Return to [[Ramaswamy, Vivek]] dashboard. # 2007 ## 05-01-2007 ### Harvard Magazine Seniors of Note Link: <https://web.archive.org/web/20070702155222/http://www.harvardmagazine.com/2007/05/p2-seniors-of-note.html#vivek> > From doubling as campus politico by day and rapper by night, to his thesis combining cellular biology and ethics, Vivek Ramaswamy is a student defined by apparent dichotomies. > > As a devoted libertarian in a decidedly liberal student body, Ramaswamy has remained an ideological minority during his College years, even while serving as chair of the Harvard Political Union and on the student advisory committee for the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics. "Being in the minority, you get a better education because your views are constantly challenged," he explains. "I've changed my opinions a lot over the past four years, but those I haven't changed are all the stronger for it." He also believes that finding a philosophy that's consistent in its tenets is more important than determining a stance on issues on a point-by-point basis, which may explain his ease in slipping into his rapper alter ego, "Da Vek." > > During his freshman year at Harvard, the politically inclined Ramaswamy decided on a whim to audition to be the opening act of Busta Rhymes's concert at Harvard. He did not nab the spot, but three years later he still raps occasionally in casual settings like open-mike nights in Cambridge and at Kirkland House social functions. > > ==His academic interests are equally unusual. Linking his concentration in molecular and cellular biology with his passion for politics, he wrote a senior thesis on the bioethical issues associated with the creation of human-animal chimeras: living organisms currently being created from the cells of humans and animals. "I was shocked to see the sparse degree to which this had been investigated from an ethical perspective," he reports. In proposing a thesis that bridged the gap between ethics and biology, he moved into uncharted territory in Harvard's biology departments, but not in his own experience: "Many times, in policy discussions, there is the impression that these social-science issues are less rigorous than scientific issues," he says, "but I want to bring that scientific inquiry to ethical questions as well."== > > When he's not on the podium, at the mike, or in the lab, Ramaswamy has played leading comedic roles over the years at South Asian cultural shows on campus. He was also chosen one of the three undergraduates on the student advisory group charged with communicating their peers' opinions to the University's presidential search committee. Although he's deferring acceptances from the law schools at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford for a few years to work at QVT—a hedge fund in New York where he will focus on life-sciences investing—Ramaswamy remains engrossed in what lies ahead at Harvard. "The appointment of a new president brings attention to what we're doing right and what we should be doing differently," he says. "We should take this event and use it as an opportunity to improve this institution, and being a part of it is an opportunity I have been grateful for."  ## 07-16-2007 ### Op-Ed On Chimeric Mice Link: <https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-vivek-ramaswamy-op-ed-a/128413047/>  %%Footer Starts Here%% ---  --- # Keep Digging %%Space%% ## Tags ### Footnotes & References