The 109th annual Christmas Carol Service raised more than $13,000 for Y2Y Harvard Square, a youth homeless shelter founded and run by Harvard students. The annual carol service in the sanctuary of the Memorial Church is the oldest carol service in the nation. Each year, donations are taken at the end of each of two services…

The Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) announced the new Climate Change exhibit that draws on the latest scientific information about our warming climate, the global and local consequences, and how to both reduce the fossil fuel emissions that cause it and prepare for its effects. Developed in collaboration with the Harvard University Center for…

Men who have smoked marijuana at some point in their life had significantly higher concentrations of sperm when compared with men who have never smoked marijuana, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study, conducted in the Fertility Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, also found that there was…

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation today announced the launch of the Innovation Field Lab New York, a new two-year program comprising data-driven experimentation and real-time policy innovation to improve neighborhoods in 10 cities in the state of New York. The program supports city leaders through data-analytic support, applied research, and executive education…

Six National Football League head coaches were fired on Dec. 31, or “Black Monday,” as it’s known in the sport. The infamous tradition begins immediately after the conclusion of each NFL regular season and represents efforts by underperforming teams to make leadership changes. This story is not unique to sports, of course. Based on surveys with executives…

Companies are facing a growing yet largely undetected threat to their worker productivity, employee retention, and competitive advantage: the needs of employees who are caregivers. The aging population, an increasingly female workforce, and the tightest job market in half a century make supporting caregivers a critical talent management issue, according to the new report, “The…

The burden of colorectal cancer is staggering. In 2018, it was the third-most commonly diagnosed cancer among both men and women in the U.S., and data indicate that younger adults are increasingly being diagnosed with it. To help develop new treatments and preventive measures to stop the disease, Cancer Research UK has awarded roughly $26…

The Harvard University Choir is taking its brand of American choral music to Britain, the cradle and keeper of a rich Christian choral tradition. The choir is scheduled to depart Boston on Sunday for a week-long tour of performances at several of England’s most prestigious university chapels and London-area cathedrals. The tour includes concerts at…

Burnout among the nation’s physicians has become so pervasive that a new paper published today by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association (MHA) has deemed the condition a public health crisis. The paper includes directives aimed toward…

The strains of Bach, Stravinsky, and jazz aren’t the only sounds coming from the Music Department and the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library lately.  On most Friday afternoons the sound of knitting needles and can be heard clattering away. The weekly knitting circle, currently composed of graduate students, staff, and anyone affiliated with the department…

Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 90 this year. While his name and his contribution to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement are revered, some wonder if King’s legacy is in jeopardy amid a resurgence of racism, xenophobia, and hate crimes in the United States. Moreover, while the African-American church was the foundation for King’s activism and organizing,…

In two recently released papers, a pair of scholars affiliated with Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation take a close look at how urban leaders are grappling with the quick pace of technological and regulatory change in America’s cities today. In “Reforming Mobility Management: Rethinking the Regulatory Framework,” Stephen Goldsmith, Daniel Paul…

Harvard’s students were still on break, but from Jan. 7-11, class was in session. Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) took advantage of a rare downtime on campus to host 226 hourly employees and 44 managers for a first-of-its-kind week-long training. “We’re a large department,” noted David Davidson, managing director for HUDS, “and also an extremely busy…

Companies spent nearly $10 billion to market prescription drugs and medical services in 2016 — five times more than they spent 20 years ago, according to a new study. The large increase in “medical marketing” includes ads directed at consumers for prescription drugs, treatments, tests, or hospital services, as well as pitches to doctors by…

Millions of children could be getting too much lead in the water they drink at school, according to a new report from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Nutrition Policy Institute at the University of California. More than 40 percent of schools around the country appear to have higher-than-recommended levels of lead in…

Sugar substitutes such as aspartame and stevia may not help people lose weight, according to a review carried out for the World Health Organization by Cochrane, a nonprofit research group. The review did not find any solid evidence of either health benefits or risks from non-sugar sweeteners (NSSs), but the studies they looked at were…

When Alice Hamilton joined Harvard’s faculty in 1919, workplace hazards were plentiful. American manufacturing was on the rise and across the country scores of workers were regularly exposed to myriad toxins, including lead, mercury, and asbestos to name just a few. Hamilton knew the risks workers faced perhaps better than anyone at the time. Prior…

Lowering drug prices, cutting the federal budget deficit, and stanching the rise of domestic hate crimes are among the top issues that Americans want Congress to tackle in 2019, according to a new poll conducted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Politico. The poll surveyed 1,014 adults in early December, and found…

The new faculty chair of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) announced the selection of 48 ALI Fellows and 20 ALI Partners to take part in its intensive, multi-disciplinary fellowship program. Meredith B. Rosenthal, faculty chair for ALI and C. Boyden Gray Professor of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, noted that this was…

“Inventur—Art in Germany, 1943–55” at the Harvard Art Museums and “Nine Moments for Now” at the Cooper Gallery were both among Hyperallergic’s top 20 exhibitions across the United States this year. Hyperallergic, which promotes itself as a forum for playful, serious, and radical perspectives on art and culture, said that this year’s best exhibitions focused on visualizing identity…

The Arctic Initiative at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is now accepting applications for its research fellowship in the areas of ocean policy and infrastructure in the Arctic. The deadline to submit is Jan. 15, 2019. The priorities of the Arctic Initiative are to address the challenges and opportunities associated with the…

Joshua R. Sanes, the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and founding director of the Center for Brain Science, has been named the recipient of the 2018 Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize. The award, which recognizes seminal discoveries in neuroscience, will be presented to Sanes for his work on cell-surface proteins that control circuit…

Boston Children’s Hospital will receive a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop more efficient gene therapy treatments for sickle cell disease, as well as methods to enable gene therapy to be used in developing regions of the world, where there are high rates of sickle cell disease. Sickle cell…

The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) has named Raj Chetty, Ph.D. ’03, one of its five Fellows of the Academy in 2019. The AAPSS is one of the oldest and most distinguished learned societies in the country. Since 2000 it has inducted yearly fellows based on their contributions to society through research…

How much of a role do genes play in the onset of diseases and how much of a role does an individual’s environment play? It’s a question that has long intrigued epidemiologists. “It’s really the core question we’ve been asking in epidemiology,” said David Hunter, Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at the University…

The Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has published a paper, “A New Approach to the Well-being of Factory Workers in Global Supply Chains: Evidence from Apparel Factories in Mexico, Sri Lanka, China and Cambodia,” which was one of only eight selected papers chosen…

Edgar Grossman ’66, a man who had a pivotal role in establishing the roots of the Harvard Extension Alumni Association community, comprised of 20,000 members worldwide, was honored at a special ceremony inside the Harvard Faculty Club this weekend. A cold Saturday in December was no match for the warmth and festivities taking place inside…

The Harvard T.H. Chan SHINE program, a well-being initiative that unites academic research with business innovation to advance progress for all, was invited to participate in the prestigious Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Sixth World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge, and Policy this November in Incheon, Korea. The OECD World Forums bring together policy…

A study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which found that the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was likely much higher than initial estimates, was the most popular academic paper of 2018, according to the data science company Altmetric. The Harvard Chan School paper, “Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane…