As part of that mission, she created the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, which provided stipends and access to University resources for women returning to careers interrupted by family obligations. The Bunting Institute, as it later became known, was “a laboratory of sorts,” Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin said. “The goal was twofold: to encourage and to catalyze women’s scholarly and creative work, and to discover the conditions that best supported women’s endeavors in the face of persistent societal barriers.”In 1999, when Radcliffe College merged with Harvard University, the Bunting Institute became today’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study: a center dedicated to advanced interdisciplinary scholarship and public engagement. The Radcliffe Institute supports the work of 50 fellows each year, from across academic and artistic disciplines, with a continuing commitment to the study of women and gender. She credited part of the Institute’s success to the early support and vision of president emeritus Neil L. Rudenstine, who oversaw the Harvard-Radcliffe merger and the creation of the Radcliffe Institute.