventures: A Cookbook for Kids (Harvest, 2024) and Indian-ish (Harvest, 2019). She hosts On the Job, a New York Times online series that looks at labor in the food industry, and has appeared as a judge on MasterChef.

Durba Mitra is the Stanley Kelley, Jr., Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University. Her scholarship brings together feminist studies, sexuality studies, and global intellectual history. She is the author of The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, 2026) and Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton University Press, 2020). She was a Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor and a 2018–2019 fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she also served as interim faculty director of the Schlesinger Library.

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Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Bill McCurdy is the A/V support technician at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

On Radcliffe Day 2026, Harvard Radcliffe Institute honored Ruth J. Simmons in recognition of how she has modeled extraordinary and transformative leadership in higher education. In this episode, this most recent Radcliffe Medalist sits down with the Harvard scholar Drew Gilpin Faust—herself a former University president—to recount how a sharecropper’s daughter from East Texas found her way to courageous leadership.

Released on June 25, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Drew Gilpin Faust is a president emerita of Harvard University, where she is also the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Research Professor, and the author of seven books, including the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Knopf, 2008). Her most recent book is a memoir, Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury ((Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). She was the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Ruth J. Simmons is a three-time university president who has shaped generations of students and scholars—at Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University. Simmons has championed the power of education while calling on colleges and universities to uphold their foundational ideals and reckon honestly with their failures. She is most recently the author of Up Home: One Girl’s Journey (Random House, 2023).

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Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture in the Social Sciences: Conversation with Ruth J. Simmons

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Productions, Inc. for production support and Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

As a young person deeply concerned with social justice, Naomi Ko thought she might become a lawyer—then, reality intervened. After a stint with Teach for America, a volunteer job at the Berkeley Free Clinic would set her on her current path as a breast oncologist. In this episode, Ko shares her unique journey.

Released on April 23, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Naomi Ko is section chief of Breast Cancer Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Health and an associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She is writing a book, “Seeing the Unseen Among Us,” based on patient stories from her 15 years practicing medicine at Boston Medical Center.

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Fellowship bio: Naomi Ko

Episode 508: The Importance of Access in Breast Cancer Care

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Naomi Ko has spent her career as a breast cancer oncologist working in safety-net hospitals—medical institutions with high rates of uninsured patients. What she’s learned is that poorer patients have worse cancer outcomes, and it has made her passionate about health equity. Now she’s writing a book about the patient stories and themes that keep recurring in her cancer-fighting career.

Released on April 7, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Naomi Ko is section chief of Breast Cancer Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Health and an associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She is writing a book, “Seeing the Unseen Among Us,” based on patient stories from her 15 years practicing medicine at Boston Medical Center.

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The Boston Globe: “A Double Diagnosis—Cancer While Poor”

Fellowship bio: Naomi Ko

Episode 509: An Oncologist’s Origin Story

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

In a conversation with Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, the columnist and author David Brooks discusses his career and his perspectives on American politics, society, and higher education.

Released on March 26, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

David Brooks is a best-selling author and a political analyst who has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and PBS News Hour, among other outlets. He serves as a senior advisor to the University of Chicago, Leadership and Society Initiative and recently began a five-year appointment as a presidential senior fellow at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished scholar in the fields of law and history.

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Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

In storytelling, can the personal be universal? For the animator and filmmaker Domee Shi, the answer is a resounding yes. In this episode, Shi talks with Ju Yon Kim, a Harvard professor, about how she’s turned her own personal history into successful Pixar movies.

Released on March 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guests

Ju Yon Kim is the Patsy Takemoto Mink Professor of English at Harvard University. 

Domee Shi is an Academy Award–winning director, writer, and storyteller and a creative vice president at Pixar.

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Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Kevin Grady is the multimedia producer at HRI.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Many think of plants as passive, but in fact, these organisms display complex behaviors—and we have much to learn from them. In this episode, we continue our conversation with the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who wrote about the wisdom of the natural world in Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021).

Released on February 5, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montgomery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

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Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

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Episode 504: The Stories Trees Hold—America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

The history of African American people in the United States is inextricably linked to the cotton shrub, but seven other species of tree also have deep meaning for this community. In this episode, we learn about these trees from the plant scientist Beronda L. Montgomery, who has just published a book examining America’s Black botanical legacy.

Released on January 22, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Beronda L. Montmogery is a writer and scientist who studies how plants and photosynthetic bacteria perceive, respond to, and are impacted by environments in which they exist. She is the author, most recently, of When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical History (Henry Holt, 2026).

Related Content

Beronda L. Montgomery Fellowship Bio

Beronda L. Montgomery Personal Website

What Can We Learn from the Trees That Witnessed Our History? (Boston Globe, 1/29/26)

Episode 505: Our Plant Teachers

Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

GuestRelated ContentCredits

On This Episode

Although as many women as men enter medical school, six years after graduating from their residencies, 40 percent of women have either transitioned to part-time or left the profession altogether. Why? The answer is career and life demands that lead to higher burnout rates. In this episode, Ashwini Nadkarni, who coled a seminar on the topic, talks about the ramifications of this—for both doctors and patients—and some potential remedies.

Released on December 17, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Ashwini Nadkarni is a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital—where she is vice chair of faculty enrichment and associate medical director of Brigham Psychiatric Specialties—and a professor at Harvard Medical School. With her colleague John Fromson, Nadkarni led a Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar that addressed burnout among women physicians.

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Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.

Rachna Reddy has spent more than a decade observing chimpanzees in the wild, tracking how they grow up, navigate friendship, rivalry, loss, and even the anxieties that come with adolescence—emotions that might feel surprisingly familiar to us. In this episode, she shares how her research sheds light on what it means to come of age—not just for chimps but for humans, too, revealing the roots of our own empathy, conflict, and connection.

Released on November 20, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Guest

Rachna Reddy teaches anthropology and environment, society, and sustainability at the University of Utah, and she also codirects the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project. Through her study of chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, she is trying to understand the evolutionary foundations of human social relationships and development.

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Credits

Ivelisse Estrada is your cohost and the editorial manager at HRI, where she edits Radcliffe Magazine.

Alan Catello Grazioso is the executive producer of BornCurious and the senior multimedia manager at HRI.

Heather Min is your cohost and the senior manager of digital strategy at HRI.

Anna Soong is the production assistant at HRI.

Special thanks to Cabin 3 Media for their invaluable contributions to the editing of this podcast episode.