People who swap 5% of the calories they consume from saturated fat sources such as red meat and butter with foods containing linoleic acid—the main polyunsaturated fat found in vegetable oil, nuts, and seeds—lowered their risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events by 9% and their risk of death from CHD by 13%, according to…

The Harvard Art Museums are inviting all Cambridge residents to preview the newly renovated museums – free of charge – before they officially open to the public. Cambridge Community Day will take place on November 15th from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. “The Harvard Art Museums have many different constituents — from faculty who constantly…

Switching from nonprofit to for-profit status appears to boost hospitals’ financial health but does not appear to lower the quality of care they provide or reduce the proportion of poor or minority patients receiving care, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Critics of for-profit…

Standing on the roof of the Center for the Study of World Religions (built in 1960), you can see Jewett House (1913), Andover Hall (1911), and now, solar panels (2014). The juxtaposition highlights the Center’s and Harvard Divinity School’s commitment to sustainability and embracing a very modern technology on a campus steeped in history. “We, of…

Harvard University Graduate School of Design professor and alumnus Hashim Sarkis has been appointed as Dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Sarkis is currently the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at the GSD, and has been on the faculty since 1998. The Aga Khan Program is a joint endeavor between Harvard…

Harvard has received Gold level Bicycle Friendly University (BFU) designation making it the highest-ranked BFU in the Ivy League and New England, and one of only 10 gold level BFUs nationwide. The League of American Cyclists, which gives out the awards, noted the University’s deep commitment to biking as well as its employee benefits that…

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, located at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is pleased to announce that this year’s Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics will be jointly delivered by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, managing editors of Bloomberg Politics. The lecture will take place Monday, December 1, 2014…

Meredith Rosenthal, professor of Health Economics and Policy at Harvard School of Public Health, was one of 70 new members elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the National Academies announced October 20, 2014. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals…

Ability Explosion presented Harvard with an award “in recognition of its commitment to accessibility, in particular, online learning and website design.” Lisa Coleman, chief diversity officer and special assistant to the president, accepted the honor on behalf of the university at a ceremony in Miami Beach that featured special guest speaker Actor Steve Guttenberg. “Harvard…

CopyrightX aims to redefine all aspects of online – and on-campus, for that matter – learning. The networked course explores the current law of copyright; the impact of that law on art, entertainment, and industry; and the ongoing debates concerning how the law should be reformed. Through a combination of recorded lectures, assigned readings, weekly seminars, live interactive webcasts, and…

Society and modern medicine’s approach to aging and end-of-life care needs to be more focused on extending patients’ quality of life and human connection, according to Atul Gawande, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health and author of a new book, Being Mortal. Gawande, a surgeon,…

Maryam S Farvid, a visiting scientist and Takemi fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, was first author on two recent studies that found that young women who ate higher amounts of red meat had a higher risk of breast cancer. She answers three questions about her work. Q: How strong of a link did…

Thanks to the generous support of Mitchell Lasky and Cecilia Barajas, the Lasky-Barajas Dean’s Innovation Fund supports original projects at the forefront of digital arts and humanities at Harvard University. Explore each project (links below) to learn more about their scholarly contributions and to witness intimate portraits of the work of the digital humanist. The…

The 11-member ethio pop group Debo Band has been tearing up stages from SXSW to the Lower East Side since 2006. This month they’ll play Sanders Theatre in a free concert as part of the Harvard Music Department conference, Out of Bounds. Ethnography | History | Music. Led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted…

Low-income adults overwhelmingly support Medicaid expansion and think the government-sponsored program offers health care coverage that is comparable to or even better in quality than private health insurance coverage, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. The study appears online October 8, 2014 in Health Affairs. “In the debate…

Donna Spiegelman, professor of epidemiologic methods at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has received a Director’s Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of 10 researchers honored, Spiegelman is believed to be the first epidemiologist and biostatistician, and the first faculty member from a school of public health, to receive the…

HILT awarded six Spark Grants of $5-$15K to projects intended to “spark” promising teaching and learning projects this year: A crash course in Harvard College undergraduates. Michael Zachau Walker and Sophia Watkins (College) will design a workshop equipping teaching fellows with increased understanding of teaching Harvard undergraduates in order to foster meaningful and productive relationships. Evaluating…

Increased access to digital materials advances knowledge while presenting complex issues. In “The Future of the Book,” a Harvard Library Strategic Conversation, audience members discussed how knowledge has been handed down over centuries and how to ensure that copyright and technology do not interfere with the longevity of 20th-century works. Panelists Jim O’Donnell, a Georgetown…

Research on the go for Harvard faculty, students, and staff just got a little bit easier: they can now check out library resources from 12 partner university libraries while traveling and even bring them home. With the launch of Borrow Direct Plus, patrons affiliated with a Borrow Direct partner (and Duke University) can visit their…

The Ebola epidemic is stoppable — if health professionals use procedures that are known to be effective in quelling such outbreaks, and by widening the international response to Ebola in West Africa, according to Atul Gawande. Writing in The New Yorker on October 3, 2014 — two days after the first Ebola patient in the…

Harvard Kennedy School has earned a Gold Starr. The Starr Auditorium renovation project, which was completed in the summer of 2013, earned LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in September. LEED is the USGBC’s leading rating system for designing and constructing energy efficient, high performing buildings. The purpose of the renovation…

Murat Ülker, a leading entrepreneur in Istanbul, Turkey, has contributed $24 million on behalf of the Ülker family to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) to establish the Sabri Ülker Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research. The gift will address what many scientists consider to be one of the greatest public health…

West African nations like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia could suffer exponentially more disastrous effects from the Ebola virus if the international response to the epidemic isn’t improved, according to a panel of experts speaking Sept. 23, 2014 at Harvard University’s Barker Center. Quoted in a Harvard Crimson article, panelist Patrick Vinck, a visiting scientist…

Power plant standards to cut climate-changing carbon emissions will reduce other harmful air pollution and provide substantial human health benefits, according to a new study. The research shows that, depending on the policy options included in the final Clean Power Plan, the power plant standards could prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospitalizations, and hundreds…

Women lack ambition. Well-intentioned people are bias free. It’s best to be color and gender blind. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In her recent provocative presentation, “The Changing Workforce: Intersections of Identity and Influence”, Robin J. Ely, Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for Culture and Community, dispelled myths that limit inclusion…

On October 8th at 7:15 p.m., HarvardX for Allston presents a free, public event with Harvard Business School Professor Tarun Khanna. Using the lens of health to explore entrepreneurial opportunities, Khanna will lead a discussion based on his HarvardX course “Entrepreneurship and Healthcare in Emerging Economies.” Attendees will learn about prior attempts to address complex health…

For scientists who study rare diseases, hospitals’ vast data banks hold tantalizing potential. Access to anonymized electronic medical records allows researchers to track the progress of a larger group of patients than would be possible in a traditional cohort study, at a much lower cost. If the records can be linked to blood samples that patients…

It’s been two years since a New York Times article declared the “year of the MOOC” — short for “massive open online courses.” Now, for the first time, researchers have carried out a detailed study that shows that these classes really can teach at least as effectively as traditional classroom courses — and they found that this…

This fall, Harvard Divinity School brings Russell Banks, one of the United States’ most celebrated writers of contemporary fiction, to Harvard to deliver the annual Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality. Banks’ topic will be “Feeding Moloch: The Sacrifice of Children on the Altar of Capitalism.” He will argue that immortality, if it exists, lies with people’s…

This summer, the Frances Loeb Library underwent a partial renovation on its lower level, transforming a portion of stacks space into dedicated semi-open workspace with an adjoining conference room for students in the Graduate School of Design’s PhD program. “We have been rethinking our library for over the last several years. The ability to support…