All articles


  • Arts & Culture

    ‘The Creation of Mather’

    In celebration of the creation of Mather House some 40 years ago, Co-Masters Christie McDonald and Michael Rosengarten have organized a retrospective exhibit of the House’s design and construction in the Sandra Naddaff and Leigh Hafrey Three Columns Gallery.

  • Science & Tech

    A tool to touch the sun

    Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Justin Kasper has designed an instrument that will peek out from behind a heat shield to touch the sun’s atmosphere on a NASA solar probe designed to get far closer to the sun than any before.

  • Campus & Community

    Art Museums gifted ‘outsider art’

    The Harvard Art Museums received a gift of 38 drawings, paintings, and sculpture from Didi and David Barrett’s 20th-century collection of American self-taught, folk, and outsider art.

  • Campus & Community

    French Consul honors Adams House affiliate

    Norman R. Shapiro ’51, an affiliate of Adams House, was recognized by the French Consul for a lifetime dedicated to translation and the spread of French culture.

  • Health

    Gestational BPA exposure growing concern

    Exposure in the womb to bisphenol A (BPA) — a chemical used to make plastic containers and other consumer goods — is associated with behavior and emotional problems in young girls, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health.

  • Health

    Food reform to fight obesity

    Panelists at a Harvard School of Public Health Forum Oct. 20 said that changing agriculture policy may be necessary to reform the nation’s diet, which is blamed for worsening current epidemics of obesity and diabetes.

  • Campus & Community

    Small changes, big effects

    More than 50 administrators and staff gathered in University Hall Oct. 20 for the first of three Diversity Dialogues, a series of seminars focusing on ways to build and maintain a diverse community throughout the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard’s 375th birthday party

    Drenching rain doused the revelers celebrating Harvard’s 375th anniversary in Tercentenary Theatre and other venues on Oct. 14. But spirits never dampened as alumni, students, faculty, and staff noshed on pretzels dipped in chocolate and ice cream made with liquid nitrogen.

  • Campus & Community

    Hidden Spaces: Newell Boathouse

    Hidden Spaces is part of a series about lesser-known spaces at Harvard. This installment is Harvard’s Newell Boathouse. Possibly nowhere on Harvard’s campus will you find a place as untouched and nostalgic as Newell.

  • Nation & World

    Frank look at marijuana laws

    Prohibitions on marijuana use do more harm than good, and it’s time the federal government stepped away from the issue altogether, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told a crowd at Harvard Law School Oct. 18.

  • Health

    A child’s memory in military time

    Harvard specialists discussed research on memory development during a seminar aimed at helping military families talk to their children about deployments and homecomings.

  • Campus & Community

    Achievement recognized by academy

    Twenty Harvard professors are among 179 of the nation’s most influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors, and institutional leaders who were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at an Oct. 1 ceremony in Cambridge.

  • Campus & Community

    For $1,000, who won on ‘Jeopardy!’?

    Sure, Harvard undergraduates have the opportunity to learn from leaders in their fields, including Nobel laureates, global leaders, and world-class scholars, who all teach in the University’s classrooms. Thanks to Joon Pahk, a preceptor in physics, students can add a new academic feat to that list: seven-time “Jeopardy” champion.

  • Campus & Community

    $40 million gift supports new university-wide initiative for innovation in learning and teaching

    Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser have given Harvard University $40 million to establish a new initiative that will support innovative teaching and learning across the University.

  • Science & Tech

    You’re not so anonymous

    Prescription data stripped of identify information seems not so anonymous after all. Researcher Latanya Sweeney aims to make such personal data more secure and to provide recourse for people who are harmed by privacy breaches.

  • Campus & Community

    Education and innovation

    Harvard University announced today that Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser have given the University $40 million to support excellence and innovation in learning and teaching at Harvard.

  • Campus & Community

    Bailyn receives Samuel Eliot Morison Award

    Adams University Professor Emeritus Bernard Bailyn received the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the USS Constitution Museum’s highest recognition for scholarship.

  • Campus & Community

    Norman Paul, family therapy pioneer, 85

    Norman Paul, an innovator in the use of family therapy to treat mental illness, died on Oct. 14.

  • Science & Tech

    Molecules as motors

    Scientists from around the world gathered at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Oct. 14 for a symposium on advancing efforts to study and design molecules as motors.

  • Health

    Colon cancer connection

    Scientists at Harvard-afilliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute have found strikingly high levels of a bacterium in colorectal cancers, a sign that it might contribute to the disease and potentially be a key to diagnosing, preventing, and treating it.

  • Campus & Community

    Community Football Day scores again

    Harvard Athletics issued almost 1,000 tickets to Allston and Cambridge residents for this year’s annual event on Saturday. Community Football Day gives local residents a chance to watch a game and enjoy a free lunch. Participants could also enter a raffle for gear, tickets, and gift certificates.

  • Nation & World

    Beyond the kitchen, to the B-School

    Renowned chef Ferran Adrià visited Harvard Business School Oct. 13 to announce a challenge to business students: a competition to design the new venture that will expand his creative and culinary empire.

  • Science & Tech

    New sources near for biofuels

    Researchers are making progress in creating a biofuels process that will allow the use of tough-to-digest cellulose produced by hardy grasses that can be grown on marginal land around the world, the head of the Energy Biosciences Institute said Oct. 13 during a presentation at the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

  • Campus & Community

    Settling in, stretching out

    Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds and University President Drew Faust welcomed the families of first-year undergraduates to campus Oct. 14 for the start of Freshman Parents Weekend, a two-day program of lectures, tours, and open houses.

  • Campus & Community

    Exemplary service

    Dorothy Stoneman ’63 accepted the 2011 Robert Coles “Call of Service” award from the Phillips Brooks House Association Oct. 15 at the Memorial Church. The award recognized Stoneman’s achievements as the founder and chief executive officer of YouthBuild USA.

  • Campus & Community

    Beautifying dorm grounds

    More than a half-dozen freshmen joined Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds, Freshman Dean Thomas A. Dingman, and members of the College’s operations staff to create garden spaces in the areas between Greenough and Hurlbut Halls, and the dean’s office. The landscaping project was part of a new push to get students involved in the campus community.

  • Campus & Community

    Know your gnomon

    Professor John Huth of Harvard’s Department of Physics gave a one-hour overview of his popular General Education course, “Primitive Navigation,” to freshmen and their families on Oct. 14. The talk was part of the annual Freshman Parents Weekend program of lectures, tours, and open houses.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard 375th – History in Photographs

    A look back at photographs of Harvard through the years.

  • Campus & Community

    Alumni honored with Hiram Hunn Award

    The Harvard Admissions Office has recognized select alumni with the Hiram Hunn Award.

  • Health

    Initiative challenges drug crisis

    Taking aim at the alarming slowdown in the development of new and lifesaving drugs, Harvard Medical School is launching the Initiative in Systems Pharmacology, a comprehensive strategy to transform drug discovery by convening biologists, chemists, pharmacologists, physicists, computer scientists, and clinicians to explore together how drugs work in complex systems.