For the past 17 years, Harvard staff and students team up each spring with neighbors in Allston for the annual Love Your Block event, (formerly known as Boston Shines). Dozens of volunteers helped paint, clean, rake leaves, sweep sidewalks, lay mulch and plant flowers in various locations across the neighborhood. Schools and departments from all…

Nature has a knack for producing things that seem to be perfectly designed for their place in the world: the sticky pads on geckos’ feet that help them grip slick surfaces, the way sunflowers turn to ‘follow” the sun throughout the day, the shape of snakes’ scales that allow them to grip the ground when…

On May 6, 2019, the Bureau of Study Counsel (BSC) presented the Joseph L. Barrett Award to Deja Morehead ’20, Andrew Perez ’20, and James Bedford ’20. The award commemorates Joseph L. Barrett ’73 by honoring exceptional students who give their time to support their peers in developing more meaningful college experiences. Deja was honored…

Harvard College’s Advising Programs Office awarded 12 advisers from throughout the University with the prestigious Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising on Wednesday, May 8, 2019. The Star Prizes were established by James A. Star ’83 to recognize and reward individuals who contribute to the College through their exemplary intellectual and personal guidance of undergraduate students. Prizes…

In 2001, Janet Connors’ son, Joel James Turner, was stabbed to death in his Dorchester apartment. While three of the men charged in the killing received prison sentences, a fourth — the one who Connors believes was mainly responsible — was released on reasonable doubt. The grieving mother felt she needed to create her own…

Ever wondered how university innovations start the journey toward becoming products that the world can use? Very often, at Harvard, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers have a hand in it. At the third annual Bench-to-Business Boot Camp, hosted by Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD) on May 1–2, early-career researchers gained the skills to engage…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard has selected 27 Nieman Fellows for the class of 2020. The group includes local reporters, foreign correspondents, editors, a photographer, a bureau chief, television producers, newsroom executives, and others who specialize in data investigations, digital development, and innovative forms of reporting across all platforms. The class includes Nieman’s…

The William James Hall Coffeehouse is a semiannual event, sponsored by WJH Building Operations, and the departments of Psychology, Sociology, and Social Studies. Now in its 12th year, it provides an opportunity for staff, students, and faculty to showcase their talents. Building manager Bill Santoro created the event in 2007 at the request of several staff…

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School today announced its call for nominations for the 2019 Innovations in American Government Award. This year the Innovations in American Government Awards Program is specifically seeking nominees focused on creating economic opportunity for all. To be eligible to apply, programs must be designed to…

Through its 2019 Future of Cities Deep Dive, the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) used cities as a laboratory to explore complicated, cross-sector problems and potential solutions to address those problems. For many people around the world, cities are a source of hope. They are engines for innovation and economic growth. They are hubs for…

The Graduate Commons Program (GCP) will soon bid farewell to faculty directors Jim and Doreen Hogle, after seven years of service and mentorship to the Peabody Terrace community. They will retire to Vermont following a year of research at the University of Leeds (U.K.) where Jim Hogle — currently the Edward S. Harkness Professor of…

The Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI) is pleased to welcome more than 50 visiting scholars and fellows from major universities in Asia. Affiliates will spend the 2019-20 academic year in residence at HYI. Established in 1928, the Harvard-Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with…

Do you want experience working at Harvard’s longest-running arts festival and get behind the scenes with the arts? The Office for the Arts invites you to be a part of Arts First, on Saturday, May 4, 2019! We are seeking volunteers to help set up, clean up, greet audience members, hand out Arts First guides,…

Harvard Kennedy School has named David Deming as the faculty director of the School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. Deming serves as a professor of public policy at the Kennedy School and a professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He will start his additional appointment as director of…

Technology has reached a critical juncture in American society. The unfettered optimism of recent decades is now tempered by rising concerns over privacy and security, the impact of disinformation campaigns, and increasing calls for digital accountability. It is clear that the 116th Congress will face pressure to shape technological innovation through policies that protect and…

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and the Novak Djokovic Foundation announced today that four Harvard doctoral students have been awarded the Djokovic Science and Innovation Fellowship for the 2019-20 academic year. Each Fellow will receive a grant to support their independent dissertation research. The Center and the Novak Djokovic Foundation launched…

When Lindsey Gaudet and her husband Ed Thill decided to open a gourmet bagel shop in Medford, they recognized that taking care of their employees’ mental and physical well-being would be just as important to their company’s success as the variety of choices on their menu. This prompted Gaudet to take part in a free…

A new paper on the effects of secondhand smoke on never-smokers has been published recently by SHINE Harvard researchers working on a Flight Attendant Health Study. The study reports associations between legacy secondhand tobacco smoke (SHTS) exposure going back decades and several severe cardiovascular and respiratory outcomes, including MI, PAD, and repeated pneumonia. The researchers…

According to Matthew Meselson, professor in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, biological warfare could erase the distinction between war and peace, with no clear line between its beginning and its end. “You don’t know what’s happening, or you know it’s happening but it’s always happening,” the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences…

While many believe that every day should be treated as Earth Day, April 22 feels just a little more special: It is a time of true celebration and appreciation for the planet. The Office for Sustainability Earth Day Festival will kick off the week from the Science Center Plaza (rain location: Smith Campus Center) on…

Hansjörg Wyss has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field of business, corporate, and philanthropic leadership. He joins more than 200 other new members for 2019, who are world leaders in the arts and sciences, business, philanthropy, and public affairs.…

Ten thousand pounds — that’s hundreds of computers, keyboards, printers, mobile phones, cameras, stereos, power cords, and other electronic items that would otherwise have taken up space in filing cabinets, conference rooms, or in a landfill. Instead, that’s the amount of electronics collected at the Secure and Sustainable Electronics Recycling event last year. “This event…

The future of the environment, and, with that, the future of the world, is an issue of growing urgency. How can we work to combat the present reality of climate change, and address those who are directly impacted by it? The Harvard College Women’s Center answers with its new Statement of Commitment to Environmental Justice.…

Plants fuel the Earth’s biodiversity, connecting humans to all parts of the biological world around them. Giving scientists and non-scientists access to accurate knowledge about the evolutionary forces that generate species is the motivation behind the work of Robin Hopkins, assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard and Faculty Fellow at the Arnold…

The Harvard Art Museums are pleased to announce an extraordinary gift of 70 sketchbooks by internationally renowned artist Otto Piene (1928–2014); the gift was made by poet and author Elizabeth Goldring, the artist’s wife. Dating from 1935 to 2014, the largely unpublished sketchbooks reflect interdisciplinary, cross-media experiments from Piene’s long career in the Boston area…

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs are pleased to announce the 2019 awardees of the Lemann Brazil Research Fund. “We are particularly excited about the breadth of disciplines comprising this year’s awardee cohort,” said Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Materials Science…

New research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has identified numerous genes that influence how cells respond to saturated fatty acids. Some of these genes have promise as potential therapeutic targets for treating metabolic diseases associated with lipotoxicity, including obesity, diabetes, and heart failure. The study also provides new insights into how…

Do gender-diverse companies make more money than businesses run primarily by men? If research says they perform better, that could bolster the argument that women should have more access to top positions in organizations. But previous studies have produced conflicting results. Why? We put this question to Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Letian Zhang, who studies…