Year: 2012

  • Campus & Community

    Finalists named for Goldsmith Prize

    Six finalists for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting have been announced by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

  • Arts & Culture

    A jewel in the light of Tel Aviv

    With a new museum wing in Tel Aviv, a Harvard architect offers a middle-ground paradigm for buildings that display art.

  • Health

    Making the worms turn

    Biophysicist Aravinthan Samuel has developed new techniques to monitor and influence the behavior of roundworms to learn how their basic nervous systems work, a first step to understanding the circuitry in more complex creatures, like humans.

  • Science & Tech

    As strong as an insect’s shell

    Wyss Institute scientists have created a material that mimics the hard outer skin of bugs. The result is low-cost and easily manufactured, and tough. It eventually might provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to plastic.

  • Arts & Culture

    Sensibly saving Jane Austen

    Two of Jane Austen’s letters — thousands of which were written but only dozens of which were preserved — undergo careful repairs at Harvard, where they reside at Houghton Library.

  • Nation & World

    Up by his bootstraps

    Cambodian writer Tararith Kho, who grew up amid war and pushed relentlessly to be educated, is now a Harvard Scholars at Risk fellow. His weapons are well-turned words.

  • Health

    Blood test for depression?

    The initial assessment of a blood test to help diagnose major depressive disorder indicates it may become a useful clinical tool.

  • Campus & Community

    Finding a place in research

    A Harvard undergrad sees her work at Radcliffe with visiting fellows as pivotal to her academic development.

  • Campus & Community

    Neighbors for the 21st century

    Once a club for faculty wives, the century-old Harvard Neighbors has evolved into one of the most diverse community organizations on campus, and an informal welcoming committee for international staff and scholars and their families.

  • Campus & Community

    Helping scholars find library nooks

    Ask any graduate student: Sometimes the right work ethic depends on snaring the perfect study space. Ann-Marie Costa, along with a team of Widener Library and Berkman Center staff, developed an online solution that simplified the process of booking carrels.

  • Health

    Triumphs against smallpox, polio, AIDS

    Harvard researchers have been at the forefront of many battles against devastating diseases, leading pivotal breakthroughs against scourges from 1800 to the present.

  • Campus & Community

    Basketball, with perspective

    Crimson forward Victoria Lippert, set to pass the 1,000-point scoring milestone, has other interests too, ranging from volunteer work to crime-fighting technology.

  • Campus & Community

    A look inside: Radcliffe Quad

    Currier, Pforzheimer, and Cabot Houses border the Quad, but mostly it belongs to Cabot House, which has residences on three of the four sides.

  • Health

    Decoding keys to a healthy life

    Now 74 years young, the Harvard Study of Adult Development continues to yield a treasure trove of data about how people behave, and change — including predictions of strong indicators to a happy life.

  • Campus & Community

    HUH posts new rents for 2012-13

    A summary of changes in Harvard University Housing rental rates for 2012-13.

  • Nation & World

    Not your average road trip

    Harvard Business School just sent all 900 first-year M.B.A. students into the field to solve real-world problems in emerging markets from Buenos Aires to Mumbai, in the most ambitious element of an experimental new course. HBS, pioneer of the celebrated case-study method, is working to craft a business education model for the 21st century.

  • Arts & Culture

    The West, plagued by self-doubt

    In his new book, noted historian Niall Ferguson sees Europe and America as facing a profound crisis of confidence in what the future holds.

  • Campus & Community

    From impostors to chocolate

    For hundreds of students in Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, January included financial-planning seminars, classes about the history and politics of chocolate, and workshops on answering tough questions in job interviews.

  • Science & Tech

    Designing in the human context

    For a week in January, 40 students from a variety of backgrounds — comparative literature to computer science — engaged in a “design thinking” workshop led by IDEO, an internationally renowned design consulting firm. Throughout, the human element was key — How do people actually use a product? — as was a certain amount of…

  • Nation & World

    Peace in our times?

    A Harvard Kennedy School panel assembled to discuss “Is War on the Way Out?,” the oddly counterintuitive notion that violence, among both individuals and states, is on the wane, or at least on a downward trajectory.

  • Science & Tech

    The ‘diversity problem’ in science

    Opportunities for women and people of color to pursue careers in science have improved in recent years, but still lag behind those of white men, Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds told a crowd at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in her keynote address at the Institute Diversity Summit.

  • Arts & Culture

    String quartet focuses on Schubert

    The Music Department’s Blodgett Chamber Music Series will continue with a performance by the Chiara Quartet on Feb. 17. Tickets are free and available at the Harvard Box Office beginning Feb. 3.

  • Campus & Community

    Bhabha awarded by India president

    Homi Bhabha, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, has been awarded a Padma Award, India’s highest civilian award.

  • Nation & World

    Measuring effective teaching

    Reports of an ongoing study examine the role of classroom observation in helping to determine effective teaching.

  • Campus & Community

    No time to waste

    Harvard recycles, reuses, or composts more than half its waste, but a recent audit shows that there is room to further reduce the more than 6,300 tons sent to landfills each year, according to Rob Gogan, associate manager of recycling services in Harvard’s University Operations Services.

  • Campus & Community

    Dean fetes King’s ‘beloved community’

    Delivering the keynote address Jan. 29 at the Cambridge Public Library’s 37th annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds called for educators to help students “make explicit their own values and build their own ‘beloved communities.’ ”

  • Science & Tech

    Physics at 2,500 feet

    In 1934, a group of enterprising young Turks pooled their money and bought construction plans for a glider. Pioneers in the infancy of aviation, they built it by hand, out of wood and fabric, and when the time came for its maiden flight, they drew straws.

  • Campus & Community

    Registration open for intuitive eating seminar

    Tired of the endless cycle of deprivation and overeating? Harvard University Health Services is offering an intuitive eating seminar, and registration is open now.

  • Campus & Community

    Ceramics Program donates mural

    The Ceramics Program at the Office for the Arts at Harvard recently donated a handmade mural to the Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Health Alliance.

  • Campus & Community

    Students give homeless a break

    More than two dozen Harvard undergraduates returned to campus early this month to help provide meals and beds to guests at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter during Winter Break.