Because the White House’s nominee for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, tweeted in 2012 that “guns are a health care issue,” the gun lobby took issue and Murthy’s nomination is now in jeopardy. But David Hemenway of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) thinks that promoting reasonable gun policies doesn’t mean public health professionals are “anti-gun.” Given the fallout…

David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering, was honored with the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “Dave Mooney is a world-class scientist and researcher, a superb teacher, and an exemplary mentor—to students and colleagues alike,” said…

Nachman Shai, a former journalist who currently serves as a member of the Knesset, spoke to the Shorenstein Center about the rise of “soft power” as the dominant force in “asymmetric confrontations” between strong and weak powers. Now that the battle has moved from hard power to soft power, Shai pointed out, Israel must “showcase its moral…

Fats have been in the news recently following a paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine questioning recommendations on limiting saturated fat intake, which was covered by many media outlets, including by New York Times columnist Mark Bittman in a column titled “Butter is Back.” Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers Dariush Mozaffarian, a co-author of the paper, and Walter Willett favor…

Federal policies regulating the sea of industrial chemicals we encounter in everyday life—and new ones being formulated in laboratories—are “broken” and in need of urgent overhaul to better protect our brains from harmful toxins, a Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researcher said in a March 18, 2014 online article in The Atlantic. The primary U.S. law…

The 8th Floor was proud to host a social event on Sunday, March 23, attended by President Jimmy Carter and by his grandson, Georgia State Sen. Jason Carter. President Carter visited The 8th Floor, the art gallery supported by philanthropists and art collectors Shelley and Donald Rubin in New York City, where the art exhibit…

Management-By-Walking-Around, a widely adopted technique in hospitals in which senior managers visit the frontlines of their organizations to solicit improvement ideas and resolve issues, has the potential to do more harm than good, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Harvard Business School (HBS). In contrast to evidence that…

Harvard University’s 22nd annual Arts First festival, showcasing student and faculty creativity, will take place Thu.-Sun., May 1-4. Sponsored by Harvard’s Board of Overseers and produced by the Office for the Arts at Harvard with partners across the University, this year’s festival will feature more than 200 music, theater, dance, film, visual arts and multidisciplinary…

“The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” with Henry Louis Gates Jr. has won the prestigious Peabody Award. The honor signifies excellence on television, radio and the Internet. Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Written and presented by Gates, the six-hour…

A large study of child growth patterns in 36 developing countries finds that, contrary to widely held beliefs, economic growth has little to no effect on the nutritional status of the world’s poorest children. The study, from researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), the University of Göttingen, Germany, ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar,…

During the historic “Blizzard of 1978,” Edmund Morris forced open the door of his snowed-in Cambridge hotel and made his way across the quieted Harvard Yard to Widener Library to continue his research on the figure that would make him famous. Thirty-five years, a few more snowstorms and a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award…

Syrian refugees in Lebanon are experiencing the same struggles as many other groups of refugees, but their particular circumstances make social isolation a problem as well, writes Susan Bartels, a fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights in an op-ed at Al Jazeera America. Bartels says that the isolation Syrians are experiencing in Lebanon is unlike any…

The sun was high and the suit was hot. Raul Ruiz mopped his brow with a handkerchief as he walked the sun-baked sidewalks of Coachella, California, his hometown. He had a briefcase in his hand with a stack of carefully typed contracts inside. In the scorching summer of 1990, the teenager in the itchy blue…

Politicians and scholars have long accepted the notion that democracies are less likely to go to war against each other, yet there remains questions as to the reasons why. In a new Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research Working Paper, “Information, Popular Constraint, and the Democratic Peace,” co-authored by Professor Matthew Baum, an argument is made…

The Harvard Graduate Student Government (HGSG) hosts its third annual Lectures that Last event on April 9. The TED talk-style event features a professor from each of the 12 graduate schools for a 10-minute sketch of their research or teaching. Begun in 2012, Lectures that Last came from a vision to showcase the diverse intellectual…

A large international consortium of researchers has produced the first comprehensive, detailed map of the way genes work across the major cells and tissues of the human body. The findings describe the complex networks that govern gene activity, and the new information could play a crucial role in identifying the genes involved with disease. “Now, for the…

Harvard College freshman Benjamin Lee is the winner of the 2014 Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art for his assembly of the history, artwork and copyright registration of the 1933 Goudey baseball card set. Thankfully, he didn’t keep the chewing gum that originally came with it. The Goudey Gum Company started in Boston in…

Daniel Hochbaum, a Ph.D. candidate in engineering/applied sciences/applied physics, was one of 13 graduate students from institutes throughout North America chosen to receive the 2014 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Nominations were solicited internationally; the winners were selected on the basis of…

RIDGE @ HGSE holds the annual Education Innovation Pitch Competition. Every year, teams of students and alumni from across Harvard University and beyond come together to present innovative solutions to current problems in education. As a “pitch” competition, the focus is on the idea and its potential for impact. This year, we followed one of…

She was a force of nature, a loyal and caring friend, a tireless advocate for women’s and girls’ education, and an international worker in multiple countries. And when Laura Kavazanjian, Ed.M.’10, was killed in a car accident in 2011, her HGSE classmates and friends wanted to find a way to carry on both her name…

Indiana, one of the early adopters of the Common Core Standards Initiative nearly four years ago, became the first state to also drop the initiative on Monday following Governor Mike Pence’s signing of a new legislation. Professor Paul Reville discusses how Indiana’s decision may or may not impact education and the national standards movement.

On March 4, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu rejected a motion to dismiss the Vergara v. California case and continue the state’s education trial where nine students are challenging the laws over teacher job protection. The suit, filed on behalf of Beatriz Vergara, a Los Angeles high school student, and eight other…

If you think the drug-resistant infectious bacteria MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is just a hospital or nursing home problem — think again. In recent years the stealth-like bacteria, sometimes simply called “staph,” has expanded from people to animals—ranging from pigs and other farm animals to family pets. “MRSA is not just a hospital problem anymore. It can affect…

Patrons who spend enough time in the Widener Library stacks are accustom to its many large, bright red signs. The signs read “Sprinkler Valve Through Door.” They point to the building’s fire suppression systems, but what they don’t reveal are the many treasures contained within the more than 50 miles of shelving beyond those same passageways. The…

The Sacramento Bee has won the Nieman Foundation’s $20,000 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for its five-part series “Nevada Patient Busing.” The Bee’s investigation found that over the course of five years, the Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas transported more than 1,500 mentally ill patients out of Nevada by bus, sending at least one…

Like its neighbor Botswana, the Republic of Namibia is considered one of Africa’s success stories. Twenty-four years after gaining independence from South Africa, the sparsely populated nation is experiencing political stability, economic growth, and a dramatic reduction in rates of new adult HIV infections. Namibian Prime Minister the Right Honorable Hage Geinbob spoke about leadership challenges in Africa…

On Jan. 28, Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) student attorneys Nicholas Pastan ’15 and Breana Ware ’14 found themselves conducting a trial in federal court and asking a judge to decline to enforce a petition brought against their client pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. In a one-day…

A flexible work environment that enables staff to make time for physical activity appears to reduce cancer risk in middle-aged workers, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Center for Work, Health, and Well-being. Staying physically active and maintaining a healthy weight are two ways to reduce the risk of developing cancer. The new study was one of two HSPH…

Harvard Law School Professor of Practice Nancy Gertner has been selected as a recipient of the 2014 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, established by the ABA Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession. The award, which recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of women lawyers who have excelled in their field and…

Doctors, dietitians, and chefs gathered March 13-16, 2014 for the annual Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference in Napa Valley, Calif. The event, a collaboration between Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Culinary Institute of America, provides health professionals with the latest in nutrition science as well as hands-on training in how to cook healthy meals — information they…