Brandon Terry and Jie Li received the 2020 Roslyn Abramson Award for excellence in teaching undergraduates. The annual award is given to assistant or associate professors and was formally announced at a May 5 faculty meeting. Terry is an assistant professor of African and African American studies and of social studies. In the spring, he…

In mid-March when undergraduate students were preparing to quickly leave campus, most Harvard University Housing residents remained in place. The Graduate Commons Program (GCP) continues to serve them to combat the social isolation that comes along with physical distancing. GCP quickly moved from in person to online programming to maintain social connection and important conversations.…

In celebration of Radcliffe Day 2020 and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin will be joined by Drew Gilpin Faust, founding dean of the institute and former Harvard president, in a conversation exploring Radcliffe’s strategic direction and the role of an interdisciplinary institute for advanced…

Robert Satcher Jr., an alumnus of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and a NASA astronaut, will be this year’s Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Harvard School of Dental Medicine Class Day keynote speaker on May 28. Harvard Commencement and HMS Class Day ceremonies will be held virtually this year to ensure the…

Bryan Stevenson J.D./M.P.P. ’85, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and best-selling author of “Just Mercy,” will be the speaker for the Harvard Law School Class of 2020’s graduation ceremonies. The school’s virtual celebration will occur on May 28, with an on-campus ceremony to take place…

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a Public Health Concern of Global Interest on Jan. 30, more than one million have tested positive for the illness in the United States, and more than 62,000 have died. With no FDA–approved treatments available to date, the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, has emerged as a potential therapy for the pneumonia…

When Harvard announced that the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester would be completed online, educators were pressed to alter their carefully-crafted curricula for the digital sphere. For Arvid Bell, lecturer on government at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, virtual lectures ​in lieu ​of in-person meetings was not a viable option. His course on…

As students and educators struggle with emergency online instruction, and many reluctantly prepare for distance learning in the fall, quality online educational resources have never been more critical. The Pluralism Project’s newly redesigned website, pluralism.org, responds to this urgent need. “The Pluralism Project has long had a wide online presence. But now, with the impact…

Harvard University and Astellas Pharma Inc. have established a three-year strategic research alliance to support multiple, multi-year research projects initiated by faculty at Harvard, focused on the research and development of innovative therapeutics and technologies of mutual interest. The alliance will provide crucial support to future collaborative research efforts when the academic laboratories return to…

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves rapidly around the globe, the Center for Geographic Analysis at IQSS is hosting an online forum focusing on time-sensitive geospatial research on COVID-19-related topics. The CGA Virtual Forum: Responding to The Covid-19 Pandemic with Geospatial Research and Applications will be held on Friday (May 1), from 10 a.m.–1 p.m. ET…

Long before multiple myeloma becomes a malignant disease, the collection of immune system cells and signal carriers amid the tumor cells undergoes dramatic shifts, with alterations in both the number and type of immune cells, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report in a…

Jason Bell ’21 spent Earth Day helping fight the Trump administration’s efforts to replace the Clean Power Plan — an Obama-era scheme that sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants — with the new Affordable Clean Energy rule, which relaxes those restrictions. A student in Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law & Policy…

Harvard Astronomy department chair Abraham Loeb has been nominated to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council advises the president of the United States on science and technology. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science and the longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Astronomy department in the Faculty of…

This year’s dramatically fluctuating temperature cycles from seasonably cold days to atypically warm stretches and back again has affected the life cycles of many species, including plants. At the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, two scientists are examining how maple trees (Acer) are responding to climate stress and what that means for the future of…

The Initiative for the Science of the Human Past (SoHP) at Harvard and the Climate Change Institute (CCI) at the University of Maine are delighted to announce the renewal of their grant from Arcadia — a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. The new grant of $570,000 over three years will continue to support…

This week, a bipartisan group of experts in economics, public health, technology, and ethics from across the country released the nation’s first comprehensive operational roadmap for mobilizing and reopening the U.S. economy in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. “Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience,” a report released by Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics…

Strategies to bar the coronavirus (COVID-19) from entering cells — thereby preventing infection and averting transmission of the virus — are among the most promising treatment approaches to COVID-19. Everything from antibodies to specially made snippets of RNA are being mustered in the effort to develop a safe and effective coronavirus blocker. An approach notable…

Cancers whose cells are riddled with large numbers of DNA mutations often respond favorably to drugs called checkpoint blockers that unleash the immune system against the tumor. But a new study shows that malignant brain tumors known as gliomas generally don’t respond to the immunotherapy drugs even when the tumor cells are “hypermutated” — having…

The seventh annual Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine has been awarded to Stuart H. Orkin, the David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. The Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine, established in 2014 by the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, and The American Society for Clinical Investigation…

Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development researchers released the preliminary results of a study on the impact of the COVID‐19 crisis on the economies and governments of the country’s 574 federally‐recognized American Indian nations. Writing to Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin, researchers Randall Akee, Eric Henson, Miriam Jorgensen, and Joseph Kalt report that the COVID‐19 crisis poses an immediate threat to…

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Human Vaccines Project announced the Human Immunomics Initiative (HII) this week, a joint project that aims to revolutionize the understanding of the human immune system and accelerate the creation of effective vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments. HII will bring together Chan School experts in epidemiology, causal…

The Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Guggenheim Fellowships to a diverse group of 175 writers, scholars, artists, and scientists. This year, two Harvard professors were awarded fellowships. Architect Dilip da Cunha of Philadelphia is a lecturer in urban planning and design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design…

An online research seminar series launched by Dana-Farber faculty is engaging a large audience to participate in interactive sessions with leading scientists during the pandemic-caused shutdown of in-person events. Sponsored by the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Connect: Science series aims to bring together faculty, trainees, and laboratory staff…

As Congress and the White House begin trading proposals on the contours of what a fourth COVID-19 relief package might look like, Stephen Goldsmith, the Daniel Paul Professor of Practice at Harvard Kennedy School and the director of the Ash Center’s Government Innovation’s Program, says that the nation’s infrastructure needs to take center stage   In a recently released memo to policymakers, Goldsmith outlines key recommendations for the pending stimulus legislation and calls on Washington…

A Boston-based startup company, NanoMosaic LLC, intends to commercialize a high-throughput, high-sensitivity platform for analyte detection developed at Harvard. Through an exclusive license agreement with Harvard Office of Technology Development, NanoMosaic is developing screening tools based on functionalized ‘nanoneedles’ that may aid in a number of biomedical fields including the early detection of disease, prognostic…

The Harvard Innovation Labs recently announced how current and former venture teams are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many current venture teams are creating products and services that have the potential to reduce the spread of the virus, improve patient care, and create community when in-person gatherings are not possible. These services include free online…

In a new study, scientists and archaeologists from the University of Nottingham, the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, and Harvard University, showed that the highest levels of air pollution before the modern era occurred around 800 years ago. The new data represents the highest-resolution, most detailed and chronologically accurate record in existence…