Joshua Sanes, the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the oldest and most esteemed scientific bodies in the world. Sanes studies how complex neural circuits form in animals and he is most renowned for his work on the development of synapses,…

Stuart L. Schreiber, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Emeritus will be a co-recipient of the 2025 Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry for his research in the field of chemical biology. Peter G. Schultz, Skaggs Presidential Chair and professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, will also receive the award this year. The…

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, has announced the 2025-2026 class of fellows. “We are happy to welcome our next cohort of W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows,” says Gates. New to the Du…

The explosion of modern AI, exemplified by the unprecedented abilities of large language models (LLMs), was enabled by a family of computational techniques known as machine learning (ML). But how exactly does a machine learn anything? In this explainer, we dive into one of the most important tools in the ML toolbox: reinforcement learning (RL).…

In the 1920s, Volodymyr Vynnychenko had just arrived in France when a police representative, handing the Ukrainian writer his right-of-residence papers, stated that Ukraine “n’existe pas” in the eyes of Europe. His nationality would instead be registered as Russian. “That was the moment when he realized — and he put it in his letters —…

Harvard’s Program in General Education has awarded the inaugural Faculty Prize for Excellence in General Education to James Loeb Professor of Classics Kathleen Coleman for her course Gen Ed 1131: Loss.  Established this year, the prize includes a $5,000 stipend and recognizes the lead instructor of a transformative General Education course that models exemplary pedagogical…

In a gathering at the Harvard Ed Portal last week, University leaders, including President Alan Garber and Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick, joined Kairos Shen, chief of planning for the city of Boston, and Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon to celebrate the Allston-Brighton nonprofits who were recipients of the 17th annual Harvard Allston Partnership Fund…

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has awarded the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize to 71 Harvard College seniors, in recognition of outstanding research or scholarly work. The prize is funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919.    To view the full list of 2025 prize recipients with the titles of their research projects and…

William W. Robinson, the Maida and George Abrams curator of drawings, emeritus, at the Harvard Art Museums, a leading authority on northern European drawings, has passed away at the age of 75. Robinson was a revered member of the Harvard Art Museums community from 1976 until long past his retirement in 2015. Renowned for his…

The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations and the Pluralism Project hosted the Harvard premiere of the award-winning short film on interfaith collaboration, “Abraham’s Bridge,” directed by Pluralism Project Research Director Elinor (Ellie) Pierce. The April 30 event included a panel discussion with Habiba Braimah, senior director of the Harvard Foundation, and Diana Eck,…

Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology hosted its third annual undergraduate research symposium, showcasing its undergraduates’ state-of-the-art research projects and honoring the historic contributions of CCB professor and renowned inorganic chemist who passed away in 2021, Richard “Dick” H. Holm. The symposium, which took place on May 6, was attended by approximately 100 people,…

This spring semester, the Harvard Divinity School community explored the ways love is understood and practiced across different faith traditions. Building on the conversations that took place during the 2023-24 HDS Common Read organized by the HDS Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB), the Office of DIB continued the discussion through the spring series…

Harvard College senior Soy Choi and Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Ananthan Sadagopan were among the 19 recipients of the 2025 Hertz Fellowship in applied science, engineering, and mathematics. Three additional Harvard affiliates were also named fellows of this year’s cohort. “Hertz Fellows embody the promise of future scientific…

What is the logic underlying human and animal intelligence? This is the motivating question behind the research of Samuel J. Gershman, a Kempner Institute associate faculty member and professor in the Department of Psychology. Gershman’s lab studies a wide spectrum of phenomena related to intelligence, ranging from the complexity of human cooperation to learning in…

Before coming to Harvard, Laura Sophie Wegner ’25, an undergrad with a concentration in economics and a secondary in computer science, was a competitive swimmer in high school in her hometown of Walsrode, Germany — until she dislocated her kneecap for the second time. Because her health data was scattered, the doctors did not have…

Nine Harvard faculty members were among the 120 national members and 30 international members appointed to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of distinguished and ongoing achievements in original research. In an announcement last week, the NAS named faculty associated with Harvard Medical School, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Kenneth C. Griffin…

Following the decade-long Mexican Revolution, which profoundly reshaped the nation’s identity, muralism became an educational and ideological tool. Public spaces were transformed into visual narratives to forge a shared national identity rooted in Indigenous heritage and modern ideals. Occult Movements and Mexican Mural Art, led by Mariano Villalba, Postdoctoral Fellow, Arts and Spirituality, at the…

LabXchange, an initiative of Harvard University’s Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, will collaborate with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Talent Development Centre (TDC) to empower 8,000 Indian science educators over the next four years through the LabXchange Teacher Ambassador Program. A global success with alumni on five continents, the innovative program will help…

Five projects have been selected as the 2025 awardees for the Motsepe Presidential Research Accelerator Fund for Africa, announced by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, in collaboration with the Harvard University Center for African Studies. The primary purpose of the fund is…

Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) is excited to announce that Harvard University has won the 2025 Greenest University Award from the Green Restaurant Association. Harvard University has 19 Certified Green Restaurants on Cambridge and Boston campuses, including all the undergraduate dining halls and multiple professional Schools and campus cafes. The Green Restaurant Association is a…

For over a century, the Cambrian arthropod Helmetia expansa remained a mystery. Discovered by paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1918, it was initially classified as a crustacean. Despite frequent mentions in research papers, this species has never been formally described, and only one specimen has ever been illustrated. Now, in a new study published in…

Many of the skills that humans consider intelligent involve conscious effort, including prediction, long-term planning, and abstract problem solving. Movement, by contrast, is something most people take for granted. It seems effortless and intuitive — a world away from the kinds of activities typically evoked by the word “intelligence.” But for Patrick Slade, Kempner Institute associate faculty…

Twenty Harvard University faculty are among the nearly 250 members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced on Wednesday. Since 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has honored excellence and convened leaders from across disciplines and divides to examine new ideas, address issues of importance, and work together…

It was a moment Parastoo Khoshakhlagh vividly recalls. At the time, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Professor George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School, working to rapidly create oligodendrocytes — the cells responsible for forming the brain’s protective membrane around nerve cells — in just four days, a process that typically takes weeks to…

The Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy announced the honorees for the inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary. The 2025 Henry Awards Jury released the following statement about this year’s award-winning film: “‘While We Watched’ is an exceptional cautionary tale that…

Ashley Adirika ’26, a government concentrator with a secondary in sociology, and Eva Frazier ’26, a social studies concentrator with a secondary in ethnicity, migration, rights, were named 2025 Truman Scholars. They join a cohort of 54 new Truman Scholars selected from 288 colleges and universities. “Resourceful, patriotic leaders, today’s Truman Scholars would make President…

The practice of pilgrimage often involves a journey into an unknown land, undertaken by individuals seeking to discover new understanding and meaning through the portal of experience. In six intensive days, 14 University students, researchers, and educators traveled to Vancouver Island in Canada’s Pacific Northwest to engage in cultural sharing with Indigenous knowledge holders, scientists,…

Three Harvard affiliates were awarded Guggenheim Fellowships this week, winning support for groundbreaking work in sociology, Jewish studies, and sculpture. Professor of Sociology Christopher Muller, M.A. ’11, Ph.D. ’14, will use the funds to study long-run patterns in the incarceration rates of Black and white Americans, from the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) to the present. The…

For the last decade, the Scholarship and Social Justice Undergraduate Research Conference has been a platform to uplift undergraduate students’ research focused on challenges facing society. The event, co-sponsored by the Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship at Harvard College and the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, connects student presenters with faculty…