In March 2012, MIT launched 6.002x, a free online version of MIT’s introductory course in circuits and electronics. The course, the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by MITx — and also the inaugural offering from edX, the online-learning partnership later founded by MIT and Harvard University — sparked worldwide interest, along with a large amount…

Professor Benjamin I. Sachs is this year’s winner of the prestigious Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor bestowed each spring by the Harvard Law School graduating class. The award recognizes teaching ability, attentiveness to student concerns and general contributions to student life at the law school. A specialist in labor…

When Haben Girma ’13 was in college at Lewis & Clark, she had to solve a problem that few other students have faced. As a deaf-blind student with very limited sight and hearing, she had a hard time figuring out the food stations in her school’s cafeteria. As she explained in a speech on Jan.…

Conducting research projects among mothers and infants in Brazil in the mid-2000s, Paola Gilsanz got to see firsthand the effects of health inequalities. She saw that, all too often, good health was elusive if you were poor, lacking education, or didn’t have access to adequate care. Gilsanz is now on track to graduate with a…

Shemar Popplewell said it’s been a “pretty big struggle” to keep up his grades in math and other subjects at Roxbury Prep Charter School in Boston where he is an eighth-grader. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on schoolwork, he said, because he runs a landscaping business with his cousin on the weekends to earn money.…

Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth, who transformed Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy during his 12 years as dean, is joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a senior fellow. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison said Bosworth would bring to the Kennedy School a wealth of experience as a…

Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has been selected to receive the Humboldt Research Award. The prestigious award is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to “outstanding researchers at the peak of…

Khanichi Charles knows the value of mentoring. Without it, she wouldn’t have discovered her passion for scientific research, let alone apply to Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). So despite long hours in the lab working towards her Ph.D. in biological sciences, which she expects to earn in August, Charles makes time to be a…

EdX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise, released its learning platform via open source license on June 1 and today released details of the first educational institutions and organizations that are contributing code to the platform. In addition to the early and continuing contributions of edX founding partners, MIT and Harvard, xConsortium members such as Berkeley…

Serving more than a dozen years as a U.S. Army medical operations officer was a rich and worthwhile experience for Martin Reidy. He had three tours in Iraq under his belt and his wife, a military doctor, also served in Iraq. As a self-described “jack-of-all-trades,” Reidy carried out medical plans and operations supporting humanitarian and…

Five years ago, Shane Kiernan was an investment banker for a private equity real estate fund, helping evaluate potential acquisitions. In 2008, he established, and subsequently sold, a Dublin-based business called DealHunter that enabled consumers in Southern Ireland to buy products from Northern Ireland more cheaply. Today he’s studying at Harvard School of Public Health…

The world can only meet its future food needs through innovation, including the use of agricultural biotechnology, a Harvard development specialist said today. Since their commercial debut in the mid-1990s, genetically designed crops have added about $100 billion to world crop output, avoided massive pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions, spared vast tracts of land,…

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has announced the selection of the 2013 Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography. Following an international search, the Gardner Fellowship committee has awarded the fellowship to French-Moroccan photographer Yto Barrada. Born in Paris, and raised in Morocco and France, Barrada lives and works in Tangier, Morocco. Her work has…

Approximately 176,000 items from the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library collection are now accessible to Harvard’s Borrow Direct partners, in addition to the approximately 6.5 million items from Harvard made available previously. “We in the Music Library are pleased to participate in this important collaborative venture by making our holdings available to scholars at peer…

Addressing graduates at the 2013 Commencement Ceremony on May 30, HSPH Dean Julio Frenk spoke of how, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, HSPH faculty, alumni, and students contributed “to what is now recognized as an extraordinary example of crisis response.” That response, Frenk said, came from “impeccable preparation.” He said he hopes…

On May 14, several members of the Harvard Law School community came together aboard the U.S.S. Constitution as three Harvard Law School students swore oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as part of their commission as officers in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. Joshua Fiveson ’14,…

Morgan Chu, one of the nation’s preeminent intellectual property lawyers, and his wife, Helen Chu, have given $5 million to Harvard Law School to establish in perpetuity the dean’s chair held by the Dean of the Faculty at Harvard Law School. The inaugural Morgan and Helen Chu Dean’s Professorship, which will be held by Dean…

India faces daunting public health challenges. Maternal and infant mortality rates are high. Malaria and tuberculosis persist stubbornly. Noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and cancer are prevalent and increasing. And many—especially the poor—lack good and affordable health care. Keshav Desiraju, secretary of health for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India, and Harvard…

The Harvard Law School Library, HLS Sustainability and the HLS Green Living Program launched the Read & Ride BikeShare program in September 2010 to provide a more eco-friendly mode of transportation. “Many of our students who live in Somerville borrow our bikes to ride home because it’s so much faster than walking and can even…

On a brisk, sunny morning in April, dozens of people crowd into the tiny Second Session courtroom at Quincy District Court. Some are represented by lawyers, but most are not. They are here because they are parties in Harassment Prevention Order (HPO) cases. Some are asking the judge for an order to stem the tide…

Fifty years after the Supreme Court determined in Gideon v. Wainwright that criminal defendants must be provided with counsel, scholars and practitioners from around the country grappled with continued limits on access to justice during an Harvard Law School conference in April titled “Toward a Civil Gideon: The Future of Legal Services.” The keynote speech,…

This semester, Harvard Law School launched the Law and History program of study. The new program of study joins six others, including Law and Social Change, Law and Business, and Law, Science and Technology. These programs guide students in navigating HLS’ extensive course offerings and connect them with faculty whose interests they share. The Law…

It turns out bike-friendliness is second nature for Harvard University. Weeks after being named a Silver-Level Bike Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists, Harvard University was recognized as a Gold-level Bike Friendly Business by Mayor Menino and the city of Boston. Representatives from Harvard’s Longwood campus were joined by Harvard’s Commuter Choice Program…

Harvard University Provost Alan M. Garber announced that Sarah Thomas of the University of Oxford has been named vice president for the Harvard Library. In this role, Thomas will have overall responsibility for the Harvard Library, and will collaborate closely with the Library Board, the Faculty Advisory Council and the Library Leadership Team. Garber noted,…

The Harvard Library and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University are pleased to announce the appointment of Peter Suber as director of the Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), starting July 1, 2013. Suber will continue his current activities as director of the Harvard Open Access Project, based at the Berkman Center,…

The conversation around health care policy in the United States, mired as it is in partisan bickering, has gone off course from what should be its larger goal — building the foundation of a secure and prosperous society, according to Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) student Suzanne Brundage, SM ’14. Having recently left a…

More than 5% of U.S. teens and adolescents use snuff, chewing tobacco, or dipping tobacco—and that rate has been about the same for a decade, according to new research from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Pretoria in South Africa. In 2011, 5.2% of middle and high school kids used smokeless…

Bicycle engineering guidelines often used by state regulators to design bicycle facilities need to be overhauled to reflect current cyclists’ preferences and safety data, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They say that U.S. guidelines should be expanded to offer cyclists more riding options and call for endorsing…

EdX, the not-for-profit online learning initiative composed of the leading global institutions of the xConsortium, today announced another doubling of its university membership with the addition of its first Asian institutions and further expansion in the Ivy League. The xConsortium is gaining 15 prestigious higher education institutions, bringing its total to 27, including Tsinghua University…

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study awarded the Captain Jonathan Fay Prize to the graduating seniors whose theses set forth the most imaginative work and original research. This year three Fay Prize recipients were chosen from 81 Thomas Hoopes Prize winners for outstanding scholarly work or research: mathematics concentrator Ashok Cutkosky for his thesis Polymer Simulations…