John Meara has been named the inaugural incumbent of the Kletjian Professorship in Global Surgery at Harvard Medical School, among the first global surgery professorships to be established at an academic institution. The professorship is funded by a $4 million gift from the Steven C. and Carmella R. Kletjian Foundation. “John Meara is a leader…

Yesterday the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) hosted a meeting for the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL) in Gund 522, an innovative classroom funded by a 2012 HILT grant. The room features a series of highly connected monitors, projection surfaces, and motion sensors, all part of the GSD’s experiment…

It’s estimated that half of the 500 million children in low- and middle-income countries will face physical or cognitive developmental challenges. That eye-opening number set the tone for the second annual State of Global Health Symposium on Wednesday, April 1 at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center. The symposium, Striving and Thriving: A New Era…

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Youth and Media are excited to announce the release of the new ebook “Digitally Connected: Global Perspectives on Youth and Digital Media,” a first-of-its kind collection of essays that offers reflections from diverse perspectives on youth experiences with digital media and with focus on the Global South.…

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers are calling upon police in all states to improve their reporting of crashes involving vehicles and bicycles, according to a new study. Currently, details on crashes are handwritten by police on paper and there are few bicycle-relevant codes. The researchers are calling for police to use electronic…

The Association of American Geographers has named Peter Bol as its 2015 Honorary Geographer. Bol is the vice provost for advances in learning and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. In making its selection, the AAG recognized Bol’s leadership role and engagement with the AAG to build…

The Miami Herald’s meticulously researched “Innocents Lost” series, which examines the deaths of hundreds of children in Florida, has won the 2014 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism. The Herald’s I-Team explored how 477 children died over a six year period, victims not only of abusive or neglectful caregivers but of Florida’s flawed child welfare…

Epidemiologist and infectious disease immunologist Mosoka Fallah, M.P.H. ’12, has been on the front lines for many months in his native Liberia battling the Ebola epidemic, which began in December 2013 and spread through several West African countries. He was among the Ebola fighters named Time’s 2014 “Person of the Year.” In an interview at…

Harvard’s sustainable transportation program, specifically its transit subsidy for employees, was recently recognized by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with an Excellence in Commuter Options (ECO) award. The ECO awards recognize businesses across the state who promote active, healthy, and sustainable commuting options with innovative programs and resources. More than 7,200 employees take advantage of…

Millions of undocumented immigrants could get a reprieve from the threat of deportation and a chance for legal employment in the U.S. under a recent proposed executive action from President Obama. Although the plan is currently under court injunction, if it’s implemented it could also boost access to health care and health insurance among immigrants—both…

Recent exposure to air pollution raises the risk for anxiety symptoms, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues. The study of 71,271 women participating in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study found that higher exposure to PM2.5 (particulate matter <2.5 μm in diameter), especially higher recent exposure, is…

Researchers have developed the first global model for predicting cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The model—developed by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Imperial College London, and colleagues—will be of particular help to public health professionals, clinicians, and patients in developing countries for prevention of CVD. A paper on the new CVD risk prediction method,…

People often claim to ignore advertisements, but the messages are getting through on a subconscious level, pioneering author and ad critic Jean Kilbourne told an audience at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health on March 3, 2015. Kilbourne, best known for her groundbreaking documentary on images of women in the media, Killing Us…

Conor J. Walsh, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, has been selected to receive a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). One of…

Employing an ingenious microfluidic design that combines chemical and mechanical properties, a team of Harvard scientists has demonstrated a new way of detecting and extracting biomolecules from fluid mixtures. The approach requires fewer steps, uses less energy, and achieves better performance than several techniques currently in use and could lead to better technologies for medical…

The Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola is holding its inaugural meeting in Boston this weekend. It will analyze the major weaknesses in the global health system exposed by the Ebola outbreak, and offer workable recommendations for medium- to long-term institutional changes required to address them. The panel is co-sponsored by the Harvard…

Spinning aerialists, fearless stilt walkers, seemingly boneless contortionists, daring acrobatic performances, gravity-defying swan ballerinas, multicultural local and nationally known musicians, and hula hoop artists … Such was the nature of the entertainment that sizzled during the fifth annual Harvard Masquerade Ball, which took place at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Boston on Feb. 28. More…

The modern era of public health education is generally credited to a May 27, 1915 report by William Welch and Wickliffe Rose, commonly known as the “Welch-Rose report.” But a March 6, 1915 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by Milton Rosenau, who at the time was the first director of…

Can super-tiny droplets of water sprayed at strawberries, spinach, and lettuce kill deadly food pathogens? Philip Demokritou, associate professor of aerosol physics and director of the Laboratory for Environmental Health NanoSciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thinks so. And if this new technology can be successfully scaled up, he says it could…

The offensive fraternity chant recently caught on camera at the University of Oklahoma is a reminder that racism continues to envelop the U.S. “like a fog,” New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote in an op-ed published March 11. Citing research by Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of…

“The Dynamic Sun,” a new exhibit conceived, designed and built by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), has just opened at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C. It features a giant video wall intended to create a visceral impact and show visitors how an ever-changing Sun affects Earth.…

A desire for a new identity and a taste for excitement and violence are among the factors that are attracting a growing number of educated teens and young adults from middle-class backgrounds in the U.S., Canada, and Europe to join the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), according to Jessica E. Stern, Ph.D. ’92, a fellow at…

A new study by Chinese researchers has found that folic acid supplements are associated with significantly lower risk of stroke in people with high blood pressure. In an editorial accompanying the study — which appeared March 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) — two Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health…

Matthew L. Potts has a really long commute to work. Since 2013, when he was appointed Assistant Professor of Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), Potts has been driving over 75 miles from Falmouth, Mass. — where he lives with his family and serves as the priest of Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church — to…

Alyssa A. Goodman, Harvard professor of astronomy and research associate of the Smithsonian Institution, has been selected the 2015 Scientist of the Year, part of the Harvard Foundation Albert Einstein Science Conference: Advancing Minorities and Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.  The award will be presented at the annual conference luncheon on March 27. The…

Mary Caswell Stoddard,  a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, is one of three U.S.-based women scientists who will be recognized in Paris on March 18 as International Rising Talents for their ongoing and exceptional contributions to the fields of science,…

The new journal Health Systems and Reform (HS&R) launched in March 2015 with an issue featuring authors affiliated with Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The quarterly peer-reviewed journal aims to bridge theory and practice in the field by including research articles with national and cross-national perspectives on health systems around the world, as…

The recent measles outbreak that spread through 17 states brought the issue of childhood vaccination into the headlines, leaving some with the impression that a growing movement of parents is questioning this cornerstone of public health. But there is good news, said K. “Vish” Viswanath, professor of health communication at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public…

Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean James Ryan announced today the appointment of Eric Shed and Stephen Mahoney – both long-term educators with experience teaching and heading teacher preparation education efforts in higher education and K–12 schools – as director and associate director of the Harvard Teacher Fellows (HTF) program, respectively. HTF, launching this fall,…

The 2015 recipients of Harvard Divinity School’s Peter J. Gomes STB ’68 Memorial Honors include a diplomat, a chaplain, an activist, an adviser, and a scholar. While these individuals—and their professions—may seem disparate, Dean David N. Hempton says that the group embodies HDS’s effort to “illuminate, engage, and serve.” “The Gomes Honorees exemplify Harvard Divinity…