The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to Harvard University through alumni activities. This year’s awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, Sept. 27, during the fall meeting of the HAA Board of Directors. Danguole Spakevicius Altman ’81 of Houston is deeply engaged with Harvard both at home…

Anant Agarwal, founder and CEO of edX, the massive open online course (MOOC) provider supported by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been granted the Yidan Prize for Education Development for increasing global access to education with the open-source online platform. Founded in 2016 by Tencent co-founder Charles Chen Yidan, the Yidan…

The opioid crisis is being felt acutely in Massachusetts, with nearly 40 individuals dying every week from an opioid overdose. Amidst the epidemic, a new project led by two Harvard Medical School (HMS) students aims to highlight a different story arc. “RESILIENT: Narratives of Hope from Boston’s Opioid Crisis” is a curated collection of interviews…

Teresa Amabile, a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration Emerita, has been selected by the Organizational Behavior (OB) Division of the Academy of Management as the 2018 winner of its Lifetime Achievement Award. Established in 2005, the award recognizes senior scholars who have made exceptional…

Harvard Business School (HBS) has announced the 2018 recipients of its Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships. Established in 1998 by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel, M.B.A. ’59, a former director of the Foundation and a limited partner at Goldman Sachs, to encourage students from the nonprofit sector to attend HBS, these fellowships…

More than 250,000 gun-related deaths occurred in 2016, and half of them happened in just six nations: Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala, according to a new study in JAMA. The U.S. ranked 30th in gun homicides, but had the second-highest rate of gun suicides. David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard…

Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity are making staple crops such as rice and wheat less nutritious and could result in 175 million people becoming zinc deficient and 122 million people becoming protein deficient by 2050, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study also…

Technological innovation, expansion of the use of frontline personnel such as community health workers, and rapid increases in health care financing are likely to be instrumental to achieving universal health care (UHC) in countries around the world, according to a new analysis led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. While the idea of…

For hundreds of Harvard affiliates and their families living in Harvard University Housing, it’s the sense of belonging and community connection that makes all the difference. Eight faculty directors with Harvard Graduate Commons Program (GCP) work every day to help make that possible. These intellectual leaders, together with GCP staff and community advisors, host social and academic events…

On Saturday, Sept. 8, more than 400 members of Harvard’s Class of 2022, along with faculty, staff, and upper-level student team leaders, will paint and spruce up local classrooms, clean up parks, beautify open spaces, and plant flowers in partnership with nonprofits and schools in their new community. Started four years ago, the First-Year Day…

Congratulations to Chef Martin Breslin, director of culinary operations at Harvard University, who created the overall winning dish at the 2018 Eating on the Wild Side Chef Challenge which took place in Portland, Maine on Aug. 1. The challenge was held on the final day of a three-day wild foods immersion program hosted by the Wild…

Men who most frequently wore boxers had significantly higher sperm concentrations and total sperm counts when compared with men who did not usually wear boxers, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The findings of this study, conducted in the Fertility Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, suggest that certain…

The Family Van, a mobile health clinic affiliated with Harvard Medical School, recently welcomed Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders during its weekly visit to Codman Square in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Founded nearly three decades ago, the Family Van offers free health screenings, such as blood pressure, diabetes, HIV, pregnancy…

After Chunlei Tang published “The Data Industry: The Business and Economics of Information and Big Data” in 2016, she focused her time on a problem surrounding data innovation within the healthcare industry. Data-rich profits can come from a number of sources — personal, private, or third-party — but each stakeholder may not share equitably in…

A three-hour session on coding during summer break might not initially sound appealing to an elementary school crowd, but throw some robots into the mix and these local students could not have been happier. Entering the class, one is bombarded by the beeping, drawing and lighting up of robots on the move. The kids, each…

About three years ago, metaLAB at Harvard took up the challenge to develop a digital tool that would revolutionize how students, faculty, and administrators engage with the Harvard curriculum. On Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, in front of a small audience of deans, faculty, and members of Harvard Initiative for Teaching and Learning (HILT), the LAB…

There are a lot of scary threats in the world — extreme weather, terrorist attacks, deadly infectious diseases, mass shootings — but if health care organizations plan ahead for such disasters, lives can be saved. That was the key message from emergency preparedness expert Paul Biddinger, who spoke to a Harvard T.H. Chan School of…

Australia-Harvard Fellowships are offered by the Harvard Club of Australia Foundation supporting learned exchange between Harvard University and Australia. These Fellowships are aimed at creative scientists normally based at Harvard who have a persuasive plan for collaborative work in Australia with Australia’s best bioscience researchers and educators. The award also supports Australian researchers who wish…

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School is pleased to announce its newest cohort of Technology and Democracy Fellows — six technology and digital leaders from around the country committed to improving the health of American democracy. This year’s fellows have demonstrated a deep passion for using technology to strengthen our democracy…

When he arrived in Allston from Honduras a decade ago, Allston resident Jose Mendoza’s parents wasted no time in signing him up to take part in the mentoring program at the Harvard Ed Portal. In the beginning, the then 10-year-old came twice a week to learn about everything from life sciences to mathematics. He continued…

Only 27 percent of Americans are aware of President Donald Trump’s plan to lower prescription drug prices and few believe that it will actually achieve its aim, according to a new POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll. The poll included responses from 1,001 adults. Among the respondents who said they had heard or…

The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative today announced the second class of 40 mayors from around the world who will participate in the yearlong education and professional development program designed exclusively for mayors. The 40 mayors joined Harvard faculty and renowned management experts in New York City this week for a three-day, immersive classroom experience and convening…

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School announced the finalists for the 2018 Innovations in American Government Award. The following seven programs will compete for a $50,000 grand prize this fall in Cambridge: Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, State of Alaska Arches Transformative Mentoring, City of New York, New York Army Career Skills…

As of July 16, applications are being accepted for the Climate Change Solutions Fund. The deadline for applications is Oct. 15. The Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund supports research and policy initiatives intended to reduce the risks of climate change, hasten the transition from fossil fuel-based energy systems to those that rely on renewable…

Students who lived in dormitories without air conditioning during a heat wave performed worse on a series of cognitive tests compared with students who lived in air-conditioned dorms, according to new research led by Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health. The field study, the first to demonstrate the detrimental cognitive effects of indoor temperatures…