Nation & World

Barry R. Bloom Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health

Two alumni of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, who received their Ph.D.s from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, won the Nobel Prize for economics Oct. 10, 2011 for their work on change and the macroeconomy.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard Kennedy School alumna, is one of three recipients of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace, democracy, and women’s rights.

A small group of business and higher education leaders met in Washington to discuss the importance of attracting the world’s best students, the economic stimulus provided by government-funded research, and the safeguards of intellectual property protection.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says that universities and businesses are key contributors to the innovation that drives economic growth in this country but that congressional attention to research funding will have to wait until broader budget talks are completed.

Women’s voices have long been absent from stories of war — and from the process of peacemaking. A group of women scholars and filmmakers gathered at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Oct. 4 to explore those untold stories in conjunction with the new PBS series “Women, War, and Peace.”

Students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design mix reality and research during travel as Community Service Fellows, doing everything from helping tsunami victims to studying activist art.

A conference on “The Futures of Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue” brought together academics and working reporters to hash out immigration topics such as the law, economics, and the future impact of the new arrivals’ children on U.S. labor markets and culture.

In a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, retiring Professor David Perkins explored the evolution of the teaching of thinking, including its history, obstacles, advances, and likely future.

A panel of scholars explored the topic of Islam in Nigeria in preparation for the visit to Harvard by Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said during a Harvard Kennedy School speech on Sept. 23 that he hopes to lead Chile into the ranks of fully developed nations by the end of the decade.

Groups of educators and administrators from South Africa took part in a series of Harvard-sponsored programs, aimed at transforming leadership in that nation’s public schools.

Through its Nuremberg Trials Project, the Harvard Law School Library is digitizing parts of a massive trove of records from the postwar trials of high-ranking Nazi political and military leaders.

With a lawsuit against the British making its way through the courts, elderly Kenyan fighters share tales of battling the colonial regime.

Uncertainty about the long-term effects of low-level radiation and despair over the bleak employment picture in Japan are contributing to alarming rates of suicide among those affected by the cascading disasters of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown of a nuclear reactor, Harvard experts found on recent visits.

U.S. Navy Captain Curtis R. Stevens, Midshipman 1st class Evan Roth ’12, and Midshipman 3rd class Catherine Philbin ’14 discuss the demands and rewards of life in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps at Harvard University.

American politicians no longer politely agree to disagree. On that, participants in a panel talk Sept. 16 at the John F. Kennedy Forum all concurred. On whether there was any chance this would change, there was dispute. Politely, if passionately, expressed.

Michael Chertoff, former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, outlines the security paradigm shift in the run-up to 9/11 and the factors to consider when creating a new legal architecture to fight terrorism.

Fifty years ago, FCC Chairman Newton Minow famously shocked the nascent television industry out of complacency, calling American television a “vast wasteland.” On Sept. 12, he joined an all-star lineup at Harvard Law School to discuss the problems and potential of the vaster wasteland that now includes elements of the Internet.

Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, will deliver a lecture titled “The Constitution and the Question of Power” at 1 p.m. Sept. 19 in Emerson Hall, Room 101. The event is free and open to the public.

Scholars and professionals involved with the labor movement, workplace law, and social policy gathered at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to honor the life of alumna Clara Schiffer on behalf of working women, and to explore the legacy and prospects of working women.

The Harvard community remembers where they were on September 11th and reflects on how it has changed their lives and the world around them.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks caused Americans to awaken to the disdain for the nation held by some overseas. It also brought harsh attention to U.S. Muslims and mobilized the nation toward actions it may one day rue, experts said at a panel discussion.

Speakers from the fields of education, history, government, religion, and politics convened at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to examine how, why, and what should be taught to young people about the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kennedy School panelists say U.S. policymakers should use the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks as an opportunity to shift from a military-driven “global war on terror” to a policy built more on diplomacy, outreach, and persuasion.

Officials should not forget the important role that ordinary citizens play in the critical hours after a disaster, authorities on disaster response told the Forum at Harvard School of Public Health, during a discussion of how that has changed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Middle East experts are optimistic that democracy may yet flourish in war-torn Libya, now that leader Moammar Gadhafi has been deposed.

Hundreds of new students descended on the Harvard Kennedy School campus for their first day of classes Aug. 31. That night, a group of illustrious alumni harnessed that energy in a candid dialogue on the challenges and rewards of a career in public service. The talk was a kickoff for the Kennedy School’s 75th anniversary.

Harvard students and instructors spent their summers in a myriad of ways, and places.

As a human rights group seeks justice for veterans of an anticolonialist rebellion, a Harvard historian helps to make the case.