By Sheeva Azma
This blog discusses Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities and therefore may not be suitable for a general audience.
When I started making Instagram reels about science in the Epstein files, so many kind, analytical people — many, fellow scientists — started reaching out to me to send me their own research about various people they had found in the Epstein files, so I could look into it further.
I was overwhelmed (in the best way) by the amount things to look into that landed in my DMs. As a paper and pencil girlie, I am very much one of those people who actually writes things down on the backs of envelopes and various other scraps of paper. Technology these days requires a working digital device, electricity, and a stable internet connection, not all of which are always available at the same time. Add to that the instability of various internet apps and websites and digital journalism tools that do not offer reliable data privacy and it’s a whole mess!
Writer’s block has never really been a thing for me, especially since people tell me what to write about when they hire me, but with this list of ideas, I could be sure to always have something to say. This was always good news for my followers, who were asking for more and more and more content!
I kept my promise to these wonderful people who cared about exposing toxic scientist behavior: I researched these topics further and posted about them on our Substack, Instagram, blog, and YouTube channel.
When people would reach out to me on Instagram, I would scribble some notes on a note card, and would add more little notes in the margins as the messages from people rolled in. Then, when I had a bit of free time, I would research and report on one of the scribbled-down ideas. I had a different note card each week, for a while, when I was publishing reels almost daily, from February through May 2026.
With so much good information at the ready, reporting on science in the Epstein files became something exciting I could work on at any time, when I had free time. I grew to love it — there is something cool about creating and sharing new knowledge for the world to see.
Over time, my note cards got super scribbly. Then, I stopped having time to publish reels every day, so my note card (by now an oddly large and rectangular piece of cardstock that I had lying around) never changed. Weeks went by and I was unable to research those names and Epstein files ID numbers…until now.
This blog is an attempt to answer those questions posed to me that I did not have time to answer — until now. You can check our Instagram to see if I have turned any of these insights into reels.
Have you been wondering about science and/or these scientists in the Epstein files?
Firstly, by community request (check out this link for more requested Instagram Reels), I did have time to do short-form videos on racism and eugenics, telepathy, scientist Robert Trivers, Savant Syndrome, Ben Goertzel’s quest to build an AI toddler, DARPA (not to mention ARPA-H, which is a kind of ‘health DARPA’), Melanie Walker, and George Church.
Those topics are already crossed off from my oddly large notecard. Whew!
Here are the topics that I never got to on my notecard — until now!
Transhumanism in the Epstein files
A couple of people reached out to me asking about Epstein’s interest in transhumanism. In case you don’t know what transhumanism is, it’s basically a way to use advanced technology to improve humans, whether through gene editing or other means, to create “post-human” beings who can have improved traits. A person having a chip in their brain to help them with cognition (in other words, a brain-computer interface) would be an example of transhumanism — so would genetic editing to help someone have better traits.
The New York Times describes Epstein’s “longstanding fascination” with transhumanism. Epstein had told various scientists he hoped to seed the human race with his DNA, per the NYT article, and had hoped to use the Epstein ranch to do so — which is why it is so alarming that Epstein talks about “lots of interesting scientists visiting” one weekend in August 2013.
Not too long before that, Epstein had linked up with Dr. Joseph Thakuria, a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital (who left in 2022), who Epstein paid to have fibroblast cell lines harvested from his skin — samples which, as STAT reports, have now gone missing. I previously did a reel about that — as well as about Epstein’s interest in so-called “designer babies,” and his covert sponsorship of such a project in 2018, when his name was starting to be tarnished by his actions — which ultimately received press in MIT Technology Review (without any mention of Epstein).
Epstein also supported researchers who sought to replicate human cognition using artificial intelligence. Ben Goertzel, an AI researcher I mentioned earlier in this post, was supported by Epstein in the early days of his career, when he could barely keep a roof over his head; later, he received money from Epstein to develop an artificial general intelligence or AGI that could replicate the mental processes of a toddler.
Humanity+ is a transhumanist nonprofit that someone recently slid into our comments asking about, and it is also chaired by Ben Goertzel (even now!), the AGI toddler guy who has 892 Eppy mentions but denies that he ever knew anything bad about Jeffrey Epstein.
So, yes, dear reader, transhumanism was high on the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s funded research interests (I turned all of this analysis into an Instagram reel, by the way, which you can find here).
Al Seckel and Epstein’s Digital Footprint in the Epstein Files
I’ve written before about a man named Al Seckel, a man obsessed with optics (both in terms of the way they make people look and the visual aspect of an optical illusion) who worked to improve Epstein’s digital presence after he left jail. I’ve even talked to a man who Seckel sued for exposing Seckel’s lies about his own life.
Someone sent me EFTA0756815 and told me to check it out, which for some reason is not crossed off on my notecard, though I have written about Seckel extensively by now. It is a letter from Seckel to Epstein that states: “It turns out that there is another Jeffrey Epstein, who is a high end executive for Oracle. Little does he know that he is about to receive an enormous push of secret publicity, moving him to the search results, while you quietly disappear….”
Environmental scientist Jennifer Jacquet, PhD in the Epstein files asking for career advice, getting a haircut at Frederick Fekkai (Epstein’s treat!) and telling Epstein he “can’t (and shouldn’t) live out all your fantasies”
Someone told me I should look up Jennifer Jacquet, PhD in the Epstein files. I was shocked to look her up and find 289 mentions for her. She was a 2016 Pew Marine Research Fellow, and per her website, she is a current professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Miami as well as a director of a research consortium, it seems, at Brown University.
Jacquet is another scientist in the Epstein files that has a bunch of awards, such as winning a USAID grand challenge and receiving an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. Conservation and climate seem to be her focus as a researcher. “She has supported numerous efforts in favor of stronger protections for octopuses,” her website explains.
Her Wikipedia page makes no mention of her Epstein ties. As I explain in this reel, that’s not surprising, given Wikipedia’s efforts to censor people trying to add information about the Epstein files to their site. Jacquet told the Chronicle of Higher Education Epstein offered her research funds, but that she did not accept them, instead suggesting he donate to the University of British Columbia, where she received her PhD in 2009.
Her 289 Epstein files mentions include a 2011 reminder to get a haircut (presumably after Epstein invited her to get one at Frederick Fekkai on his dime per this email — Fekkai has been linked to Epstein’s trafficking ring, per Guardian), a 2012 reminder to ask her to come to Harvard and another to meet Epstein, a “horrifying” typo she writes to Epstein when she misspells the author of the book Lolita, and this somewhat work-inappropriate email chain in which it appears Jacquet accepts some sort of offer.
It appears she was looking for a job of some sort, as this email, in which she sent a few days before the one above, talks about her job search. She writes Epstein, “Biology didn’t offer (even though they seemed keen initially; probably because I told your joke about the woman in the hospital at dinner to make up for not drinking), but the environmental program did, which means I can still come to New York and be a one man show.” It’s interesting how she refers to herself as a “man” here as Epstein has openly talked about how he finds women in science all being “weak and a distraction.” Also interesting to me is how she talks about a “gentleman’s agreement” and he writes back and calls her a “gentlwoman [sic]”. He definitely canoodled way more with male than female scientists, with rare exceptions. Isn’t it odd that a few years after Epstein helped her with her science career in this email chain, she won that Pew scholarship? Yuck.
Clearly, there’s a lot more to look into here, but I don’t have time as of writing this (mid-June 2026). What is the Jeffrey Epstein Finishing School she keeps talking about?
I posted all of this analysis as a short-form video on Instagram here.
Adele Diamond’s 2006 paper about child cognition is in the Epstein files
Someone DM’d me to say that there is a paper about cognitive control and executive functions of children from ages 4 to 13 in the Epstein files. This paper is from the lab of Adele Diamond, who is a well-known neurodevelopmental researcher at the University of British Columbia.
Is this paper in the Epstein files because Jeffrey Epstein wanted to understand the child mind for nefarious purposes? Actually, it’s not clear! The weird thing about this paper is that Adele Diamond doesn’t show up by name in the Epstein files for anything besides this paper. Neither do any of the other authors. Some plausible suggestions are that someone in Epstein’s orbit was interested in this paper, or it was research pulled for one of the many legal proceedings involving Epstein and his accomplices. So, your guess is as good as mine here. It is worthy of note that UBC did receive research funding from Epstein in 2011 (and the university apparently did not know, per this reporting from the UBC student newspaper), though it appears to have been donated to the American Foundation for the University of British Columbia, meant to “develop public awareness of UBC in the United States,” per its website.
Indeed, some of the random PDFs contained in the US Department of Justice Epstein files drops are super vague, such as this random photo taken at MIT of a sleeping young woman!
Peter Diamandis, XPRIZE Founder, emailed Jeffrey Epstein in jail and tried to visit the Epstein ranch
Since we’re on the topic of diamonds, someone messaged me about Peter Diamandis (whose last name means “diamond” in Greek), and asked for more information about his Epstein links. Well, it turns out that someone else already dug through the files and found all this stuff about Diamandis and Epstein. A man named Paul von Zielbauer wrote on a Substack related to longevity that Diamandis’s involvement with Epstein matters to the longevity industry. I have not independently corroborated these emails, but it is an interesting post, and Diamandis apparently responded directly to it, denying some of it (of course). I learned from it that Epstein was barred from attending the 2014 TED conference, but met people in hallways and hotel lobbies anyway. I was able to verify this tidbit in the MIT report on Epstein interactions, since he connected with Joi Ito, head of the MIT Media Lab, that way through a woman named Linda Stone (per the MIT Epstein report)!
A “researcher” studying enlightenment making a sketchy proposition
Some people got in touch with me about this man who studies the mind-body connection, sending me a message from Jeffrey Martin, founder of the Finders Course which is a meditation type of course for spiritual enlightenment, makes various bizarre propositions to Epstein — with claims of helping him reach a state of enlightenment — in exchange for a large sum of money and access to women (of legal age, he clarifies). You can read his 2017 message here, though I don’t recommend it.
Game development researcher Gino Yu planned a conference in Cuba with Epstein
Oh, the things I found from Gino Yu in the Epstein files that I am reluctant to write here (they’re simply not appropriate to share in this medium). Seriously, there’s so much stuff I never publish here that I have read in the Epstein files just because they are not appropriate.
I looked up a conference being organized in Italy (can’t find that one anymore but it existed as well, at least conceptually) that someone told me to research and found this one being organized in Cuba about “Neuroscience, Creativity, and Innovation,” with Jeffrey Epstein involved in planning — the only issue was US travel to Cuba was being restricted again by President Trump after being reopened by President Obama. You might just read about it on JMail since it is formatted much better there.
Yu writes in organizing the conference, “I’ve cc’d my benefactor, Jeffrey Epstein. He can make arrangements on the transfer of funds for the Conference. Jeffrey is also really well-connected and can bring significant relationships to make this an amazing event.”
I talk about this in an Instagram reel here.
Thank you, wonderful readers!
At the bottom of my notecard, I wrote, “All ideas above are from followers! Thank them!” So, thank you, friends, from the bottom of my heart.
Did this blog answer your questions? Do you have more questions? I hope this was useful to any people following science in the Epstein files. Feel free to reach out on Instagram or via email if you have more questions.
There are far too many science people in the Epstein files
There is way too much science in the Epstein files and it’s problematic because, for one thing, here in the US, science is largely funded by taxpayers. It’s also just not a good look for science and it reflects aspects of science culture which are toxic to women, including women in science. There are a million reasons to care about this! Check out all of our coverage of science in the Epstein files on our Substack, Instagram, and blog.
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