Harvardwood HIGHLIGHTS - December 2025
- Dec 6, 2025
- 16 min read
In this issue:
MESSAGE FROM HARVARDWOOD
NEWS
New in 2026: Harvardwood Weekly Freewriting Sessions
2026 Harvardwood Writers Competition - Final Deadline Monday
Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship and Harvardwood Emerging Visual Artist Fellowship Applications
Seeking Homestay Hosts for Harvardwood 101 Students
Featured Job: Media Strategy and Planning Manager
FEATURES
Harvardwood Profile: Thomas Allen Harris AB '84 (artist, filmmaker, scholar)
Industry News
Exclusive Q&A with Alissa Lee AB '94 HLS '97 (author, lawyer)
CALENDAR & NOTES
LA Harvardwood Holiday Party 2025 (Los Angeles, CA)
An Exclusive Conversation with Scott Belsky of A24 (Virtual)
Last Month at Harvardwood
Want to submit your success(es) to Harvardwood HIGHLIGHTS? Do so by posting here!
It's the holiday season, so let's just get right into it!
The 2026 Harvardwood Writers Competition, the Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship, and the Emerging Visual Artist Fellowship are all open. Boy, it's like you guys don't even want money? What are you waiting for? Go on! Apply!
Also, come join us for our LA Harvardwood Holiday Party tomorrow! It's just like our other hit parties except "holiday." And later, join us to chat with Scott Belsky of A24! This one won't be as "holiday."
As always, if you have an idea for an event or programming, please tell us about it here. If you have an announcement about your work or someone else's, please share it here (members) and it will appear in our Weekly and/or next HIGHLIGHTS issue.
Best wishes,
Grace Shi
Operations and Communications
New in 2026: Harvardwood Weekly Freewriting Sessions
Kick off the new year by committing to your creative goals! Join our weekly online sessions to make real progress on your writing. Whether you’re starting a new project or advancing ongoing work, this is your dedicated space to write consistently and build momentum.
One hour, zero distractions, and 100% writing. Perfect for Harvardwood members looking to make steady progress.
Will be held Thursdays, 8am-9am PT (11am-12pm ET), beginning January 8th. RSVP info to come!
2026 Harvardwood Writers Competition (HWC)
The Harvardwood Writers Competition (HWC) was founded in 2006 with the aim of recognizing superior work by Harvard writers and giving these talented individuals the opportunity to gain industry exposure.
We're accepting submissions of half-hour pilots, one-act plays, one-hour pilots, and feature scripts.
HWC applicants can opt to receive judging comments and feedback for each script submitted. The notes are aimed to illuminate judges' reactions to your script (beyond the numerical average of your scores received by semi-finalists and finalists) and may be useful to you for future rewrites.
Only Full Members of Harvardwood are eligible for the competition (Friends of Harvardwood are ineligible). To become a Full member, non-members can register by clicking here.
The late and final deadline is Monday, December 8th.
Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship and Harvardwood Emerging Visual Artist Fellowship Applications
We are thrilled to offer two fellowships—applications are open through Monday, January 19th.
The Harvardwood Emerging Visual Artist Fellowship is in its second year. This year, the committee will award a fellowship amount of $24,000 to one visual artist.
The Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship is in its fifth year, and the committee will award at least one fellowship amount of $24,000 to an artist in any discipline other than the visual arts.
If you have questions about eligibility, please read more on the HEVAF here or the HALF here, or email us at admin@harvardwood.org
APPLY HERE for HEVAF
APPLY HERE for HALF
Seeking Homestay Hosts for Harvardwood 101 Students
Every year, our Harvardwood 101 career exploration program offers a few dozen Harvard College students a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend discussions with Hollywood executives, agents, writers, and artists.
Our Harvardwood 101 “Winternship” program (short-term professional experiences) spans 1-2 weeks in January, and we are currently looking for homestay hosts during that time in LA (approx. January 10-24, 2026).
If you’re able to provide a spare room/couch/air mattress to host a college student (or three!), we’d be eternally grateful.
Please contact Programs Director Laura Yumi Snell at programs@harvardwood.org with your name, address/neighborhood, and the number of students you’re able to host. Thank you!
Alumni Profile: Thomas Allen Harris AB '84 (artist, filmmaker, scholar)
by Laura Frustaci AB '21
Thomas Allen Harris AB '84 is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and scholar whose work explores family, identity, and spirituality. He is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive Storytelling, a nonprofit that uses participatory storytelling, artistic projects, and community engagements that activate the family archive to increase community well-being. Today, Harris is currently working on his upcoming documentary film, MY MOM, THE SCIENTIST, and its national outreach campaign, Scientists in the Family, which explores hidden figures within STEM. A Professor-in-the-Practice at Yale University, he teaches non-fiction film theory and production classes based on his pioneering research methodologies.
Support MY MOM, THE SCIENTIST here!
Thomas Allen Harris AB '84 didn’t leave Harvard imagining he would become a filmmaker, though the clues were already scattered across his senior-year schedule, from photography to creative writing classes. Coming from the Bronx High School of Science, he had arrived at Harvard not very confident in his writing; he left with a Henry Shaw Traveling Fellowship in hand as a confirmation of his creative spark. With it, he moved to Europe and embedded himself in immigrant communities in Paris, Amsterdam, and Milan. “I saw how film brought together photography and creative writing,” Thomas recalls, “particularly while learning foreign languages.” There, in French cinemas, he fell in love with the medium of film.
When Thomas returned to New York, he planned to attend NYU Film School. But when he was offered a job at the Children’s Television Workshop science show, 3-2-1 CONTACT, he ended up deferring his acceptance for three years until NYU finally drew the line. “By then, I'd started working as a producer. A lot of my early work was connected with science,” Thomas explains. He studied science at Harvard, and his mom was a scientist. This led to his first PBS national show in 1989: CRISIS: WHO WILL DO SCIENCE? The piece looked at the barriers that both women and minorities face in STEM. The program was so resonant and timely that it ended up being entered into the Congressional Record, augmenting the existing movement to further diversify STEM fields.
After the success of his first piece, Thomas attended the Whitney Independent Study Program for artists. “I knew that I wanted to do stuff that was a little bit more experimental, and also a little bit more personal… I was inspired by another Harvard grad, Marlon Riggs, who produced a ground-breaking film entitled TONGUES UNTIED… We became friends. He was part of the queer media community. And I saw what was possible in terms of personal filmmaking,” Thomas says. “So I started making these experimental short films that were performance-based, and they were shown around the world.” Around this time, Thomas received a faculty position at UC San Diego, followed by tenure in 2000. However, he was still pulled back home towards the East Coast, to New York.
Then, the Ford Foundation awarded Harris a grant for what would become É MINHA CARA/THAT’S MY FACE, an award-winning, deeply personal, transcontinental film that premiered at Toronto before screening at Sundance, Berlin, and Tribeca. This led to him giving up his tenure, because “I was making films full-time. I was in the middle of this grant cycle where I was able to raise money to make films, and there seemed to be a lot of support… I worked on formally innovative personal films that illuminated larger social movements,” he says.
Each project sent him deeper into family archives he hadn’t previously known existed, which led to his making of TWELVE DISCIPLES OF NELSON MANDELA: A SON'S TRIBUTE TO UNSUNG HEROES with his mother after the death of his step-father. It was a South African/U.S. co-production. THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PEOPLE, inspired by Deborah Willis’s seminal history of Black photographers, was the production that followed. As he went through these filmmaking processes that merged the historical and the personal, Thomas realized that his own family-centered research process and participatory storytelling methodology could open doors for others.
The result? DIGITAL DIASPORA FAMILY REUNION—a cross-country transmedia project that incorporates community organizing, performance, and virtual happenings to create an interactive form of storytelling—and FAMILY PICTURES USA, a PBS series that invited hundreds of Americans in cities across the country to share their family photos. Through these collective albums, Thomas and his collaborators mapped local histories and “told the story of the origins and present-day realities, and connected people through the shared bonds of living in a certain place at a certain time.” It also highlights communities that are normally overlooked, including Native Americans, immigrants, queer communities, etc., Thomas notes proudly.
The production unfortunately came to a halt when the pandemic hit, as did life. But this gave Thomas time to begin a new film about his mother, Rudean Leinaeng. This one wasn’t about her work as an activist, though. Thomas notes there existed plenty of images that captured that side of her life in his family archive, but there were absolutely no images of her as a scientist. Despite the fact that he came from a family of photographers and that Rudean was the first Black woman professor of Chemistry at Bronx Community College, there was no record of this very important aspect of her identity. Obviously, that made creating a film about her much more of a challenge. But Thomas wasn’t deterred.
The team received grants from Sundance, Black Public Media, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, PBS, Firelight Media’s William Greaves Fund, and other entities, beginning to piece together her story across formats. The grants didn’t come easily, and the most exciting and challenging to obtain was a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, including $800,000 to complete the film. The rest of the money was to fund a series called SCIENTISTS IN THE FAMILY, which was aimed at working with science centers around the country to use the FAMILY PICTURES methodology to surface stories of scientists, science activists, and how communities were using science, elevating STEM work through the lenses of family and community.
But earlier this year, amid the wave of anti-DEI rollbacks, the NSF abruptly pulled the funding. “It was crushing,” Thomas says. Since then, he and his team have pivoted and recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to keep their edit suite open. They are still determined to finish the film in time for a 2026 world premiere and share his mother’s story. Thomas explains: “The film looks at this woman who fell in love with science and overcame all these odds, in terms of gender and race, you know, and about invisibility, not being seen… It's like a way to think about, or to give inspiration and a roadmap to people who are doing science. How do I succeed? How do I succeed when the world does not believe or see me as someone who's valuable in this way?” It’s the kind of story we need right now, and it also ties in the importance of scientific innovation and everyday scientific practices, asking, How does science impact our lives?"
Although we so frequently see a bifurcation between science and the humanities, Thomas is constantly working to unite them. “The role science played in my process, an art process, is the focus on a kind of methodology that then I take and I create these new things out of… It does feel a bit like each film is kind of like a lab,” Thomas smiles. “And in terms of thinking about the scientific method, to be able to prove certain things, to be able to document them… But also, notions of perception. A lot of my films are really about sight, and Ruth Hubbard actually did some amazing work on the eye. I grew up legally blind in one eye… When I was in school, I had to wear a patch over my good eye, so I could only see things in shapes and colors. I was very tuned to how light informed what I saw.” This idea of perception, of what’s on the surface versus what’s underneath, also threads through and inspires Thomas’s work.
Digging beneath the surface level of perception is what creates this sense of community present in all of Thomas’s films. “It's the sense of ideal around participatory storytelling… I either hand the camera off to other people who might not be filmmakers, or I invite them to be in front of the camera.” This process of co-creation adds a special sense of inclusivity and accessibility to the films that Thomas creates. Speaking about the work he does with his nonprofit, Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive Storytelling, he says, “My interest is creating a kind of secular yet sacred space. How can we drop a little bit of the mask, of our desire to protect ourselves, and just be open, and to be able to see people, not simply for how they present themselves, but to see them in relation to those things and people, and to be in affirmation with other people, and to be able to listen as people are telling stories and being vulnerable because I think that when you listen, there's a sense of the sacred yet secular space, and the vulnerability, and it transforms people.”
Industry News
Alec Berg AB ’91, acclaimed TV writer-producer (known for SEINFELD, SILICON VALLEY, and BARRY), is developing a new TV series titled C-LEAGUE for Hulu, in partnership with comedian/actor Charlie Hall. (Deadline)
Rubén Blades LL.M. ’85, Panamanian music legend and longtime champion of salsa, won the Latin GRAMMY® in 2025 for Best Salsa Album with FOTOGRAFíAS—adding another chapter to his storied career. (HOLA!)
Robert Carlock AB ’95, Emmy-winning writer and producer, returns to NBC’s 2025–26 season lineup with a new project, THE FALL AND RISE OF REGGIE DINKINS with Tracy Morgan. (Deadline)
Soprano Allison Charney AB ’86 has earned a 2025 GRAMMY® nomination for her album ALIKE – MY MOTHER’S DREAM, a project centered on musical storytelling across cultures in conflict. (PREformances)
Andrew Colville AB ’94, writer and executive-producer on MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS, returns for Season 2 of the Apple TV+ series, which will launch February 27, 2026. (Variety)
R. J. Cutler AB ’83, award-winning filmmaker and producer, is developing a new documentary with Laurent Bouzereau about the 2025 Louvre Museum jewel heist—exploring the theft, the investigation, and the international chase for the stolen French Crown Jewels. (Hollywood Reporter)
Rodrigo García AB ’82, acclaimed filmmaker, debuted his new film THE FOLLIES (LAS LOCURAS) on Netflix worldwide on November 20, 2025, after a qualifying theatrical run. (Deadline)
Jonathan Goldstein AB ’88, co-writer and co-director of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES and GAME NIGHT, has been tapped by Paramount and Skydance to write, direct, and produce a new STAR TREK movie — a fresh standalone entry unrelated to the prior films or series. (Deadline)
Dan Goor AB ’97, Emmy-winning co-creator of BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, is behind a new NBC pilot—a fresh PI comedy series that joins the network’s 2025-26 development slate. (Deadline)
John Lesher AB ’88, Oscar-winning producer (BIRDMAN), has joined the short film EXTREMIST—directed by exiled Russian Alexander Molochnikov—as executive producer, backing the project as it competes for a potential Academy Award. (Deadline)
Dan Lin MBA ’99, veteran producer and current Chairman of Netflix Film, is among the executive producers behind IT: WELCOME TO DERRY, the 2025 horror prequel that’s been dubbed a “darker STRANGER THINGS replacement” and is already dominating streaming charts. (Collider)
John Lithgow AB ’67, versatile actor and two-time Tony winner, will reprise his Olivier Award–winning portrayal of Roald Dahl in the play GIANT, which opens on Broadway March 23, 2026 at the Music Box Theatre. (Deadline)
Mira Nair AB ’79, the legendary filmmaker whose work has reshaped global views of India, speaks candidly in a new interview about why she refuses to flatten identity into a “marketable trope” — and instead insists on portraying people and cultures in all their beautiful complexity. (Vogue)
Natalie Portman AB ’03, Academy Award-winning actress and longtime climate-justice advocate, is spearheading the animated sci-fi film ARCO as producer (and voice actor), using animation to offer a powerful wake-up call about climate change and the future of our planet. (Refinery29)
Steven Schneider AM ’06 PhD ’06, film producer and horror-genre veteran (known for franchises like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS), has signed on as executive producer to the short film EM & SELMA GO GRIFFIN HUNTING under his own banner Spooky Pictures. (Deadline)
Exclusive Q&A with Alissa Lee AB ’94 HLS ’97 (author, lawyer)
Alissa Lee '94 HLS '97 is an author and lawyer. She was formerly Associate General Counsel and COO, Legal at Google, where she led the Asia Pacific and Latin America legal teams. Although proud of her New Jersey roots, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a board member
of Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Her first novel, WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, was published in November 2025.
Q: Congratulations on your debut novel! WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE explores how ambition, privilege, and loyalty can twist over time. What first drew you to writing about this concept? How did the storyline come to you?
Thank you! The idea for this book came after I had left my job as an in-house attorney, and I was feeling really disconnected. I picked up Hanya Yanagihara’s beautiful, heartbreaking novel A LITTLE LIFE, which is the story of four men who are close friends from college. For different reasons, none of the friends can stop the progression of the main character’s downward spiral. That story really forced me to consider my own friendships, how we think about relationships when we’re young, and why some friendships shift and grow with us while others break apart or fall away. WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE was always intended to be suspenseful but rooted in the complexities of long-term friendships. The secret game the characters play, called the Circus, was a way to upend stereotypes about how women behave and explore the tensions that can arise when you throw ambition and competition into the mix.
Q: The novel spans twenty years, following characters who have grown and changed. How did you capture that passage of time while keeping the tension taut and the pace moving quickly?
So much is honed in revision, and I really had to keep revising until I found the right balance between the present-day thrill of the Circus and the secrets the characters buried when they were undergrads. I also had some very patient writer friends who read countless drafts, as well as agents and a publisher who gave me such thoughtful notes. Listening to what trusted readers say inevitably makes a book better!
Q: This book portrays the power dynamics of elite institutions and old friendships. Did your experiences at Harvard influence how you approached that world?
Absolutely. When I arrived at Harvard, I felt really unprepared and found it a little overwhelming. Now I can see how much I gained from being there, but what I appreciate the most are the friends from that time who have stayed close through the years. Part of the fun of this book was revisiting those memories, but I also love hearing what readers have to say. Everyone comes to this book with different associations and understandings of what an institution like Harvard is like, and it’s been interesting to have conversations about what is important to preserve and protect and what feels stuck in the past.
Q: Female friendship (especially among high achievers) can be both deeply supportive and quietly competitive. How did you navigate writing that complexity?
I think this is a tension many of us can identify with. The women in the book are outwardly successful—a NYC political figure, a corporate marketing exec with a happy family, a rising professor, etc.—but each character’s life is more complicated than it looks, which Sara discovers over the course of the book. I wanted to capture a moment in midlife when things might not have turned out as expected, and these characters are starting to reflect on their choices, especially when friends seem to be enjoying more momentum in their careers and relationships. The game they play became a great way to dial up that competition and play with the different ways these characters deal with that kind of pressure.
Q: Before becoming a novelist, you had a legal career at Google and in international law. What inspired you to make the leap from running international legal departments to writing psychological thrillers?
I feel lucky to have landed in Silicon Valley when I did; the products and services we were offering created novel legal questions, which is a great place to be as a lawyer. But over time, I started writing as a way of reconnecting with something more creative. I wound up working on a different novel (that will stay buried forever), but finishing it gave me the confidence to take writing more seriously.
Q: How did your legal background shape your approach to plotting a mystery? And your writing process?
Lawyers are really good at asking “what if?” We’re taught from 1L year to push on hypotheticals and to look for exceptions that break the rule. Thinking through strange and unexpected corner cases turned out to be really good training for coming up with unexpected plot twists! I’m very much an outliner, which is something that feels necessary to me for a thriller. I always want the ending to deliver, and it’s hard to do that if I don’t have some sense of the destination before I set out on the journey. My goal is to always make a reader feel like the ending is surprising but inevitable.
Q: What was the most surprising part of the publishing process for you, as someone entering the literary world from tech and law?
Traditional publishing works at such a different speed and cadence than the tech industry. Once a book is sold, it’s not uncommon for that book to hit bookstore shelves a year or eighteen months later. There are good reasons for this, including the time it takes for editors and authors to absorb and edit a full manuscript, but this definitely required a change in mindset and a willingness to shift to other projects while you’re waiting for notes or the next round of proofs to come back.
Q: Who are some writers or storytellers who have influenced you?
Hanya Yanagihara’s A LITTLE LIFE really informed the story that I wanted to tell. Another writer whom I really admire is Mohsin Hamid. We were law school classmates, and he was (and is) clearly so brilliant. His second book, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, impressed with how much it achieves through what is essentially a monologue. And I read Shirley Jackson novels and short stories when I’m looking for good examples of how to build suspense. I’m amazed at how relevant THE LOTTERY still is in reminding us how easily violence can be normalized and how dangerous blind conformity can be.
Q: Without giving too much away—are you drawn to writing more in the psychological thriller space, or do you see yourself exploring other genres in the future?
The next book is underway and also a suspense/thriller, but I’m hoping the book after that will let me explore another genre. At the same time, thrillers are so much fun to write, so it’s hard to imagine that I won’t come back to them in the future!
LA Harvardwood Holiday Party 2025 (Los Angeles, CA)
Sunday 12/07
You're invited to Harvardwood's Annual LA Holiday Party!
Join us for a wonderful, willful, wintery fest for mingling, mixing, and much holiday cheer. We hope to see you for another exciting event at the St. Felix in Hollywood.
Ticket prices include passed hors d'oeuvres and a drink ticket.
An Exclusive Conversation with Scott Belsky of A24 (Virtual)
Thursday 01/08
Harvardwood members are invited to a behind-the-scenes conversation with Scott Belsky, Partner at A24. Join us for an intimate, candid discussion about creativity, storytelling, and the bold choices that define A24. Space is limited; this is a private, member-only event.
Members, please RSVP to attend - admin@harvardwood.org.
This event is not open to non-members. If you would like to become a member, join here.
More info HERE
Last Month at Harvardwood
Last Month at Harvardwood, we answered member questions at the Harvardwood Lowdown, discussed documentary financing, talked to showrunners, hosted a Harvardwood DC Happy Hour, and more!
Want to submit your success(es) to Harvardwood HIGHLIGHTS? Do so by posting here!
Become a Harvardwood member! We work hard to create programming that you, the membership, would like to be engaged with. Please consider joining Harvardwood and becoming an active member of our arts, media, and entertainment community!
DISCLAIMER
Harvardwood does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any of the information, content or advertisements (collectively "Materials") contained on, distributed through, or linked, downloaded or accessed from any of the services contained in this e-mail. You hereby acknowledge that any reliance upon any Materials shall be at your sole risk. The materials are provided by Harvardwood on an "AS IS" basis, and Harvardwood expressly disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied.
The way you presented complex information so simply is remarkable. I admire your ability to convey such detailed information in an accessible way. merge fellas
Great highlights! love seeing all the amazing work from the Harvardwood community! After a long day reading inspiring updates like these, I’m already looking forward to unwinding later in my Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City S6 Meredith Marks Dog Print Pajamas with a cozy drink and a good show.
Geometry Dash Games have a special way of making players feel fully engaged, even though their visuals are extremely simple.
slope rider can play everywhere because the thrill of speed and balance remains fun whether slope rider is racing down a mountain or gliding across a city skyline.
With its cheerful music and winter vibes, Snow Rider is a great game to play during the holidays