Campus & Community

All Campus & Community

  • Robot rolls around Children’s Hospital

    Gizmo has been working at Childrens Hospital Boston for almost three years without a vacation or even a coffee break. She underwent a major brain transplant a few weeks ago, but she never calls in sick and is never late. Busy nurses, harried administrators, excited young patients all love the 4 1/2-foot-tall, 600-pound bilingual robot with a female voice.

  • Food and fun fill Tercentenary Theatre

    The sun was out and the weather was in the 90s, but that didnt prevent guests at Harvards 30th annual Senior Picnic from enjoying themselves. In addition to lunch, music, and dancing, the event featured speeches by local politicians and civic leaders as well as a rousing performance of patriotic songs by the Cambridge Senior Chorus.

  • Corporation Search Committee invites nominations and advice

    Members of the Harvard community are invited to offer nominations and advice regarding the search for a new member of the Harvard Corporation, the Universitys executive governing board.

  • Urine test tracks deadly birthmarks

    A simple urine test holds promise for detecting both life-threatening birthmarks and the presence of cancer. Out-of-control growth of both is tied to proteins that reveal themselves in urine.

  • Adult cells transformed into stem cells

    Harvard researchers fused adult skin cells with embryonic stem cells in such a way that the genes of the embryonic cells reset the genetic clock of the adult cells, turning…

  • A new look at anemia

    Leonard Zon and his colleagues at the Harvard Medical School were trying to find out how hemoglobin forms by studying zebrafish, small piscians whose transparent bodies allow their inner workings…

  • Getting to fear you

    Researchers showed some 20 young black and white women and men pictures of a snake and a spider, followed by pictures of a bird and a butterfly. Humans, apes, and…

  • Fryer brings mathematical economics to stubborn racial issues

    Roland G. Fryer Jr. is a brave man. An economist and self-described math geek, Fryer plunges fearlessly into the roiling waters of racial inequality, often surfacing with findings that contradict…

  • Gates Foundation awards two Harvard investigators $26 million

    Harvard investigators researching a needle-free tuberculosis vaccine and new ways to gather public health information in developing countries received major boosts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the form of $26 million in two separate grants.

  • McCrossan appointed dean for administration at HLS

    Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan has appointed Francis X. McCrossan to serve as dean for administration, the Schools chief administrative and financial officer. McCrossan, who began work on Aug. 1, will oversee a range of administrative departments including Information Technology Services, Human Resource Services, Facilities Management, Financial Services, Administrative Publications, Major Capital Projects, and Administrative Services, which includes both Faculty Support Services and the Events Office.

  • Harvard University reaches settlement agreement with USAID

    Harvard University has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to pay $26.5 million to settle a $120 million civil lawsuit arising out of a project awarded to the former Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID).

  • Harper concludes service on Harvard Corporation

    Conrad K. Harper has decided to conclude his service on the Harvard Corporation, the University announced today.

  • CAPS announces fellowship winners

    Harvards Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) has announced the winners of its graduate and undergraduate student fellowships. These fellowships help to foster innovative research on American politics, spanning from the Civil War to the present. Deadlines for the fellowships are in early spring.

  • Harvard authors receive CASE research award

    Professor of Higher Education Richard Chait and William Ryan, research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University, have been named recipients of the Council for Advancement and Support of Educations (CASE) 2005 Research Writing Awards. These awards recognize outstanding research and writing in the educational advancement disciplines of alumni relations, communications, and development.

  • Spiritual renewal

    The Memorial Church undergoes top-to-bottom renovations this summer, including new slates for the 73-year-old roof, insulation for the attic, and state-of-the-art heating, cooling, and ventilation systems. The church will reopen for Freshman Sunday, Sept. 11. (Staff photo Jon Chase/Harvard News Office)

  • Marilyn Dunn named Schlesinger Library executive director and Radcliffe Institute librarian

    The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study has announced the appointment of Marilyn Dunn as the new executive director of the library and Radcliffe Institute librarian. She will assume her duties on July 18. Currently the college librarian and director of information resources at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., Dunn brings to the position a demonstrated commitment to womens studies. In addition, she has extensive managerial and leadership experience, familiarity with special collections and archives, strong knowledge of digital resource best practices, a track record of public service, and through consortium participation, lively awareness of the challenges facing libraries of varying sizes and purposes.

  • HUAM acquires prominent Fluxus collection

    The Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM) earlier this month announced its acquisition of the Barbara and Peter Moore Fluxus Collection, one of the most important groups of Fluxus materials in North America. The acquisition is a partial gift from Barbara Moore, and a partial purchase made through the museums Margaret Fisher Fund.

  • A bevy of unknown beauties

    Walking up the ramp of the Carpenter Center, Julie Buck smiles as she sees a poster of a pretty, dark-haired woman in a white, one-piece bathing suit lying on a red leather recliner with a color test strip balanced on her bare thigh.

  • James J. Healy, Harvard Business School professor and prominent labor arbitrator, dead at 88

    James J. Healy, the John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School (HBS), died at his home in Phoenix, Ariz., on June 6 at the age of 88. A member of the Harvard University and HBS faculties for more than four decades, he was a leading authority on labor relations as well as a nationally renowned arbitrator in numerous labor-management disputes who remained active in arbitration activities almost until the time of his death.

  • Pulitzer Prize winner, noted economists named KSG professors

    Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and economists Jeffrey Liebman and Alberto Abadie have been named professors at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

  • Martin appointed FAS diversity adviser

    Dean of Harvards Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby announced on July 13 that Lisa Martin, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government, has been appointed senior adviser to the dean, with responsibility for advising him, the divisional deans, and the Faculty as a whole on matters related to gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). The appointment is effective immediately.

  • Good luck charm?

    President Lawrence H. Summers throws out the first pitch at Fenway Park on July 15 the Red Sox went on to defeat the New York Yankees that evening, 17-1. (Staff photo Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office)

  • Sports in brief

    Corriero nominated for ESPY Harvard’s Nicole Corriero ’05, the ECAC Hockey League and Ivy League Player of the Year, was recently nominated for an ESPY Award by ESPN in the…

  • Women’s Health Study: Long-awaited findings of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in preventing disease

    The Women’s Health Study (WHS) – the largest randomized clinical trial to investigate the impact of aspirin and vitamin E on the primary prevention of cardiovascular and cancer risk – has helped shape some of clinical medicine’s basic understanding of disease prevention and women’s health. Now, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), where the WHS is based, are detailing new, long-awaited results that examine if low-dose aspirin (100 mg. every other day) protects healthy women against cancer, and if vitamin E (600 IU every other day) protects healthy women against cardiovascular disease and cancer.

  • Newsmakers

    Postdoc named Runyon Fellow The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation named Yifeng Zhang, postdoctoral fellow in molecular and cellular biology, one of its 10 postdoctoral fellowship recipients at its May…

  • In brief

    HMNH seeks ‘gallery guides’ The Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) seeks volunteers who wish to share their enthusiasm for natural history with museum visitors of all ages. The museum…

  • Four Harvard Medical School researchers part of $300 million NIH center for HIV research consortium

    Four Harvard Medical School (HMS) faculty will serve in leadership roles within the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), a consortium of universities and academic medical centers established today (July 14) by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD). The center’s goal will be to solve major problems in HIV vaccine development and design. Barton Haynes, a professor at Duke University Medical Center, will head the initiative.

  • Evelynn Hammonds named senior vice provost for Faculty Development and Diversity

    Evelynn Hammonds, professor of the history of science and of African and African American Studies, has been named senior vice provost for Faculty Development and Diversity at Harvard University, Provost Steven E. Hyman announced today (July 20).

  • Vietnamese prime minister visits Harvard

    Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Phan Van Khai visited Harvard University today (June 24) to talk about higher education in his country. Khai met privately with Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers this morning and briefly visited the John Harvard Statue in Harvard Yard. In the afternoon, Khai participated in a panel presentation chaired by University Professor Emeritus Henry Rosovsky at the John F. Kennedy School of Government titled ‘Higher Education in Vietnam: From Peril to Promise.’ The panel included Harvard Business School Professor Tarun Khanna and scholars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tufts University.

  • College Horizons introduces Native American teens to college admissions

    From 42 Native nations, high school students learn the ropes at Harvard