Year: 2009

  • Campus & Community

    Wood memorial April 26

    Carroll Emory Wood Jr., 88, a University professor of biology and curator of the Arnold Arboretum, died March 15. He was teacher and mentor to many botanists and students at and at the University of North Carolina. A specialist in the flora of the Southeastern United States, he initiated, supervised, and edited a comprehensive flora…

  • Campus & Community

    Brenner named SEAS associate dean for applied mathematics

    Frans Spaepen, interim dean at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and John C. and Helen F. Franklin Professor of Applied Physics, has appointed applied mathematician Michael P. Brenner as the School’s first associate dean for applied mathematics.

  • Campus & Community

    Board of Overseers elects senior officers

    The Board of Overseers of Harvard College, created in 1642 by the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, has elected Merrick B. Garland ’74, J.D. ’77, to be president of Harvard’s Board of Overseers for 2009-10 and Ann M. Fudge M.B.A. ’77, to be vice chair of the board’s executive committee for the…

  • Campus & Community

    Women’s softball inch closer to North Division title

    This past weekend, the Harvard women’s softball team, led by Jennifer Francis ’10 and Bailey Vertovez ’09, traveled to Providence, R.I., to take three of four games from the Brown Bears.

  • Campus & Community

    Women’s heavyweights retain O’Leary Cup

    On Saturday (April 18), Radcliffe’s heavyweight crew defeated Dartmouth and Syracuse on Onondaga Lake to hold on to the Elizabeth O’Leary Cup, with wins in the second varsity eight, varsity four B, and varsity eight races. This year’s victory marks the seventh win for the Black and White in the 10-year history of the event.

  • Campus & Community

    Men’s volleyball fall to Rutgers-Newark, split Hay title

    Despite downing the Scarlet Raiders at Malkin Athletic Center in five games a month before, the Crimson were unable to stop the powerful Rutgers-Newark attack (which hit a combined .337) in a three-game sweep of Harvard on Friday (April 17), snapping the Crimson’s five-game winning streak.

  • Campus & Community

    Crimson undaunted by Crusaders, top Holy Cross, 11-4

    Disappointment struck men’s lacrosse after they dropped their midweek tilt against No. 14 Brown on April 15, which may dampen the team’s chance to make their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1996. So, when the No. 17 Crimson came out flat on Saturday (April 18) against a struggling 3-10 Holy Cross team, the Harvard men…

  • Campus & Community

    New wheels on campus spin for sustainability

    There are some new wheels on campus, and they come attached to the new fleet of VeriFast Cycles, the first bicycles in a pilot bike-share program based out of Harvard’s undergraduate Houses. The program will officially be launched during Harvard’s Earth Day Celebration “Block Party” on Saturday (April 25), hosted by the Environmental Action Committee…

  • Campus & Community

    Organic brew puts green back into Yard

    Earth Week is a good time to celebrate earth itself — the planet’s loose covering of fine-ground ancient rock we call soil.

  • Science & Tech

    The upside of rejection

    Want a dose of veritas? Even at a place like Harvard, rejection and failure are regular visitors.

  • Health

    HMS Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research set

    Harvard Medical School (HMS) will host a two-day Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research on April 30 and May 1. Students, trainees, and faculty who are engaged in, or are interested in, clinical and translational research will convene for the first event of this kind.

  • Arts & Culture

    Human colonization of Australia and the Americas examined

    A recent symposium about the prehistory of Australia and the Americas brought together scholars from 10,000 miles apart. But that’s nothing compared to the journey early humans made to populate Australia and the Americas tens of thousands of years ago.

  • Health

    Scholars take a look at decision making

    Decisions, decisions. We all make them, starting with which side of the bed to get up on in the morning. But on a personal and public scale, many decisions have grave consequences for health, financial well-being, and — true enough — the fate of the planet.

  • Arts & Culture

    Chance favored expedition leader in ‘missing link’ discovery

    A graphic in an undergraduate geology textbook serendipitously led to the 2004 discovery of the missing link between fish and land animals far in the Canadian Arctic, one of the creature’s discoverers said during an April 16 lecture at Harvard.

  • Health

    Lighting the fuse for the Cambrian Explosion

    Harvard paleontologists have shed new light on one of the most enduring mysteries of life on Earth: the origins of the creatures that suddenly appear in the fossil record 530 million years ago in an event known as the Cambrian Explosion.

  • Arts & Culture

    Marking a century since North Pole discovered

    The 100th anniversary of the discovery of the North Pole was marked this year on April 6. For more than 20 years, Harvard Foundation Director S. Allen Counter has made it a mission to bring to light the work of Matthew Henson, the African-American Arctic aide of Robert Peary, the sole explorer credited for reaching…

  • Science & Tech

    Cyclones spurt water into the stratosphere, feeding global warming

    Scientists at Harvard University have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming.

  • Health

    Microbes thrive under Antarctic glacier

    A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal Science.

  • Health

    Malnutrition, obesity present global food challenges

    Even as public health officials deal with the age-old problems of starvation and malnutrition, new nutritional maladies linked to Western diets and lifestyles are spreading around the world, complicating the global nutrition picture.

  • Health

    Harvard nutritionists take aim at sugary drinks

    Comparing the nation’s obesity epidemic to a house on fire, Harvard nutrition experts took aim at sugar-sweetened beverages Monday (April 20), recommending the creation of a new, low-sugar alternative and urging adults and children alike to quench their thirsts the natural way — with water.

  • Nation & World

    Experts talk about reducing crime through a holistic approach

    Los Angeles is a city that many equate with violent gangs and an ineffectual and troubled police force. Yet recent years have seen a decline in gang homicides and violent crime due to a new approach in policing.

  • Nation & World

    Strategist behind Obama campaign talks tactics at HKS

    The architect behind Barack Obama’s successful presidential run shared his insights at Harvard Kennedy School on the strategies that propelled a first-term senator to the White House.

  • Nation & World

    Interdisciplinary program on leadership hosts a host of fellows

    Susan Leal intends to use her public sector expertise to address issues of water management and climate change. Former astronaut Charles F. Bolden Jr. is passionate about health care. Robert Whelan will likely turn his business acumen toward education.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard Kennedy School dean awarded Moynihan Prize

    David T. Ellwood, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, has been selected by the American Academy of Political and Social Science as winner of the 2009 Daniel Moynihan Prize. The prize will be awarded at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 7.

  • Nation & World

    ‘What Just Happened? What’s Next?’

    You might think of the little bits of good news that came out last week as the macroeconomic equivalent of the first crocuses of spring. There was the heartening word that initial jobless claims are slowing.

  • Nation & World

    Petraeus addresses John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum

    Gen. David H. Petraeus, chief of the United States Central Command, spoke at Harvard April 21, offering his perspective on leadership and lessons learned in Iraq, and his take on the United States’ strategy for the future security of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  • Health

    Chylack and Dowling named ARVO Fellows

    The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) has named Harvard Professor of Ophthalmology Leo T. Chylack Jr., and Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences John E. Dowling…

  • Nation & World

    Jocelyn Kelly: Seeking the whole picture of Congo violence

    Jocelyn Kelly stood alone at the airport in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, wondering whether anyone would meet her.

  • Health

    Eating fatty fish once a week reduces men’s risk of heart failure

    Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men’s risk of heart failure, a recent study shows, adding to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are of benefit to cardiac health.

  • Campus & Community

    Eighteen faculty, affiliates named to 2009 class of AAAS Fellows

    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) today (April 20) announced the election of leaders in the sciences, the humanities and the arts, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector. The 210 new AAAS Fellows and 19 Foreign Honorary Members join one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and a center for independent…