#title Yale professor wrote to Epstein about women, including undergraduate #subtitle Computer science professor David Gelernter exchanged emails with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between 2009 and 2015. In one message, Gelernter referred to a Yale student as a “v small goodlooking blonde.” #author Asher Boiskin & Jerry Gao #date February 2, 2026 #source <[[https://yaledailynews.com/articles/yale-professor-wrote-to-epstein-about-women-including-undergraduate][www.yaledailynews.com/articles/yale-professor-wrote-to-epstein-about-women-including-undergraduate]]> #lang en #pubdate 2026-02-05T04:03:01.176Z #authors Asher Boiskin, Jerry Gao #topics news stories, Yale computer science professor David Gelernter ’76 GRD ’77 [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00648945.pdf][invited]] Jeffrey Epstein to campus and [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00921454.pdf][described]] the appearance of an undergraduate in emails to the convicted sex offender between 2009 and 2015, [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein][documents]] released Friday by the Department of Justice show. In emails exchanged over more than half a decade reviewed by the News, Gelernter also [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00436211.pdf][scheduled]] [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00304778.pdf][visits]] with Epstein in New York City and discussed the [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01867604.pdf][scent]] of women in Paris. The Department released some three million files related to Epstein in its Friday release, in response to a law passed by Congress in November requiring the disclosure of investigative materials about Epstein that have become a [[https://www.npr.org/2025/07/25/nx-s1-5479144/trump-epstein-files-politics-maga][political flashpoint]] for the Trump administration. In an October 2011 email to Epstein in which Gelernter appeared to discuss his software startup, he wrote: “I have a perfect editoress in mind: Yale sr, worked at Vogue last summer, runs her own campus mag, art major, completely connected, v small goodlooking blonde.” It was not clear what role Gelernter was envisioning for the student. The emails reviewed by the News did not seem to implicate Gelernter in any crime or indicate that he was aware of Epstein’s ongoing sex trafficking operation. Gelernter did not respond to the News’ multiple requests for comment, via email and phone call, since Friday afternoon. Gelernter, who started [[https://engineering.yale.edu/research-and-faculty/faculty-directory/david-gelernter][teaching]] computer science at Yale at least [[https://ydnhistorical.library.yale.edu/?a=d&d=YDN19850923-01.2.1&srpos=1&e=------198-en-20--1--txt-txIN-David+Gelernter+-------false][four]] decades ago, has been [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/18/david-gelernter-fiercely-anti-intellectual-computer-scientist-is-being-eyed-for-trumps-science-adviser/?][described]] by The Washington Post as “a vehement critic of modern academia” and as having a “bombastic rhetorical style and disdain for elites.” In 1993, Gelernter was [[https://yaledailynews.com/articles/unabombers-act-still-affects-prof-gelernter][severely injured]] after opening a mail bomb from Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, in Arthur K. Watson Hall. Gelernter’s name was floated around in the first Trump administration as a [[https://yaledailynews.com/articles/yale-professor-under-consideration-for-trump-advisor-role][potential]] pick as the president’s top science adviser. This semester, Gelernter is teaching “The User Interface,” a computer science course offered to both [[https://coursetable.com/catalog?searchText=the+user+interface&course-modal=202601-21127][graduate]] and [[https://coursetable.com/catalog?searchText=the+user+interface&course-modal=202601-21078][undergraduate]] students. In 2008, the year before the earliest publicly released email correspondence with Gelernter, Epstein [[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/jeffrey-epstein-grand-jury-records-from-underage-girl-abuse-probe-to-be-released-under-florida-law][pleaded]] guilty to two felony prostitution charges in Florida. He was sentenced to county jail and required to register as a sex offender. At the time, The New York Times [[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/business/01epstein.html][reported]] that authorities had identified Epstein as having “paid women, some of them under age, to give him massages that ended with a sexual favor.” “I can’t believe anyone anywhere could be more of a character than Jeff Epstein,” Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00743334.pdf][wrote]] in an email to John Brockman, a literary agent, in December 2009. “I’ve never talked to a more interesting guy or one w/ more all-around horsepower & faster acceleration.” In 2019, federal agents [[https://www.npr.org/2025/07/25/nx-s1-5478620/jeffrey-epstein-crimes-timeline-legal-case][arrested]] Epstein and prosecutors charged him in New York with sex trafficking of minors. Epstein had [[https://apnews.com/article/trump-epstein-investigation-records-timeline-545c371ee3dd3142355a26d27829c188][trafficked]] girls, including high school students, and young women, [[https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/797011139/u-s-virgin-islands-officials-epstein-trafficked-girls-on-private-island-until-20][bringing]] many of them to his private island in the Caribbean. Epstein died in 2019 in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. Karen Peart, a University spokesperson, offered a brief response to the News’ questions about the extent of the University’s knowledge about Gelernter’s relationship with Epstein, whether it would investigate the academic and whether Epstein ever visited Yale. “The university has no knowledge of the information you’ve shared,” Peart wrote in an email on Sunday. In early December 2009, Brockman, the literary agent, forwarded to Epstein an [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00767233.pdf][email]] he received from Gelernter, who had written that he had “heard of Jeffrey Epstein only as a sort of brooding, mystical presence.” “I wouldn’t have sworn he actually existed,” Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00767233.pdf][wrote]]. “But I’m more than happy to talk to him,” he added, opening the door to a relationship with the convicted sex offender. Over the course of the next six years, Gelernter and Epstein would exchange emails in which they discussed women, business dealings and Gelernter’s art projects. The two also planned several meetings and [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00765525.pdf][phone calls]]. In their email correspondence, Gelernter and Epstein extensively discussed Lifestreams, Gelernter’s software startup that [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00878612.pdf][aimed]] to help computer users manage and share their electronic documents with others. Epstein provided advice to Gelernter about the budding company, even helping the professor [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00878612.pdf][revise]] his business pitch. In one email chain from May 2011, Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02002873.pdf][complained]] to Epstein that work on Lifestreams kept him from grading a “pile of final papers.” In a separate email chain two days later, Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00629517.pdf][told]] Epstein that he had forgotten to issue grades for his senior students. “Yes, & just found out my grades for srs are due yesterday or they won’t graduate,” Gelernter wrote to Epstein, in response to an email from early that morning about whether he was awake. After Epstein wrote in the same email chain that he was in Paris, Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01867604.pdf][responded]] with an email in which he referred to walking along the Seine, seeing Parisian architectural sites and “French girls dressed & behaving like actual females everywhere.” Epstein told Gelernter that the professor had left out of his Paris description “the smell of nutella crepe mixing with the cheap perfume of the streetwalker,” which Gelernter affirmed. The Yale academic responded that “any Paris group of spring girls is perfumed, just not as vividly as the golden-hearted whores.” In another exchange of emails from 2009, Gelernter, whose paintings have been [[https://yaledailynews.com/articles/computer-scientist-second-painter-first][displayed]] on Yale’s campus, [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00886986.pdf][lamented]] to Epstein the suppression of sexuality in art. He described “beautiful women” as “the fuel source of all human creativity.” In his reply, Epstein advised Gelernter to “consider focusing” his artistic capability on Hebrew letters. “I think you might consider focusing on the negative spaces between the hebrew letters much more erotic a bulging shma, or throbbing ka,” Epstein [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00886986.pdf][wrote]] to Gelernter. Sh’ma means “listen” in Hebrew. Gelernter apparently took heed of some of Epstein’s artistic advice. In November 2012, the academic [[https://www.yumuseum.org/files/uploads/David_Gelernter_Press_Release.pdf][placed]] 29 of his creations in an exhibit at Yeshiva University, in New York City, titled “Sh’ma/Listen.” On multiple occasions, Gelernter and Epstein discussed scheduling meetings in New York City and also New Haven. In correspondence with Lesley Groff, Epstein’s [[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell.html][longtime executive assistant]], Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00436211.pdf][organized]] a March 31, 2011, meeting with Epstein “for breakfast” at Epstein’s Manhattan [[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-nyc-mansion.html][townhouse]]. And in December 2010, Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00648945.pdf][invited]] Epstein to “see the paintings, the turkeys, the campus etc.” in New Haven. “We’d love to have you,” Gelernter wrote. Epstein asked whether there was a helicopter pad nearby. Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00648945.pdf][suggested]] to Epstein that he could “[[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00648945.pdf][send a car]]” to pick up Epstein from Bridgeport-Sikorsky Airport or Tweed New Haven Airport. The professor added that he would check to see if Epstein could alternatively land on the Yale New Haven Hospital heliport. “Yale’s hpad is only med, but I’ll check that,” Gelernter wrote. It’s not clear if Epstein then came to New Haven. Peart did not answer the News’ questions about whether or not Epstein received permission to land on Yale’s helipad. Gelernter and Epstein’s email exchanges appear to have come to an end in 2015 after Epstein [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01732837.pdf][declined]] to invest in a software startup launched by his son, Daniel Gelernter ’10. On Oct. 12, 2015, Groff [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00338328.pdf][told]] Epstein that Gelernter wanted him “to meet with Dan” and provide him with advice for his company, which was then at what Gelernter called a “crucial branch point.” Daniel Gelernter exchanged emails with Epstein, [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02070694.pdf][discussing]] his now-defunct tech company, Dittach, that [[https://alleywatch.com/2016/03/nyc-startup-finding-attachments-cant/][helped]] users manage email attachments. He [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00714403.pdf][asked]] Epstein on Oct. 14, 2015, to invest in his company, sending him a proposal for a $1 million investment and promising royalties in return. Epstein [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01732837.pdf][disagreed]] with the terms of the investment, pushing for more royalties. Daniel Gelernter did not reply to the News’ repeated requests for comment. The last publicly known email exchange between David Gelernter and Epstein appears to have taken place on Oct. 25, 2015. After Epstein explained to Gelernter his decision not to invest in his son’s company, Gelernter [[https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02351990.pdf][wrote]] that he hoped to “get a chance to talk again someday” with Epstein, expressing regret that the investment “didn’t work out.” Gelernter studied religious studies as both an undergraduate and graduate student at Yale, according to the alumni directory. --------- [[https://yaledailynews.com/author/asher-boiskin][ASHER BOISKIN]] Asher Boiskin covers the University president as a staff reporter on the University desk. He previously covered alumni affairs and the Yale College Council. Originally from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, he is a sophomore in Morse College majoring in political science. [[https://yaledailynews.com/author/jerry-gao][JERRY GAO]] Jerry Gao covers facilities and dining for the News. A sophomore in Pauli Murray College, he previously covered student policy and affairs.