All articles


  • Arts & Culture

    Scholar plucks composers out of the dark

    Wielding a viola da gamba almost as tall as she, Laury Gutiérrez plays with the assurance and animation of a rock star. She is, after all, one in a select club of artists who hold a National Interest Waiver from the U.S. government, granted to noncitizens “who because of their exceptional ability in the sciences,…

  • Arts & Culture

    Aykroyd honored, student groups featured

    Dan Aykroyd has got Cultural Rhythms and blues. As celebrity emcee of the 24th annual Cultural Rhythms Festival and the Harvard Foundation’s Artist of the Year, a bespectacled Aykroyd dazzled the audience.

  • Arts & Culture

    When Boston was the hub of the literary world

    Matthew Pearl, author of “The Dante Club” and “The Poe Shadow,” wove an engaging tale of Boston’s literary legacy — one significantly and curiously shaped by 19th century copyright laws.

  • Arts & Culture

    Office for the Arts announces its spring 2009 grants

    More than 800 students will participate in 40 projects in dance, music, theater, and multidisciplinary genres at Harvard University this spring, sponsored in part by the Office for the Arts (OfA) grant program. Grants are designed to foster creative and innovative artistic initiatives among Harvard undergraduates.

  • Arts & Culture

    Dance, music, literature celebrate human rights

    Human rights are all about history, politics, and the law — right? Not entirely. The arts have a role to play. Literature, music, dance, and other forms of creative expression often convey oblique stories of injustice and trauma. They also inspire humans to embrace the human rights implicit in every act of creation.

  • Campus & Community

    Faculty Council

    At its seventh meeting of the year on Feb. 18, the Faculty Council discussed international centers and continued its discussion of the finances of the Faculty.

  • Campus & Community

    Stasa of Planning Office, 85

    Josef Stasa, who worked as an urbanist for the Harvard University Planning Office for more than 25 years, passed away on Feb. 17 in Cambridge at the age of 85.

  • Campus & Community

    Flu continues, shots do too

    With influenza activity in the Boston area continuing to increase, the Harvard community is reminded that free flu vaccines are still available to all Harvard faculty and staff through Harvard University Health Services (HUHS).

  • Campus & Community

    Pick up new Harvard IDs at Holyoke Center

    Harvard has a new, high-technology ID card, and those who have not yet picked up their card should do so at the final card swap event, March 5 and 6, at the Holyoke Information Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass.

  • Arts & Culture

    Community lecture series debuts at Allston Education Portal

    The Harvard Allston Education Portal buzzed with activity on Tuesday night (March 3) as Robert Lue, professor of the practice of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, gave the first in a series of faculty lectures for the community. His talk, titled “Using Science to Understand the World and Ourselves,” covered the importance of science…

  • Science & Tech

    Vivid images, stern warnings mark Ice Age ‘rock’ star’s talk

    Oohs and ahhs greeted slide after slide as English author and freelance scholar Paul G. Bahn presented “The Shock of the Old: New Discoveries in Ice Age Art” at the Yenching Institute Feb 26.

  • Health

    Congressmen highlight challenges of mental illness, substance abuse

    In 2008, 54 million Americans suffered with mental illness; 35,000 Americans committed suicide due to untreated depression; and 180,000 people died as a direct result of an untreated addiction. Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) spoke at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Monday (March 2) on the truths and realities of mental…

  • Health

    Runyon Foundation names fellows from Harvard

    The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named six Harvard affiliates among its 13 new fellows. The recipients of this prestigious, three-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country.

  • Science & Tech

    The key to energy independence: Go fly a kite!

    Earlier this year, Big Coal got its say in “The Future of Energy” lecture series sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Now it’s time to hear from Big Wind.

  • Health

    Watching evolution in real time

    In 1831, the young Charles Darwin set off on the H.M.S. Beagle, a Royal Navy sloop bound for detailed surveys of South America. He took with him the first volume of the massive trilogy “Principles of Geology” by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. (He had the other volumes sent later.)

  • Health

    Capillary formation’s mechanical determinants

    Harvard researchers have established a link between the growth of blood vessels and the mechanical stresses caused by the environment within which the vessels grow, a new understanding that researchers hope can lead to novel disease treatments based on manipulating blood flow to living tissues.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard astronomer Charbonneau honored with Waterman Award

    David Charbonneau, the 34-year-old Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Astronomy, has been named the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s 2009 Alan T. Waterman Award, and will receive $500,000 over a three-year period for scientific research or advanced study in his field.

  • Campus & Community

    Child-care programs, aid to continue at Harvard

    Harvard University will continue a number of programs designed to help meet specific child care needs at the University. In 2006, the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering issued a final report that pointed to the need for increased University support for child care. Subsequently, several…

  • Arts & Culture

    When gentrification occurs in City of the Seven Hills

    History and modernity collide in Monti, a neighborhood in Rome, and the local way of life is falling victim to the impact. Michael Herzfeld, professor of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, explores the changing landscape of this ancient neighborhood in a new ethnography about this district within Italy’s capital city.

  • Arts & Culture

    A tale of two presidents

    If you had walked into the Adams House dining room on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 28), you might have thought you’d stumbled upon a Harvard Business School management lecture on good leadership qualities. You would have been mistaken. The speaker was Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and she was discussing the management…

  • Nation & World

    U.K. anti-poverty strategy working, almost

    In May 1997, Britain’s Labor Party won an election that ended nearly two decades of Conservative Party rule. The new liberal government, promising radical reform, took over a booming economy. But it also inherited an increase in poverty that had been rising steeply since the 1970s.

  • Campus & Community

    House Renewal Survey highlights ‘community of friends’

    A survey of Harvard undergraduates reveals a House system that, despite the need for renovations, meets student expectations well and, for most, serves as a space to be with a “smaller community of friends.”

  • Campus & Community

    Strengthening the House tradition

    A draft report on the House Renewal Program highlights a residential system that has in many ways worked as planned as it has aged, providing not just a roof over students’ heads, but fostering a supportive community that frames students’ years at Harvard and inspires House loyalty for decades after graduation.

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    March 1, 1775 — Tory students casually bring India tea into Harvard Hall and nearly come to blows with others still boiling over the tea tax. In the interest of “harmony, mutual affection, and confidence, so well becoming Members of the same Society,” the faculty passes a resolution advising students “not to carry [Tea] in…

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending March 2. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    Crimson shut out Cornell twice; Will play in ECAC semifinal

    In their two ECAC quarterfinal matchups against Cornell at Bright Hockey Center, the Crimson women’s hockey team shut down the Cornell Big Red 3-0 on Friday (Feb. 27) and 4-0 on Saturday (Feb. 28) to advance to the semifinal round where Harvard will play Rensselaer at home Saturday (March 7) at 1 p.m.

  • Campus & Community

    Women’s hoops down Columbia, Cornell to keep Ivy title in reach

    The Crimson continue to inch closer to their third consecutive Ivy championship after the women’s basketball team traveled to New York this past weekend and defeated Columbia on Friday (Feb. 27), 71-58, and Cornell on Saturday (Feb. 28), 63-56.

  • Campus & Community

    Women’s swimming finishes first in IVY and ECAC Championships

    The No. 25 Harvard women’s swimming and diving team swam and dove like champions this past weekend despite having to split up the team to compete in two different competitions. The swimmers placed first out of eight teams at the 2009 Ivy League Championships meet (Feb. 26-28) at the Nassau County Aquatic Center in East…

  • Campus & Community

    Counteracting stress at work

    Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, will deliver a lecture, “Counteracting stress at Harvard: The relaxation response,” in which he will discuss the harmful effects of stress, lead the audience through his Relaxation Response strategy, and explain how stress can…

  • Arts & Culture

    A call for student artwork

    The Harvard Art Show, a new student organization, is now accepting submissions of original student artwork to be exhibited, shared, and sold to the Harvard community and greater Boston area. The show, produced by Harvard students and made possible with support from the Office for the Arts at Harvard, will be held May 4, 2009,…