The 2015 Bertarelli Symposium on Translational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering was held on April 17 at Campus Biotech in Geneva. The symposium brought together scientists from Harvard Medical School and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) to discuss the work that they undertake collaboratively as part of the transatlantic research program of the same name.…

David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is one of 32 inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellows, the Carnegie Corporation of New York announced on April 22, 2015. Recipients of the new annual fellowship supporting scholars in the social sciences and humanities will receive up to…

Long-term, regular aspirin use is associated with a reduced risk of some cancers, according to new research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, held April 18-22, 2015. The research was led by Yin Cao, postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Study…

Who decides who can carry concealed firearms legally? Should local police chiefs have a say? Massachusetts police chiefs think so. A new survey finds that a large majority of Massachusetts police chiefs favor continuing to give local police discretion in whether or not to grant concealed carry hand gun permits in their jurisdiction. Massachusetts is…

HILT hosted a reception last week for faculty, student, and staff grant recipients. Attendees represented projects from all four rounds of Spark Grants since 2013, as well as the inaugural round of Cultivation Grants, awarded in 2014. The group of nearly two dozen attendees took turns sharing a sentence or two about the status of their innovative…

Mallinckrodt Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Xiaoliang Sunney Xie is the co-recipient of the Albany Med Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research. The $500,000 prize is awarded to a physician, scientist, or group whose work has led to significant advances in health care and scientific research with demonstrated translational benefits for improved patient care. Xie…

Ahead of his book talk on April 20, Center for the Study of World Religions director and Harvard Divinity School professor Francis X. Clooney opens up about the importance of comparing religious traditions, the difficulties of academic writing, and if loving God is harder today than it was centuries ago. HDS: Your work and writings…

Theresa Betancourt, Sc.D. ’03, associate professor of child health and human rights, directs the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity, based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health and Population. She has spent more than a decade working in Sierra Leone studying the mental health and well-being of former…

Eighty-four boys rescued by the Cameroonian army in March 2015 from Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group based in Nigeria, were initially silent. But that silence might be what helped them survive at the Koranic school from which they were rescued, according to a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researcher. “Being demure, not speaking…

Teaching more nutrition education and self-care skills like mindfulness and behavioral change to medical students and other health professionals will better prepare them to teach patients to lead healthier lives and help stem the public health “tsunami” of lifestyle-related diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to David Eisenberg, adjunct associate professor of…

The U.S. Senate’s likely approval this week of bipartisan legislation to repeal a long-standing feature of Medicare physician payment policy called the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) does not mean a new era of bipartisan Congressional cooperation on health policy has dawned, according to John McDonough of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Writing in…

Men who take muscle-building supplements may be at increased risk of testicular cancer, according to a new study, which included researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Those who used the supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, were more likely to develop testicular cancer than those who did not,…

The Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, have announced the recipients of the annual undergraduate arts prizes for 2015. The prizes were awarded to 10 students for excellence in the arts. Read about the winners.  

The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) and the Office of the Dean for the Arts and Humanities have announced the 2015 recipients of the Artist Development Fellowship. This program supports the artistic development of students demonstrating unusual accomplishment and/or evidence of significant artistic promise. The program is administered by the OFA and the Office…

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), writes The New York Times, is “one of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music.” On Friday April 17 and Saturday April 18 at 8 p.m. in Paine Hall, ICE will present “Voces de America Latina,” conducted by Steven Schick and presented by the Fromm Players at Harvard.…

Harvard University’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) today announced a gift by the family of Hüsnü Özyeğin, a leading Turkish entrepreneur, highly esteemed philanthropist, and HBS graduate (M.B.A. 1969), to establish the Özyeğin Forum on Modern Turkey. The Özyeğin Forum will provide CES new opportunities to incorporate the study of Turkey and…

This is a critical year for turning the world’s economic development toward a more sustainable course — maybe “the” critical year, economist and United Nations adviser Jeffrey Sachs told a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health audience on April 1. World leaders will be meeting at three high-level summits this summer and fall to hash…

So much more than a walk in the park, the annual celebration of Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University stands among the most time-honored traditions in New England. Since the early 1900s, the peak blooming time of one of the world’s most significant collections of lilacs has attracted flower and garden lovers…

The Chicago Tribune has won the Nieman Foundation’s 2014 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism with “Red Light Cameras,” a comprehensive series that exposed the corruption and mismanagement of a traffic-monitoring program that has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from unsuspecting motorists in Chicago over the course of ten years. Two other…

Adding a 50 percent excise tax onto tobacco products in China – which has the highest number of tobacco users in the world – could significantly reduce smoking-related deaths while generating substantial financial risk protection and poverty alleviation benefits to households, according to a study led by a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health…

Teaching more nutrition education and self-care skills like mindfulness and behavioral change to medical students and other health professionals will better prepare them to teach patients to lead healthier lives and help stem the public health “tsunami” of lifestyle-related diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to David Eisenberg, adjunct associate professor of nutrition…

John Meara has been named the inaugural incumbent of the Kletjian Professorship in Global Surgery at Harvard Medical School, among the first global surgery professorships to be established at an academic institution. The professorship is funded by a $4 million gift from the Steven C. and Carmella R. Kletjian Foundation. “John Meara is a leader…

Yesterday the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) hosted a meeting for the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL) in Gund 522, an innovative classroom funded by a 2012 HILT grant. The room features a series of highly connected monitors, projection surfaces, and motion sensors, all part of the GSD’s experiment…

It’s estimated that half of the 500 million children in low- and middle-income countries will face physical or cognitive developmental challenges. That eye-opening number set the tone for the second annual State of Global Health Symposium on Wednesday, April 1 at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center. The symposium, Striving and Thriving: A New Era…

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Youth and Media are excited to announce the release of the new ebook “Digitally Connected: Global Perspectives on Youth and Digital Media,” a first-of-its kind collection of essays that offers reflections from diverse perspectives on youth experiences with digital media and with focus on the Global South.…

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers are calling upon police in all states to improve their reporting of crashes involving vehicles and bicycles, according to a new study. Currently, details on crashes are handwritten by police on paper and there are few bicycle-relevant codes. The researchers are calling for police to use electronic…

The Association of American Geographers has named Peter Bol as its 2015 Honorary Geographer. Bol is the vice provost for advances in learning and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. In making its selection, the AAG recognized Bol’s leadership role and engagement with the AAG to build…

The Miami Herald’s meticulously researched “Innocents Lost” series, which examines the deaths of hundreds of children in Florida, has won the 2014 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism. The Herald’s I-Team explored how 477 children died over a six year period, victims not only of abusive or neglectful caregivers but of Florida’s flawed child welfare…

Epidemiologist and infectious disease immunologist Mosoka Fallah, M.P.H. ’12, has been on the front lines for many months in his native Liberia battling the Ebola epidemic, which began in December 2013 and spread through several West African countries. He was among the Ebola fighters named Time’s 2014 “Person of the Year.” In an interview at…

Harvard’s sustainable transportation program, specifically its transit subsidy for employees, was recently recognized by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with an Excellence in Commuter Options (ECO) award. The ECO awards recognize businesses across the state who promote active, healthy, and sustainable commuting options with innovative programs and resources. More than 7,200 employees take advantage of…