Available to faculty, administrative/professional staff, support staff, and postdoctoral fellows, the Child Care Scholarship application process is now open in PeopleSoft. All applications must be made online through PeopleSoft. This application is for the cycle from July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2019. The who are accepted will be able to claim eligible child care…

Few U.S. medical schools emphasize nutrition in their curricula, which is potentially undermining doctors’ abilities to effectively address chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer,  according to nutrition experts. A July 8, 2018 Washington Post article noted that while some medical schools are establishing teaching kitchens and offering electives on nutrition, there remains a dearth…

For the first time, Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC) topped 300,000 visitors in a single year since its formation in 2012. Dayu Huang of Boston, a Research Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was greeted by HMSC Executive Director Jane Pickering on June 25.  Surrounded by family, museum staff, and balloons, Huang was…

Many of Harvard’s parking monitors are now using pedal power to patrol campus.  A new cycling program implemented by Transportation Services allows the monitors to ride bikes during their shifts as opposed to driving.  The benefits for the monitors, the community, and the environment are tremendous. The Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, also known as MassBike, recently…

Nearly three-and-a-half years after they created Forward Food plant-based culinary training at Harvard, Chef Wanda White and Ken Botts of the Humane Society of the United States returned to campus on June 4 and 5 to lead Harvard University Dining Services’ (HUDS) chefs and managers through a two-day intensive training and tasting on plant-based cuisine.…

Nine-year-old Star Velasquez pulled a slip of paper from a container of water, her eyes lighting up with excitement as the black paper caught a glint of mid-morning sunlight and reflected a rainbow of color. The experiment showcased the properties of super-thin films — nail polish dropped onto the top of the water spread into…

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers are working on a study that aims to shed light on how buildings affect the health, well-being, and productivity of office workers. But U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers may not be able to take into account the findings of the study — and the findings of…

Current experimental approaches in Medicaid programs — including requirements to pay premiums, contribute to health savings accounts, or to work — may lead to unintended consequences for patient coverage and access, such as confusing beneficiaries or dissuading some people from enrolling, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The…

In a study published in Nature in May, researchers shared new insights on the ancient history of humans. Through genome sequencing, they compared ancient DNA samples with modern counterparts to more accurately track human activity. The paper, “137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes,” reports on the results of their genome mapping. The…

Harvard Initiative for Learning & Teaching (HILT) awarded five Spark Grants of up to $15,000 intended to “spark” promising teaching and learning projects. Awardees will: Examine podcasting as a learning tool. Natalie DuPre, E. Francis Cook, Myroslava Makuch, and Sejal Vashi (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) will train students to effectively communicate through…

Higher blood concentrations of vitamin D are linked to a lower risk of colorectal cancer, especially in women, according to a large new study from researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and 20 other medical centers and organizations around the world. The research combined…

How much a medical procedure costs depends on where it is performed. Giving birth at a teaching hospital, for instance, costs about $2,000 more than doing so at a community hospital. Cataract surgery at a clinic affiliated with a hospital could cost double than what it would cost at independent surgery center. These are just…

The rapidly evolving field of digital phenotyping involves uncovering specific health-related information in the moment-to-moment data created when people use their smartphones. A recent $517,000 gift from Mindstrong Health is supporting the research of Jukka-Pekka “JP” Onnela, an associate professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who is developing new…

With public trust in the government nearing historic lows, the Advanced Leadership Initiative’s (ALI) Education, Democracy and Human Rights Deep Dive examined how education could promote democratic values in the United States. ALI Faculty Co-Chair Fernando Reimers of the Harvard Graduate School of Education chaired the Deep Dive, convening faculty and nonprofit leaders from across Harvard and…

Nearly 400 Cambridge eighth-graders visited Harvard’s campus last week for the eighth annual Science and Engineering Showcase. The event highlights Cambridge students’ year-end science projects, and allows them to present their findings to classmates, teachers, parents, and even Harvard students and professors. One goal is to build interest in STEM education at an early age…

Since 2017, Margaret Kruk, M.P.H. ’00, associate professor of global health at the Harvard Chan School, has been chair of The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG [Sustainable Development Goals] Era. In that role, she has led an effort to review current knowledge, conduct new empirical studies, and offer…

The Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative has selected its undergraduate Mary Gordon Roberts Thesis Fellows for summer 2018. These fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis to students who will be conducting thesis research this summer, and include grants to enable this research. Support for these fellowships have been provided by Mary Gordon Roberts, the Gordon…

The Mind Brain Behavior Initiative extended warm congratulations to its undergraduate Class of 2018 at a recognition ceremony held the morning of Wednesday, May 23 at the Harvard Faculty Club. Graduates included 48 seniors completing track or secondary field programs, the largest MBB class in 12 years and including the largest group of MBB secondary…

Gökhan Hotamisligil is on a mission to help us survive our affluence and its attendant cardiometabolic diseases. His prolific laboratory at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Sabri Ülker Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research has recently generated another line of inquiry that could lead to treatments or prevention strategies for…

Cass Sunstein, J.D. ’78, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, renowned legal scholar, and behavioral economist, received the prestigious Holberg Prize at the University of Bergen, Norway, on June 6. HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway presented Sunstein with the prize, which is awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the arts and…

Here at Harvard, we love our technology and devices. It enables so much of what we do — from enhancing the classroom experience, to enabling cutting edge research, to supporting day-to-day operations and the residential experience. But our digital age also comes with challenges. How do we ensure our electronics are being recycled responsibly? Can…

Spin. Clickbait. Exaggerated headlines. The rise of social media such as Facebook and Twitter has changed how health-related research and news is presented to audiences around the world, and it is not unheard of for researchers and reporters to overstate the findings of a study. To better understand this issue, a May 30, 2018 study…

In 1997, Judith Toensing — a sixth-grade teacher in Yuma, Arizona — wrote a note on the report card of one of her star students, 12-year-old Christin Gilmer, which included the line: “Invite me to your Harvard graduation!” Twenty-one years later, Gilmer surprised Toensing with a hand-delivered invitation to attend Harvard T.H. Chan School of…

Sometimes when obstetrician and gynecologist Alice Han talks with people about the subject of violence against women and girls, she sees them shift about nervously. “Any time you talk about things like sexual violence, it can make people uncomfortable,” she said. “It used to make me uncomfortable too.” Her discomfort didn’t last. The more Han…

Couples who ate more fish were more likely to conceive, and had more frequent sexual intercourse, than those who ate less, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers tracked outcomes over the course of a year from 501 couples in Michigan and Texas trying to get pregnant. The…