Scientists predict that global climate change will generate more heat waves in the decades ahead, but few studies have quantified the negative health effects of heat waves. In a new study that looked at how heat waves may impact people living in a major U.S. city, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and…

Congress must adopt a “balanced strategy” to address the country’s long-term fiscal health and avert the looming crisis over the national debt limit, said U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner at an event hosted by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Geithner’s remarks came as part of a wide-ranging session…

Atul Gawande, associate professor in HSPH’s Department of Health Policy and Management and a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has won a National Magazine Award for his story “Letting Go,” which appeared in the August 2, 2010, issue of The New Yorker. Gawande is a contributor to the magazine. Gawande’s story looks at a U.S.…

The world’s population is predicted to reach 10.1 billion by 2100, according to a United Nations report released May 3, 2011. Much of the growth is expected to occur in Africa, where the population could triple to 3.6 billion by the end of the century. The figures for Africa are the most “disconcerting aspect” of…

The National Academy of Engineering has elected a new foreign secretary and four members to its governing Council. All terms begin July 1, 2011. Elected to a four-year term as foreign secretary is Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti, Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and director of…

Several members of the faculty at Harvard Divinity School have recently received research grants or won awards for teaching or academic scholarship. Mayra Rivera Rivera, assistant professor of theology and Latina/o studies, has received a Lilly Theological Research Grant for 2011-12. The Lilly Theological Research Grants program is designed to enhance the skill and capacity…

Kevin Kit Parker and Todd Zickler, both faculty members at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), have been granted tenure, effective, July 1, 2011. Kevin Kit Parker Parker, most recently the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Applied Science and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, is the director of the Disease Biophysics…

Vahid Tarokh, Perkins Professor of Applied Mathematics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow of Electrical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Tarokh is among 180 scientists, scholars, and artists chosen this year as Fellows from a group of nearly 3,000 applicants across the…

The Film Study Center at Harvard University (FSC) announces the list of FSC-Harvard fellows chosen for the 2011-12 academic year. FSC-Harvard fellowships provide funding and technical resources for people doing compelling work in video, film, sound, or photography. These fellowships support advanced work, from the ethnographic to the experimental, that explores and expands the expressive potential…

Paper medical records—the 19th century tools still used by most 21st century medical providers—are a big part of what’s ailing the United States’ health care system, Harvard School of Public Health Associate Professor Ashish Jha told an audience of representatives from academia, government, and industry gathered at the Harvard Club of Boston for the 3rd…

Adolescents and young adults of color are the least likely to have health insurance and have the least access to health care compared to other groups in the United States, Angela Diaz, M.P.H. ’02, told an HSPH audience during the Yerby Diversity Lecture in Public Health on April 5. Diaz directs the Mount Sinai Adolescents…

New findings suggest that HIV-infected patients may delay the onset of AIDS by starting drug therapy earlier while their immune systems are stronger. Researchers including Lauren Cain, a research fellow at HSPH, recommend that patients start treatment earlier than current U.S. guidelines in order to fully benefit. The optimal time to initiate combined antiretroviral therapy…

For the ninth time in the last decade, works first published in Harvard Review have been chosen for inclusion in the highly selective Best American series. The selections include two essays that appeared in issue 39 and a short story taken from issue 38. Meenakshi Gigi Venugopal’s essay “Grieving” is the true story of her…

More than 2,000 staff at Harvard have collaborated to help their offices adopt greener practices that reduce energy and conserve resources as part of the Office for Sustainability’s (OFS) Green Office Program. In just 18 months the number of offices participating in the program has grown from 17 to 118, an exciting milestone for the…

Harvard Law School Professor Yochai Benkler ‘94 has received a Ford Foundation Visionaries Award, it was announced April 29. The award was created in recognition of the 75th Anniversary of the Ford Foundation to celebrate social innovators from a variety of fields. “This recognition is superb because Yochai truly is a visionary,” said HLS Dean…

Over the last four decades the average height of women has declined in Africa, stalled in several South American countries, and varied considerably in other low- to middle-income countries, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. The declines or stagnation are most noticeable among disadvantaged women and are thought to reflect…

Sheila Burke was chief of staff to Sen. Bob Dole, from 1986 to 1996, when he was Senate minority and then the majority leader. In 1995, she was elected as secretary of the Senate, the chief administrative officer of the U.S. Senate. Starting as a member of the staff of the Senate Finance Committee in…

A new report by the Institute of Medicine’s committee on Nutrition, Trauma, and the Brain supports the potential role of nutrition in protecting against traumatic brain injury (TBI) and treating its effects. HSPH Research Scientist Xiang Gao, also of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, served on the committee. TBI accounts for up…

Roger W. Brockett, An Wang Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has received the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising. Brockett, a pioneer in control systems theory, founder of the Harvard Robotics Laboratory, and a 42-year member of the…

On behalf of the New York City Post of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME), Harvard College senior Jared Dourdeville ’11 has been awarded the 2010 Colonel and Mrs. S.S. Dennis III Scholarship in recognition of his hard work and dedication to research. During the SEAS All Hands meeting held on April 29, Cherry…

Today the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, announced the top 25 programs in the Innovations in American Government Award competition. These programs represent the best in creative problem solving of local, state, and federal municipalities around the country and were selected from a…

The Agassiz Zoological Club is organizing the second annual Harvard University Campus BioBlitz on May 1. Trips will begin at 9 a.m. on Sunday (May 1) and continue through 2 a.m. on Monday (May 2). Already there are four trips planned: A walk through the Arnold Arboretum, a guided tour of the plants of Harvard…

In what is believed to be the largest gathering of uniformed students at the University since Winston Churchill spoke on campus in 1943, more than 170 Harvard veterans from all the service branches gathered at Cambridge’s Sheraton Commander Hotel Monday night (April 25) for a dinner honoring students who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.…

A project to use dirt-powered batteries to charge cell phones in Africa won a $100,000 grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today. Led by Aviva Presser Aiden, Ph.D. ’09, an affiliate of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) who is now a student at Harvard Medical School, the aim is…

Timothy Johnson, one of the nation’s leading communicators of medical healthcare information, will deliver this year’s Lowell Lecture May 4, “The Truth About Getting Sick in America: The Real Problems with Healthcare and What We Can Do.” The lecture explores the thorny issue of health care in the United States, and is based on Johnson’s…

Planning and special projects officer for the Division of Continuing Education Wayne K. Ishikawa, Ph.D. ’78, is the recipient of the 2011 Walton S. Bittner Service Citation from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA). The award recognizes a member for outstanding contributions to continuing education at his or her institution, and for service…

More than 30 members of the Harvard community rolled up their sleeves on Saturday April 2, to weatherize the Morton Prince House, home to the Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO). In a workday organized by the the student-run Environmental Action Committee, FDO, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Green Program, Green Building Services, the Harvard Office for…

Wondering what you can do to go green on Earth Day? Check out the Office for Sustainability’s April Green Tip of the Month for 10 tips from the Harvard community for how to help build a healthier, greener campus. From rethinking waste, powering down, and eating locally to asking the right questions and being creative,…

A new effort between researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard has been created to help improve teaching and learning through educational innovation and technology. Steven W. Leslie, executive vice president and provost at the University of Texas, Austin, said the endeavor brings together top educational researchers from the Mazur Group at…

The statistics laid out by the Honorable Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, South African Minister of Health, during the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at Harvard School of Public Health on March 30, 2011, were stark: South Africa has less than 1 percent of the world’s population but 17 percent of the global HIV-positive population. Nearly one in three…