The Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it will issue a proposal to the food industry aimed at encouraging voluntary sodium reductions in products. That’s good news, wrote Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), in a June 18 New York Daily News editorial. The average American consumes far more sodium each…

Anubhav and Arunika Agarwal share more than a marriage. Both earned MBAs focused on health management in their home country of India. Both worked in India and Afghanistan on health improvement projects. And both are about to graduate with master of public health degrees from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). But even as each earns an M.P.H.…

Individual electrons in graphene are massless, but when they move together, it’s a different story. Graphene, a one-atom-thick carbon sheet, has taken the world of physics by storm—in part, because its electrons behave as massless particles. Yet these electrons seem to have dual personalities. Phenomena observed in the field of graphene plasmonics suggest that when…

“What keeps you up at night?” That was the question posed by Katie Lapp, executive vice president of Harvard, at the University’s inaugural Institutional Risk Management (IRM) Symposium on Tuesday, June 17, 2014. The symposium, sponsored by Harvard’s Office of Risk Management & Audit Services (RMAS), was part education, part strategy session, part therapy session…

Recent disease outbreaks have been traced to deliberately unvaccinated Americans—and anti-vaccine sentiment is a serious health concern. Barry Bloom, an infectious diseases expert at Harvard School of Public Health, thinks health care providers need better strategies—based on solid evidence—for communicating the importance of vaccination to hesitant and skeptical parents. Why is it so important that research be done on how…

According to a new survey, young adults are reporting better health since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. .in 2010, which allowed them to be covered on their parents’ plans through age 26. The study, co-authored by Kao-Ping Chua, a health policy Ph.D. student at Harvard and a pediatrician at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, and Benjamin Sommers, assistant…

Celebrating 25 years, Deputy Provost Margaret E. Newell awarded certificates of completion to the Administrative Fellows Program’s class of 2014 earlier this month. The program, administered by the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, offers one year of talent management experience and professional development to mid-career professionals, especially members…

A new publication based at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) aims to tackle tough, timely questions facing the public health community and provide a platform for debate, according to its editor and founder, newly minted HSPH graduate Andrew Boozary. The Harvard Public Health Review (HPHR) was launched on May 25 “in the spirit of the Harvard Law…

The American Society of International Law (ASIL) has announced its 10th class of Helton Fellowship winners who received a $2,000 micro-grant to peruse fieldwork or research on a variety of issues involving human rights, international criminal law, humanitarian affairs, and other international law areas. This year’s winners included one Harvard student, Shayak Sarkar, a Ph.D. candidate from…

A new poll by The Boston Globe and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) finds, eight years into the state’s universal health insurance legislation enacted in 2006, 63% of Massachusetts residents support the law and 18% oppose it, while 7% are not sure, and 12% have not heard or read about the law. The percentage of residents supporting the law remains…

The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) Spark Grant application is now open. Apply at the HILT website Spark Grants are $5-$15K grants designed to help “spark” promising teaching and learning projects from idea to reality and position innovations for future success (see examples of funded projects). All benefits-eligible faculty, students, staff, and postdoctoral…

Victor De Gruttola, chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), recently answered three questions about the role of biostatistics in public health. What does a biostatistician do? A biostatistician’s work is driven by questions relating to the health of people—as individuals or members of population. For example,…

A spring 2013 Harvard Public Health magazine article titled “Guns & Suicide: The Hidden Toll” has won the Grand Gold Award for Best Article of the Year from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The article topped 74 other entries in CASE Districts I and II, which include colleges and universities throughout New York, New…

Nanoparticles with microbial properties have proven effective in fighting bacteria; however, some may cause health risks to humans such as damage to the lungs. But now, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have developed a technique for making nanoparticles safer by suspending them in water. These droplets — called nanobombs by Philip Demokritou, associate…

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) nutrition expert Walter Willett spoke about the value of fruits and vegetables during an interview with CBS Boston that aired June 5, 2014. Willett, Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition, stated that while fruits and vegetables may not be as helpful in cancer prevention as previously thought,…

With a bachelor’s degree in mathematical biology, Nadia Abuelezam once considered herself a mathematician who used her skills to tackle public health problems. But after five years as a doctoral student at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), she no longer identifies herself as a numbers person first: “I think I’m an epidemiologist at heart,” she says.…

The Library Leadership Team (LLT) approved funding for 19 Open Your Hidden Collections proposals, following recommendations of a screening group and review by the LLT and Sarah Thomas, vice president for the Harvard Library and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Read the full story to find out more about the funded…

Throughout April, the Gutman Library’s first-floor gallery space was home to a collection of collaboratively created works by underprivileged African American youths. The “Life Pieces to Masterpieces” exhibit, comprising 29 pieces, touched on subject matters ranging from Cirque du Soleil to absent fathers to Mitt Romney. (View full slideshow on the Library Portal.) The artists,…

Visitors to the Materials Collection at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library will never be admonished to look without touching. In this tactile paradise, fingers—and imagination—are encouraged to roam free. Tucked in a long, narrow room off the stacks, the collection consists of 600-plus physical material samples, often with multiple pieces…

During Preservation Week (April 27 – May 3), the Library’s Weissman Preservation Center and Collections Care unit welcomed more than 75 visitors to learn more about methods, tools, and materials. Presses, cutters, solvents, brushes, needles, and paper patches galore were on display at Weissman, as well as some of the materials being treated, such as…

Spring may have played hide-and-seek this year, yet the community gardeners at Countway Library recently spent a sunny, windy afternoon at the Countway Community Garden prepping the soil and planting the year’s first seeds and seedlings. (View full slideshow on the library’s site.) The garden, one of three community gardens at Harvard, evolved from conversations in Countway’s “Salad Club”—a group of library staff…

The Obama administration has announced one of the most ambitious plans to fight climate change taken by the U.S. government. The proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation aims to cut carbon pollution 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, explains what the plan entails, and the…

Conservators and preservation specialists from across Harvard gathered to learn about the projects and challenges faced by several interns and fellows working across Harvard, in the museums and libraries. “It was a great learning experience,” said Kelli Piotrowski, a Kress Fellow working at Weissman Preservation Center. “My background is in rare books, and I got…

  A March 17 or December 24 birthday often meant that the woman did not know her real birthday or perhaps even her age. She perhaps adopted a date significant to Irish Catholicism as a memory aid and as a link to home. A patient who listed two addresses usually worked in service as a…

In November 2013, Harvard received 23 takedown notices from Elsevier, a publisher of academic journals. A takedown notice is a request from a copyright holder to remove a work from the Internet because of alleged copyright infringement. To comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet hosts like Harvard must comply with takedown notices even if…

Electronic images can be poor substitutes for images in print—one reason why art and architecture scholars continue to rely heavily on print publications despite a shift to digital. Vanessa Kam, acting head of music, art, and architecture at the University of British Columbia Library, joined a Harvard Library Strategic Conversation to share her findings from a study…

The Harvard Library launched the Pforzheimer Fellows program this summer, which will bring together humanities graduate students who will have the opportunity to learn in-depth about the work of libraries today, especially about emerging fields in librarianship. Named in honor of Carl H. Pforzheimer III’s generous contributions to the library, the fellows will work on projects…

A collaborative project of the libraries of the Seven Sisters schools, including Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library, received a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support development of a digital portal that gathers letters, diaries, and scrapbooks of the first generations of their students. The History of Women’s Education Open Access Portal Project…

Curbing carbon pollution from U.S. power plants will help address both global climate change and reduce other air pollutants — including ozone, fine particulates, acid rain, and mercury pollution — that can harm people, forests, crops, lakes, fish, and wildlife, according to Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Forest, and Syracuse University researchers. The scientists released a study…

Maggie Williams, who has served in a variety of high-profile governmental, political, and managerial leadership positions for more than 30 years in public service, has been named director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), it was announced today. Williams will begin at the IOP this summer. “The IOP was created…