# Alan Garber

Alan Michael Garber (born May 7, 1955) is an American physician and health economist currently serving as the 31st president of Harvard University since January 2, 2024.

## Early life and education

Garber was born in Illinois in 1955, to Harry and Jean Garber in a Jewish household. He grew up in Rock Island, Illinois.
Garber attended Harvard College, where he obtained a A.B. in economics in 1976 followed by a A.M. and Ph.D. in economics, also from Harvard. While pursuing his Ph.D., he enrolled simultaneously at Stanford University, where he received a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1983. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in 1986.

## Career

Garber succeeded Steven Hyman as the provost of Harvard University on September 1, 2011. He served as provost until March 14, 2024, when John F. Manning took on the position on an interim basis.
Garber is also the Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Economics in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
He is currently the president of Harvard University, having succeeded Claudine Gay after her resignation. Initially appointed as an interim president, on August 2, 2024, the Harvard Corporation announced that Garber would be the university's permanent president for a fixed term of three years ending at the conclusion of the 2026–2027 academic year.
He was officially installed as Harvard's 31st president on December 7, 2024, at a private ceremony at Harvard Art Museums' Menschel Hall.

## Controversies
### Opposition to graduate student unionization

In July 2016, Harvard University's Office of the Provost launched a web page in response to its graduate students' efforts to unionize. On August 23, 2016, following the Columbia decision which restored union rights to teaching and research assistants, the provost's office wrote in an email to students, "we continue to believe that the relationship between students and the University is primarily about education, and that unionization will disrupt academic programs and freedoms, mentoring, and research at Harvard." Following a decision by the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board that Harvard was in violation of the Excelsior rule, Garber defended the university's appeal to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., writing that the university "believes that the November 2016 election results, which reflect the votes and voices of well-informed students, should stand, and has appealed the Regional Director's decision to the contrary."

### Pharmaceutical board memberships

In October 2019, The Harvard Crimson reported that Garber collected more than $2.7 million serving on the board of directors for Exelixis and Vertex Pharmaceuticals since being appointed as Harvard's provost in 2011, according to SEC filings. The companies indicated that his compensation was normal for board members. Garber stated that he had thoroughly disclosed his industry affiliations in conflict of interest forms for the university.

### 2024 commencement

Under Garber's leadership, Harvard administration drew criticism for preventing 13 undergraduates from collecting their diplomas at the annual commencement ceremony as a consequence for participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Nearly 500 Harvard faculty and students criticized the sanctions as disproportionate, unprecedented, and designed to stifle open discourse, while others identified it as an example of the "Palestine Exception" to free speech. The decision was initially overturned by 115 faculty members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, but ultimately reinstated by the Harvard Corporation.

## Personal life

Garber and his wife Anne Yahanda have four children.