Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), has been named among the 100 Most Influential Africans for 2016 by New African magazine. Juma, whose research and writing focus on science, technology and the environment, is considered a top thought leader in relation to African agriculture and economic development.…

Each year, as the hectic holiday season comes to a close, the team at Crimson Catering gathers to have a team celebration. Typically, that includes an ornament swap, with team members bringing a single decoration to exchange with colleagues. This year, notes Amy Goodrich, general manager for Crimson Catering, “Our team donated toys for the victims of…

This year’s Tazuko Ajiro Monane and Noma-Reischauer Awards Ceremony, an annual tradition co-hosted by Harvard’s Japanese Language Program and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, honored a record number of students for achievements in Japanese language and humanities. The ceremony brought together an audience of over fifty attendees last Friday to celebrate the…

In landmark action to signal a renewed commitment to civil and effective government, freshman members of Congress have issued a statement prompted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics (IOP) Bipartisan Program for Newly Elected Members of Congress promising an effort toward collaboration and cooperation in solving the issues facing the nation. The 13…

The Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) at Harvard University announced the selection of 46 ALI Fellows to take part in its intensive, multi-disciplinary program. ALI taps the experience of a socially conscious generation of accomplished leaders and provides them with tools to address complex challenges. These challenges often have multifaceted political and technical dimensions that cannot…

These new papers include exploration of the challenges of defining hate speech, assessment of efforts to address racist speech online in South America, and consideration of the legal foundations of harmful speech regulation in India. The Harmful Speech Online project at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased to announce a…

Road trip! This fall, four researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston hopped into a 32-foot-long RV and began motoring down the East Coast in order to meet with 51 participants from the Nurses’ Health Studies and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Their aim was to conduct neurological…

Aging is a key risk factor for a variety of devastating, chronic diseases, yet the biological factors that influence when and how rapidly cells deteriorate over time remain largely unknown. Now, for the first time, a research team led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has linked the function of a core component…

The Nobel Foundation and the Swedish Academy have invited S. Allen Counter, professor of neurology and director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, to attend the 2016 Nobel Prize Ceremony and Royal Banquet in Stockholm City Hall on Dec. 10. Counter will meet with each of the Nobel Prize winners and extend…

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. State Department, and former TIME Managing Editor, as the newest recipient of the Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellowship. Stengel’s fellowship…

A new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage during the 2016 general election, and concludes that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump received coverage that was overwhelmingly negative in tone and extremely light on policy. The negativity was not unique to the 2016 election cycle…

Harvard University recently became the first university to join a group of corporate climate leaders, including Facebook, Microsoft, and Walmart, that are working together to unlock the enormous opportunity for renewable energy to meet aggressive emissions reduction goals. Harvard’s membership in the Business Renewables Center (BRC) will give it access to the latest guidance and…

Michael Reich, Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy, has received an award for Lifetime Service in the field of Health Policy and Systems Research from the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSE) and Health Systems Global (HSG). The award was announced on Nov. 17, 2016 at the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver,…

Conference on whole genome sequencing addresses advances in technology, ‘fake diseases,’ ancient DNA, and broad opportunities for human disease research In 2006, in the early days of whole genome sequencing, the sequencing platform at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT was able to sequence just three genomes — for an elephant, a tick, and…

Mahzarin R. Banaji, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics and Chair of the Department of Psychology, was named a recipient of the Association for Psychological Science’s (APS’s) William James Fellow Award for lifetime contributions to the basic science of psychology. The award was made in 2016 and Banaji will accept it at APS’ 2017 annual meeting. Professor Banaji…

For the past four years, Harvard’s Student Financial Services Office has partnered with the Salvation Army of Cambridge for its “Get Teddy Ready” event, an annual effort to decorate teddy bears for the annual Teddy Bear Parade. The Salvation Army asks local organizations to creatively dress up teddy bears in either handmade clothes, baby clothes or…

How might the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president impact public health over the next four years? John McDonough, professor of the practice of public health at Harvard Chan School, who worked in the Senate on the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), offers his perspective in this Q&A. Many are…