Epstein files show a complicated relationship with science and journalism
NEWS | 06 February 2026
A new batch of more than three million pages of investigative files about Jeffrey Epstein that was released by the Department of Justice on January 30 show how the disgraced financier and convicted child sex offender sought relationships with news outlets—including Scientific American—through his connections with scientists. New Scientist turns up in more than 50 documents released by the DOJ, and National Geographic appears in nearly 200 documents. The released Epstein files also include at least 260 documents referencing Scientific American. Many of the references to publications buried in the files are merely marketing material or articles forwarded to Epstein. But some messages between Epstein and the media reflect a closer relationship with the disgraced financier. Epstein and his former girlfriend and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell sat on the board of the now defunct science magazine Seed, which is mentioned in at least 78 of the released files. Forbes tallies around 1,100 mentions, including a redacted person’s proposal of “my writing a feature on AI in Ethiopia,” which was likely related to a lab in the country that Epstein had helped to fund. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. At least five former members and one current member of Scientific American’s scientific board of advisers—Lisa Randall, George Church, Danny Hillis, Martin Nowak, Lawrence Krauss and Nathan Wolfe—appear to have had connections with Epstein, according to our analysis of the DOJ files, as well as documents and e-mails that were released by the nonprofit whistleblower website Distributed Denial of Secrets and obtained by Scientific American. None of the board members included in the files have been charged with crimes relating to their engagements with Epstein. At press time, Church, Hillis, Krauss and Nowak had not responded to requests for comment. “[I] am in the newly formed board of advisors of scientific american,” wrote Nowak, a mathematician at Harvard University and a now former member of Scientific American’s board, in an e-mail to Epstein on September 23, 2009. “It seems almost everyone there is a friend of yours.” In 2021 Harvard barred Nowak from accepting new student advisees or serving as principal investigator on new grants or contracts, following an investigation of his program’s funding by Epstein. These sanctions were lifted in 2023. One former board member, Wolfe, who was also formerly CEO of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative and a visiting professor at Stanford University, says he had a handful of professional interactions with Epstein more than a decade ago as part of his broad outreach to prospective donors. An analysis of the files suggests Wolfe spoke with Epstein multiple times between 2009 and 2014, after the financier’s conviction for solicitation of prostitution from a girl below age 18 in June 2008. “I never received any funding from him, and none of those interactions involved Scientific American in any way,” Wolfe says. “I also never discussed the magazine or its editorial content with him, and he had no influence—direct or indirect—on my contributions there.” The only currently active Scientific American board member mentioned in the files is Randall, a physicist at Harvard. The university’s student newspaper, the Crimson, reported recently, based on DOJ-released documents, that Randall had flown on Epstein’s jet and been to his private island in 2014 and that she had also attended a conference on the island of St. Thomas that was financed by Epstein in 2006. “My interactions in no way affected my perspective on science or the magazine,” Randall told Scientific American. READ MORE: Why did Jeffrey Epstein cultivate famous scientists? Epstein died in a federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had been regularly in contact with scientists and funded research at institutes such as Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Santa Fe Institute. His scientific correspondents within the DOJ files mentioned meetings with science-minded outlets ranging from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to the Atlantic. These mentions do not necessarily indicate evidence of editorial influence. In 2014 Epstein was first invited to observe editorial meetings at Scientific American after Krauss, a physicist formerly at Arizona State University, put him in touch. (Krauss subsequently left the board in 2018, following separate misconduct reports.) Krauss gave Epstein’s office the e-mail of the magazine’s then editor in chief Mariette DiChristina, now a professor of journalism at Boston University, who says that Epstein had been looking for research to invest in. “Epstein had expressed interest in understanding how Scientific American identified innovations for coverage,” DiChristina says. “I reached out to Epstein’s office to offer options, as I had for others who had expressed interest in learning about science editing at Scientific American.” DiChristina says this was common for students or other guests visiting the magazine’s offices to learn how reporters wrote news stories. She also recommended several authors for a writing project to him through an intermediary, according to an October 2014 e-mail. “Epstein never came to Scientific American’s offices,” DiChristina says. “He had no influence on any coverage decided by the editors or by me personally.” Many of the Epstein files that mention Scientific American are simply forwarded articles. But one redacted 2014 message that was sent to Epstein mentioned “drafting” an article for Scientific American “on [M.I.T.’s] Seth Lloyd/Quantum Computing” that would be published “w Jeffrey’s name in the title.” Scientific American never published the piece. “I wonder what this letter is about,” Lloyd says now. “If Epstein submitted an article to Scientific American in 2014 with me as a co-author, he never told me about it.” (M.I.T. placed Lloyd on administrative leave in 2020 and imposed a five-year period of restrictions on him that year because he had accepted donations and personal financing from Epstein.) “Epstein did support some good science: perhaps the only good thing he did,” Lloyd says. What’s unclear is whether Epstein simply sought influence and stature by cultivating scientists and science journalists or more widely sought to shape research outcomes. Since December 2025, file releases have included disturbing discussions between Epstein and scientists of, for example, a proposed search for hypothesized sexually transmitted diseases that would increase the female libido and race science. In 2014 Scientific American reduced its network of bloggers, many of whom were nonjournalists that posted on scientific topics under the magazine’s imprimatur, cutting off an avenue that Epstein may have hoped to use. An e-mail from a redacted sender dated the month prior claimed that the sender set up a “guest editor page” for him on the then soon-to-be-discontinued blog network. The e-mail does not appear to have originated from a Scientific American staffer, and no such page was ever created. Editor’s Note (2/5/26): This story is developing and may be updated.
Author: Clara Moskowitz. Dan Vergano. Ari Sen.
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