As a Harvard University Graduate School of Education Research Associate, Nelson Goodman founded Project Zero in 1967. He directed Project Zero until 1971, engaging in basic research into education and the arts, while also producing a number of Arts Orientation programs in film, dance, music, theater, and poetry. Goodman, a distinguished philosopher, was named Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University in 1968.

His philosophical studies ranged over many areas, including logic, epistemology, and aesthetics. In addition to numerous articles and reviews, Professor Goodman is the author of The Structure of Appearance; Fact, Fiction, and Forecast; Language of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols; Problems and Projects; and Ways of Worldmaking.

Born on August 7, 1906, in Somerville, MA, Professor Goodman received the B.S. magna cum laude (1928) and the Ph.D. (1941) degrees from Harvard. From 1929 to 1940 he operated an art gallery in Boston, and was always a collector of ancient and modern art. From 1942 to 1945 he was in the U.S. Army. Professor Goodman died in December 1998, at the age of 92, after a long illness.

Before joining the Harvard faculty, he spent 18 years teaching at the University of Pennsylvania (1946-64), and held the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professorship at Brandeis University (1964-67). In 1968 he was the Merriweather Distinguished Visiting Professor at C.W. Post for Cognitive Studies. In that same year, he gave the Alfred North Whitehead Lecture at Harvard and the John Locke Lectures at Oxford. In 1963 he was the 75th Anniversary Lecturer of the American Geological Society and in 1968 gave the Eisenberg Lecture at Michigan State University