Karen L. Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and President of Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota of Massachusetts, has been appointed the next Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning as of July 1, 2024. 

Recognized by Dean Hopi Hoekstra of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for her great and numerous achievements in both scholarship and mentorship, Prof. Thornber has also served in a variety of leadership roles at Harvard, including as Co-Chair of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Faculty Study Group, tasked in 2020-2021 with charting how to position the FAS for broad-based excellence, innovation, and sustainability, Victor and William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center (one of the university’s largest centers), Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, Chair of Regional Studies East Asia, and Director of Graduate Studies for both Comparative Literature and Regional Studies East Asia. Prof. Thornber also served as the Interim Director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies in the fall of 2020.

Her research and teaching focus on the medical/health humanities, the environmental humanities, gender, empire, inequality, indigeneities, transculturation, and trauma, as these relate to world literatures and the literatures and cultures of East Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan), as well as the literatures and cultures of the Indian Ocean Rim (Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia) and more recently the Pacific Rim. Prof. Thornber earned her A.B. from Princeton, with a major in Comparative Literature and three minors (Japanese Language and Literature, East Asian Studies, and Romance Languages and Literatures); and her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard in 2006, with a specialization in Japanese literature in East Asian and global perspective.

The official announcement from the Derek Bok Center can be found here, and the Harvard Gazette article can be read here.