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…

Older adults may be at increased risk of being hospitalized for lung and heart disease, stroke, and diabetes following long-term exposure to fine-particle air pollution, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). It is the first study to look at the link between long-term effects of exposure to…

Stop by Maxwell Dworkin to see our new exhibit on 21st-century engineering! It’s big. Engineers invent the future in fits and starts. They dream, tinker, design, build, test—and learn from “happy mistakes.” At SEAS, we are dedicated to thinking big, breaking down boundaries, leaping at opportunities, and leading change. Engineering is emerging as crucial knowledge…

A new study provides the latest evidence that school-based tobacco control programs can have a positive effect in lowering tobacco use among youth. The study was an evaluation of Salaam Bombay Foundation’s (SBF) life-skills tobacco control project for youth of low socioeconomic status in Mumbai, India, and neighboring parts of Maharashtra. Researchers at Harvard School…

Fare increases and service cuts originally proposed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to counter a projected $161 million deficit in 2012 would likely have costly consequences and threaten the health of Boston area residents, according to a health impact assessment released March 13, 2012 by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) of Massachusetts.…

A Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) youth fitness and nutrition initiative conducted with the YMCA of the USA was found to effectively boost physical activity levels and time spent doing moderate and vigorous exercise among children 5-11 years of age enrolled in after-school programs at YMCAs in four U.S. metropolitan areas, according to a…

Starting Friday, April 20, Harvard University will host the Boston premiere of David Michalek’s magical video installation Slow Dancing, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is partnering by making Dudley House the site of an al fresco café for Yard goers. The New York Times has called Michalek’s installation, presented by the Office…

Harvard President Drew Faust has approved Zhiming Kuang for promotion to the role of full professor with tenure. A climate scientist who specializes in modeling tropical convection systems, Kuang holds a joint appointment in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS). His work…

Harvard President Drew Faust has approved Radhika Nagpal for promotion to the role of full professor with tenure at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Nagpal, the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Computer Science at SEAS and a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard,…