Research Assistants

Nami Bolat

namibolat@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, Peripheries

Nami Sophie-Marie Bolat is a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School. Her work explores questions of self, language, and spiritual disillusionment in postmodern thought. She is currently the managing editor of Peripheries, the Center for the Study of...

Nami Bolat looking into the camera. Head tilted slightly.

Katie Clem

katie_clem@hds.harvard.edu

Student Research Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Katie Clem is an MDiv candidate at Harvard Divinity School devoted to bridging the ineffable power of dance with the rich language of the Christian tradition. Before coming to Harvard Divinity School, she graduated as valedictorian of Saint Mary’s College...

Katie Clem seated smiling into the camera

Beverly Cohen

beverlycohen@hds.harvard.edu

Student Research Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Beverly Cohen is a Master of Theological Studies student at Harvard Divinity School, with an area of focus in Religions of the Americas. She studies Indigenous religious practices in response to colonial powers in the Americas. Beverly is especially...

Gio DiRusso

gdirusso@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant

Giovanni (Gio) DiRusso is a G3 in the Committee on the Study of Religion, specializing in Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean. He researches the transmission of ideas in the long late antiquity, with a particular focus on Eastern Christian thought in...

Arlo Emerson

aemerson@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Arlo Emerson is an MDiv candidate at Harvard Divinity School interested in environmental ethics, Indigenous frameworks of reciprocity, and the spiritual dimensions of human relationships to land. Previously they worked in climate research and tribal...

Nate Halverson

natehalverson@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Nate Halverson is an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker. His feature-length documentary The Grab —nominated for four Emmys in 2025—chronicles his investigation into the shadowy efforts of governments and mercenaries to control the...

Nate Halverson smiling into the camera, lake and mountains in the background

Emma Scharff

escharff@hds.harvard.edu

Student Research Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Emma Scharff is a Master of Theological Studies candidate at Harvard Divinity School focusing on religion, literature, and culture. She studies twentieth- and twenty-first-century American poetry, exploring how experimental poetics reach toward the sacred...

Emma Scharff leaning against a white picket fence smiling into the camera

Luke Shaw

lukeshaw@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Luke (MTS ’28) is honored to join the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) in supporting the Transcendentalism Initiative. Transcendentalism holds particular significance for Luke, as he recalls that his first reading of Henry David Thoreau in...

Ariel Wolfe

arielwolfe@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, Transcendentalism Initiative

Ariel Wolfe is a Master of Theological Studies candidate at Harvard Divinity School. Her academic work examines the historical transmission, reception, and transformation of classical philosophical and religious thought into Late Antiquity, particularly...

Charles Zacks

czacks@hds.harvard.edu

Student Assistant, CSWR Publications

Charles M Zacks is a Master of Theological Studies student at Harvard Divinity School, focusing on religious origins, theories of religion, and Continental Philosophy of Religion. Before starting at HDS, he studied Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at...