Year: 2008

  • Arts & Culture

    Khan winners at Gund Hall

    An exhibition featuring the winning projects of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture will run through May 21 in the gallery at Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). The Aga Khan Program at the GSD and the Humanities Center at Harvard University organized the exhibition, in collaboration with the Aga Khan Award for…

  • Campus & Community

    Shapiro offers guidance on humanities, career path

    First-year students joined Robert Shapiro ’72, member of the Board of Overseers at Harvard and president of the Peabody Essex Museum, for a career conference in the Humanities Center on April 2. The event was the third in a series of conferences titled “Humanities: A Way in the World” that explore how concentrating in the…

  • Campus & Community

    Office for Arts announces spring 2008 grants

    More than 800 students will participate in 27 projects in dance, music, theater, and multidisciplinary genres at Harvard 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

    Filmmaker literally deconstructs classic, avant-garde movies

    For filmmakers, the visual image is vital. But movie producer Rebecca Baron is more interested in what you can’t see.

  • Arts & Culture

    Martorell conducts his own sort of life class at Fogg

    Shortly after unpacking his bags and setting up his easel, Antonio Martorell is ruminating on the philosophy of art. “The materials, as such, are as important as subject matter. They become subject matter themselves — they are matter and they matter.”

  • Arts & Culture

    ‘Embracing our own being’

    Controversial pop artist Jeff Koons brought his unique perspective to the Carpenter Center Thursday night (April 3), speaking about his work and philosophy to an invited audience of just over 200.

  • Health

    Reprogrammed adult skin cells treat Parkinson’s disease in animal model

    Researchers at the Whitehead Institute and Harvard Stem Cell Institute(HSCI) have reported successfully reducing symptoms in a Parkinson’s disease rat model by using dopamine producing neurons derived from reprogrammed adult…

  • Health

    A Genetic Cause for Iron Deficiency

    The discovery of a gene for a rare form of inherited iron deficiency may provide clues to iron deficiency in the general population – particularly iron deficiency that doesn’t respond…

  • Health

    Suboptimal sleep, TV watching correlate with overweight in infants and toddlers

    Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels…

  • Science & Tech

    Jeremy Knowles, eminent chemist, Harvard leader, 72

    SUBHEAD By XXXXXXXXX Harvard News Office –> Jeremy R. Knowles, an eminent chemist and longtime leader of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, died April 3 at his home in…

  • Health

    Louise Ivers: A higher purpose

    It was January 2008 and the baby – the youngest of four children – had been brought into the clinic Ivers heads at Boucan Carré, Haiti, after a period of vomiting and not eating well.

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    April 25, 1674 — The Harvard Corporation orders that “freshmen of the Colledg shall not at any time be compelled by any Senior students to goe on errands or doe any servile work for them. And if any shall præsume to send them in times injoyned for study both the sender and the goer shall…

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending March 3. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    PDK TALK TO EXPLORE LEADERSHIP, LAST CALL FOR ARTISTS, FREE TICKETS FOR YING SWAN SONG, DUMBARTON OAKS SET TO REOPEN

  • Campus & Community

    Association for Women in Psychology honors Caplan

    Paula J. Caplan, lecturer on studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard, has received a distinguished career award from the Association for Women in Psychology at its annual conference in San Diego last month. At the conference, Caplan delivered a lecture titled “Defying Authority: The Liberation and Poignancy of Challenging the Status Quo.”

  • Campus & Community

    Museum of Science to honor McCarthy with Walker Prize

    James McCarthy, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, will accept the 2008 Walker Prize from the Boston Museum of Science on April 7. The prize recognizes “meritorious published scientific investigation and discovery” in any scientific field.

  • Campus & Community

    Gabrielse to receive physics prize

    George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics Gerald Gabrielse has been named the winner of the 2008 Premio Caterina Tommassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize. The prize, which includes 13,000 euros, will be officially presented April 7 at the University of Rome.

  • Campus & Community

    Brandt awarded prestigious Bancroft Prize

    “The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America,” by Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine Allan M. Brandt, has been selected to receive a Bancroft Prize from Columbia University.

  • Campus & Community

    Faculty Council

    At its 10th meeting of the year on April 2, the Faculty Council considered a proposal to rename the Department of English and American Literature and Language and discussed several items on the dean of the Faculty’s agenda. The council next meets on April 23. The preliminary deadline for the May 6 Faculty meeting is…

  • Campus & Community

    Rambelje, Physics Department, 90

    Harry Rambelje, an assistant in the department of physics, died on March 1. He was 90.

  • Campus & Community

    Byse memorial set for April 4

    A memorial service for Byrne Professor of Administrative Law Emeritus Clark Byse will be held April 4 at 11 a.m. in the Memorial Church. A reception will follow at Loeb House, 17 Quincy St.

  • Campus & Community

    Former fellow establishes program at Weatherhead

    The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has established a new Program on Transatlantic Relations, thanks to a donation by Pierre Keller of Geneva. Keller was a fellow in 1979–80 at the then–Center for International Affairs, as part of a program that welcomes senior-level diplomats, politicians, military officers, and private-sector professionals to the University for a…

  • Campus & Community

    Sports in brief

    CRIMSON SWIMMERS COMPETE AT NATIONALS IN WASHINGTON, TIGERS TRIP UP POSTSEASON RUN FOR MEN’S HOCKEY, FRESHMAN SAILORS PACE CRIMSON AT CENTRAL SERIES TWO, CWPA SELECTS 12 HARVARDIANS TO ALL-ACADEMIC TEAM

  • Campus & Community

    Capturing the Kazmaier

    Just one day after dropping a 4-1 heartbreaker to the University of Wisconsin in NCAA semifinal action (March 20), the Harvard women’s hockey team, still reeling from their fifth defeat in as many Frozen Four appearances, was thrust into a festive mood. And though the source of that joy — junior Sarah Vaillancourt’s selection as…

  • Nation & World

    ‘To whom much is given …’

    Melinda Gates is likely the happiest woman alive. That is, if a recent study, co-conducted by a Harvard Business School (HBS) scholar, is any indication — it shows that people who spend money on others are happier than those who spend it on themselves.

  • Campus & Community

    Undergrad Houses to be renovated

    Following a comprehensive assessment, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will begin planning a major renovation of Harvard University’s undergraduate residential Houses. The renovations, a significant, long-term project that is anticipated to involve all 12 Houses, will unfold over 15 years.

  • Health

    Panel discusses history, future of alternative therapies

    The history of alternative and complementary medical treatments can inform the medicine of today. That was the message of “Sectarian (to Unorthodox to Alternative) to Complementary Medicine: What Historical Perspectives can Tell Modern Medicine,” an afternoon of talks sponsored by the Countway Library’s Center for the History of Medicine on March 26.

  • Science & Tech

    Harvard Foundation names Scientist of Year

    The Harvard Foundation will present its 2008 Scientist of the Year Award to Stephanie D. Wilson, a NASA astronaut and 1988 Harvard College graduate, at this year’s annual “Albert Einstein Science Conference: Advancing Minorities and Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.” Wilson will be honored for her outstanding work in engineering and space exploration with…

  • Science & Tech

    The beauty of computer science

    As a sophomore at Harvard College in 1992, Salil Vadhan skeptically and rather grudgingly enrolled in an introductory departmental course that a friend had cajoled him into taking. The course was “Computer Science 121: Introduction to Formal Systems and Computation,” a class that he would revisit a little more than a decade later — as…

  • Health

    FDA deadlines may compromise drug safety by rushing approvals

    Many medications are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the brink of congressionally mandated deadlines, and those drugs are more likely to face later regulatory intervention than those approved with greater deliberation, researchers at Harvard University have found. Drugs fast-tracked by the FDA are more likely to eventually be withdrawn from…