Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds, Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies, announced today the appointment of Vanidy M. Bailey as director of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer (BGLTQ) student life. Bailey will begin working in the new position on July 16. Bailey will…

Today, Accel Partners, Breyer Capital, and Polaris Venture Partners join New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as partners of The Experiment Fund (www.Xfund.com), a seed-stage venture capital fund anchored at Harvard and designed to cultivate innovation and bold experimentation in the Boston area. Also announced today are several new advisers to the fund, including former Harvard Law…

Massachusetts was hit with a heat wave in late June and the Harvard community responded by taking action to reduce energy use. Despite the high temperatures on Thursday June 21, Harvard saw a campus-wide reduction in electricity demand of approximately 10% while continuing to support our research and teaching mission. Schools and departments cut energy…

A novel coating that repels almost every type of liquid and solid, from blood and crude oil, to ice and bacteria, has received a 2012 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine. The annual awards honor the 100 most technologically significant products of the previous year. The winning technology, called SLIPS (Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces), was…

Higher prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a debilitating mental illness that can have life-long negative consequences, has been found in young adult gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and “mostly heterosexuals” compared with completely heterosexuals at considerably younger ages than previously identified, according to a new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Boston…

With a growing number of teens texting behind the wheel, policy makers are looking for ways to combat this risky behavior. One blueprint that could work is the successful “designated driver” campaign attacking drunken driving led by Harvard School of Public Health’s Jay A. Winsten in the 1980s, according to a June 8, 2012 Boston…

Julio Frenk, dean of Harvard School of Public Health, was one of 11 innovators, scientists, volunteers, and world leaders who recently received honorary degrees from Canada’s University of Alberta. Frenk, who received an honorary doctor of science degree at the June 8, 2012 spring convocation ceremony, gave a speech to the graduating class in medicine…

The Arnold Arboretum is pleased to announce that Guang-You Hao was awarded a Putnam Fellowship to conduct independent research utilizing the Arboretum’s living collection. Hao received his Ph.D. from the University of Miami and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2010 where his work focused on the hydraulic properties of tropical plants in an ecological…

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) has elected Swati Piramal, M.P.H. ’92, to serve a six-year term as Overseer. Piramal joins Walter Clair, A.B. ’77, M.D. ’81, M.P.H. ’85, as one of only two HSPH alumni, and the only alumna from India, on the 30-member board. Also elected as Overseers were Scott A. Abell, A.B. ’82; James…

Children living in low-income neighborhoods, often exposed to unsafe levels of pollution, may also face additional risk from the stress of growing up in poverty, according to a new body of research. Such children may actually be more biologically susceptible to contaminants such as lead and car exhaust, even at low levels, because dealing with…

Technology Products and Services is updating the ecommerce sites for departments and personal purchasers. What’s New: One-stop shopping for departments! Computer and software licensing products will be merged so that departments can conveniently shop on one site. This site is dedicated to departments only, with communications and products that meet their specific needs. Dedicated Site…

Technology Products and Services and the Campus Computer Store will be closing Friday, June 29, at 3 p.m. and will reopen on Monday, July 2, at noon. We will be transitioning to our new e-commerce sites during this time and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Watch for the new and improved e-commerce sites…

Lung cancer makes up only 15 percent of cancer diagnoses, but it is the leading cause of cancer deaths. To help doctors detect the disease in its early, most treatable stages, epidemiologists like Margaret Spitz, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, are working to develop models of genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors to identify…

On May 30, 2012, Professor Afsaneh Najmabadi gave a presentation on her project Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran at an event at the White House titled “Exploring Communities of Muslim Women Throughout History.” Hosted by the White House Office of Public Engagement and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the event showcased NEH-funded scholarship…

There was never much of a question about what career path Kathleen M. Turner ’94 would follow. A child who brought home worksheets to play school with her friends, who lined up her stuffed animals for mock lessons, who even in summer liked to pretend she was in school, Turner dreamed of the day when…

In his opening message at the 2012 Commencement ceremony on May 24, Dean Julio Frenk spoke about the importance of “career plasticity.” He quoted Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, who said, “Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try.” Explaining…

Professor Shiu-Ying Hu, emeritus senior research fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, passed away in Hong Kong on May 22 at age 102. An eminent scholar and plant taxonomist, Hu was also a beloved teacher who served as honorary professor of Chinese medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and senior college…

Highlights from a year of innovative teaching, breakthrough research, inventive student projects, and global impact:   Summer 2011 SEAS announced the creation of a graduate secondary field in computational science and engineering. Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law and Computer Science, was named a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence of the Federal Communications Commission. Materials scientists and applied physicists…

David M. Brooks, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has won the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture (SIGARCH) Maurice Wilkes Award for 2012. The award is named for Sir Maurice Wilkes, the Director of the Cambridge Computer Laboratory during…

What is causing the obesity epidemic—and how can we stop and reverse this worldwide weight problem? A new website offers authoritative answers to these pressing questions and sheds light on one of the most challenging public health threats of our time. The Obesity Prevention Source website, launched by the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School…

William A. Graham steps down as dean of Harvard Divinity School at the end of the 2011–12 academic year. After a year’s leave in 2012–13, he will return to teaching as a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. HDS M.Div. candidate Matt Bieber caught up with Graham in April to discuss his tenure as dean and…

Franziska Michor, associate professor of computational biology, received Harvard School of Public Health’s second annual Alice Hamilton Award on April 11, 2012 in recognition of her pathbreaking work applying evolutionary theory to cancer. The award, sponsored by the School’s Committee on the Concerns of Women Faculty, is named in honor of Harvard’s first female faculty…

Ryan Adams, assistant professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has won a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award. Adams will receive $300,000 to support his project titled “Developing New Methods of Multi-Core Statistic Inference Towards Rapid Data Fusion and Information Extraction.” The grant will…

The Arnold Arboretum is pleased to announce the launch of two new mobile apps to facilitate explorations of the Arboretum’s plant collections. These releases are part a wider initiative to expand access to the Arboretum’s resources as a landscape for science, learning, and recreation. All accessioned plants at the Arnold Arboretum are mapped, documented, and…

On a Friday morning in early fall 1911, members of both Andover Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School gathered in the chapel of the newly built Andover Hall to dedicate the building. One hundred years later, after repairs and additions (and even some subtractions), the building is, in many ways, the centerpiece of life at…

Each April, eight to ten primary school teachers from around the U.S. travel to Egypt as part of the CMES Outreach Center’s Egypt Forum program. Currently in its fifth year, the Egypt Forum is a professional development program for K-12 educators designed to build leadership skills, engage teachers in Middle East studies through firsthand experience,…

In sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of HIV/AIDS and malaria is disproportionately high and co-infection may be as high as 30 percent among HIV-positive populations in some African settings. Now, a new study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers and their colleagues working in Tanzania finds that HIV infection greatly increases children’s risk of developing…

Twelve years ago, in a survey of TV viewers who regularly watched the show ER, only 24% had ever heard of human papilloma virus. A week later, after an ER segment on the virus, that figure shot up to 47%. More recently, a “bubble tweet” (a short online video that can be added to Twitter…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard has selected 24 journalists from the United States and abroad as members of the 75th class of Nieman Fellows. The group includes journalists who work across all media platforms as reporters, editors, radio and television broadcasters, photojournalists and digital media pioneers. This class will be the first to…

Endang Sedyaningsih, M.P.H. ’92, S.D. ’97, received her master’s and doctoral degrees from the Department of Global Health and Population. In 2009, she was appointed minister of health in her native Indonesia. Sedyaningsih returned to HSPH in May 2011 to deliver a Dean’s Distinguished Lecture on the topic of her “Efforts in Materializing Health Care Equity…