When Raphael Bousso was invited to come to Cambridge for a year studying theoretical physics, he says he didn’t know what to expect.

“When I was first contacted, I had no idea what the Radcliffe Institute was,” says Bousso, an assistant professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley. “It took me time to form a picture of what it would mean for me to be [at Radcliffe] instead of at a physics department.”

Despite his uncertainty, Bousso decided to make the cross-country journey last fall to Radcliffe’s Putnam House last fall.

Six other scientists joined him as part of the Institute’s first research cluster—a departure from Radcliffe’s traditional humanities focus.

These seven scientists are part of the Institute’s fellowship program, Radcliffe’s focus since it merged with Harvard in 1999.

Dubbed the “cosmology cluster,” the interests of the scientists who make up the group in fact encompass a much broader range of fields including cosmology, astrophysics and planetary sciences.

Bousso and his peers note that the small group of scientists has the capacity to make a big bang at Radcliffe, bridging the gap between science and the humanities and between disciplines within the larger scientific world.

“Their decision to include science in what seems to be a more humanities-oriented institute tells of progress,” he says. “It will sharpen and refine the image of the Institute.”

Radcliffe’s Changing Universe

Many see this foray into science as the first step toward a more balanced fellowship program.

“The cluster was an opportunity to get a very strong group of scientists together and establish the credibility of science at Radcliffe,” says Lisa Randall ’83, a physics professor who helped recruit scientists to the cluster after she came to Harvard from MIT in the fall of 2001. “Science is important, and it will strengthen the image of Radcliffe to have strong science.”

This year, scientists at Radcliffe converged at Putnam House, tucked just off Brattle Street and conveniently located among the Cambridge goliaths of science—the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard’s facilities and MIT just down the river.

The house’s close proximity to other scientific institutions has provided numerous opportunities for collaboration, fellows say.

In addition to the group’s weekly meetings at Putnam House, fellows have participated in a lecture series held at Radcliffe this year which attracted physicists from across Boston, co-sponsored by Radcliffe and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

But Putnam House, fellows say, offers them something Harvard’s nearby physics department and the Center for Astrophysics cannot.