{"id":125331,"date":"2026-02-27T18:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125331\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T18:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:49:15","slug":"jeffrey-epstein-emails-confuse-university-of-pennsylvania-and-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125331\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Epstein emails confuse University of Pennsylvania and Penn State"},"content":{"rendered":"

People mix up The University of Pennsylvania<\/a> with Pennsylvania State University so often, alumni at the Ivy started making novelty T-shirts that read \u201cNot <\/a>Penn State<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can add another name to the list of offenders: Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

The convicted child sex offender was also a prolific donor to scientific research programs through the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. A tranche of the disgraced financier\u2019s emails released by the U.S. Department of Justice contains descriptions of dozens of pet projects the foundation supported at elite institutions.<\/p>\n

But one of them, the \u201cQuantum Gravity Program\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania, is something of a whodunnit involving theoretical physicists in three different countries.<\/p>\n

A self-proclaimed backer of \u201ccutting-edge science,\u201d the Quantum Gravity Program is mentioned dozens of times in Epstein\u2019s personal records, and the program and its affiliation with Penn is even referenced today on the Wikipedia page for his foundation. <\/p>\n

But there is no other evidence a program by that name ever existed at Penn.<\/p>\n

After a series of at-times uncomfortable calls with confused spokespeople and academics, The Inquirer discovered that Epstein was, in fact, involved with financing researchers in the 1990s at a similarly named program based at Penn State \u2014 sometimes referred to as the \u201cloop quantum gravity program.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the state-funded university said Epstein\u2019s name was attached to a 1990s grant made through an intermediary nonprofit in support of former PSU physics professor Lee Smolin, who helped lead the loop quantum gravity program and maintained ties with Epstein for years afterward.<\/p>\n

German theoretical physicist Olaf Dreyer sought out a doctorate at PSU at that time in hopes of working on the loop gravity program, and said Epstein\u2019s decades-old claim that he had supported such a program at Penn was a classic case of mistaken academic identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018quantum gravity program\u2019 is the program at Penn State,\u201d Dreyer said via email Thursday from Frankfurt, Germany. \u201cIt was the loop quantum gravity program that brought me to Penn State.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dreyer said Smolin helped lead the program during his time at the state university, and that the scientist had procured funding from Epstein for the PSU program.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmolin had the connections to Epstein,\u201d he said. \u201cLee stayed connected to Epstein long after Epstein\u2018s conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Penn State cited a publicly available research paper from 1999 that showed<\/a> Smolin\u2019s quantum gravity research was funded by the \u201cJesse Philips Foundation.\u201d But after reviewing the university\u2019s grants database at The Inquirer\u2019s request, the spokesperson confirmed that Epstein\u2019s name appeared on paperwork related to that foundation gift.<\/p>\n

The Jesse Philips Foundation was created by the eponymous Dayton industrialist, who died in 1994. After his death, his widow Caryl Philips took over the foundation, which is now known as the Jesse and Caryl Philips Foundation. A request for comment from the foundation was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n

A record of another philanthropic donation made in 1998 was described as coming from \u201cJ. Epstein Foundation and Jesse Philips Foundation.\u201d And Epstein\u2019s emails indicate Caryl Philips was in contact with both Epstein and his confidant, convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, as late as 2010. <\/p>\n

Dreyer said it was his understanding that Smolin was being funded by Epstein directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe used money from Epstein to pay for grad students,\u201d Dreyer said.<\/p>\n

Smolin\u2019s ties to Epstein are now well documented. He was quoted praising Epstein\u2019s support for his research on an Epstein foundation website. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was extraordinarily fortunate to encounter someone who asked me, \u2018What would you really like to do? What is your most ambitious and crazy idea?,\u2019\u201d the quote reads. \u201cThen, unexpectedly and generously, Jeffrey Epstein gave me the chance to try to make good on my answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his time at PSU, Smolin went on to cofound the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Toronto, Canada, now one of top research programs for theoretical physics in the world. Dreyer followed the physicist to the Perimeter Institute after obtaining his doctorate in 2001, and recalled Smolin taking a group photo of his team to send to Maxwell for inclusion in Epstein\u2019s now infamous 50th \u201cbirthday book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine how happy I am to be included in that book,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

Newly released emails from the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosed he had kept up a relationship with the financier during this time \u2014 and well after Epstein\u2019s 2008 conviction \u2014 which led to Smolin\u2019s ouster in February from the Perimeter Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Attempts to reach Smolin though Perimeter and a personal email address were not immediately successful Friday. <\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s professed involvement at Penn came as a shock to administrative faculty and longtime physics professors at the West Philadelphia<\/a> university.<\/p>\n

The financier first alluded to the supposed Penn program in a rambling email to his personal assistant in 2006, according to emails released as part of the Epstein Transparency Act. He later commissioned a more detailed description of the foundation\u2019s activities, including a mention of the Penn program on an official philanthropic website that debuted in 2010. <\/p>\n

The original text, which was often appended to Epstein\u2019s curriculum vitae ahead of speaking engagements, was likely written in the 2000s by literary agent John Brockman, according to later email exchanges attributing the writing to him. Brockman, who could not be reached for comment, helped Epstein cultivate scientific relationships and promote his foundation.<\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s description of his foundation\u2019s activities underwent several rewrites or revisions, including one iteration alluding to the foundation supporting science programs at a \u201cPenn University\u201d \u2014 which also does not exist.<\/p>\n

While Epstein\u2019s personal records mention the program at Penn dozens of times a Penn spokesperson said the university was unfamiliar with Epstein\u2019s long-claimed affiliation until the DOJ record release in December. <\/p>\n

\u201cPenn is not aware of a so-called \u2018Quantum Gravity Program\u2019 referenced in Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s bio and has no records of his involvement,\u201d said university spokesperson Matthew Grossman, in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Inquirer could not independently find any communications between Epstein and Penn faculty about such a program, or any other past references of such a program at Penn.<\/p>\n

Burt Ovrut, a theoretical physicist who helped lead the university\u2019s physics department , said he would have known if such a program ever existed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would have heard of this,\u201d said Ovrut, who remains a professor emeritus. \u201cWe don\u2019t tend to have private grants in theoretical physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fallout from the Epstein saga has ensnared numerous other universities with ties to the billionaire investor, rocking institutions like Princeton<\/a>, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard, where the Epstein scandal led to resignation of former president Larry Summers, who was raised in Penn Valley<\/a>, a Philadelphia suburb.<\/p>\n

The lure of Epstein\u2019s wealth and interest in obscure academic fields was powerful. <\/p>\n

While Penn had no official relation with Epstein\u2019s foundation, its staff were not immune to his temptations. In 2012, for instance, a Penn professor wrote to Epstein seeking funding for immersive research on African hunter-gatherer societies. There was no response.<\/p>\n

Dreyer, the German physicist, also solicited Epstein for his own research funding in 2009 on the advice of a colleague. While he, too, was never funded, he regrets that he did not do his own due diligence on Epstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf only I had done some research,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People mix up The University of Pennsylvania with Pennsylvania State University so often, alumni at the Ivy started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58657,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-125331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-jeffrey-epstein-foundation-files-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}