Four members of the Harvard Business School MBA Class of 2014 and two graduating doctoral candidates have been named winners of the School’s prestigious Dean’s Award. They will all be recognized by HBS Dean Nitin Nohria at Commencement ceremonies on the HBS campus. The MBA winners are Greg Adams, Tara Hagan, Ana Mendy, and Cory…

Now in its thirteenth year, the program provides fellows with a one-year position in a nonprofit or public-sector organization where they can make a significant impact. Since 2001, the program has placed 125 fellows with 53 organizations. Participating organizations pay fellows $45,000, and Harvard Business School (HBS) awards fellows $50,000. Throughout the year, fellows also…

Before Perrine Marcenac even enrolled at Harvard School of Public Health, the institution changed her life. During an interview for the Ph.D. Program in Biological Sciences in Public Health, Marcenac found herself fascinated by her faculty interviewers’ work on the malaria vector and parasite, and by the time she said good-bye, she’d found her research calling. “I…

No other industry of the size and complexity of the U.S. health care system operates with so little understanding of the results of its investments, Dean Julio Frenk told an audience gathered May 15, 2014 at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) for a symposium on what works in health care. “That is why comparative effectiveness research is absolutely critical,” he…

Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), announced on Tuesday that Barcelona architect Jose M. Ahedo is the winner of the 2014 Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship aimed at fostering investigative approaches to contemporary design. Born in Vizcaya, Spain, in 1980, Ahedo received his BArch in 2005 from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de…

With a vast and rich collection of materials spanning 10 centuries, Historical & Special Collections (HSC), in the Harvard Law School Library, is a treasure trove for those interested in tracing the history and development of the law, legal education, law practice, and the history of Harvard Law School. A current exhibit, called “Spanning the Centuries: An…

In this year’s Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge, Aldatu Biosciences, a venture created by Harvard students and researchers, took home the Bertarelli Foundation Grand Prize and $40,000 in award money. Sponsored by deans from across the university and hosted at the Harvard innovation lab (i-lab), the challenge called for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral…

Two Harvard Law School students, Alexander Chen ’15 and Bianca Tylek ’16, were selected from a field of more than 1,200 applicants to receive the Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship. Thirty scholars, all of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants, will receive $90,000 grants each to pursue graduate studies at U.S. universities.…

Harvard Law School Professor Steven Shavell received the 2014 Ronald H. Coase Medal from the American Law and Economics Association at its annual meeting May 9. Shavell is the Samuel R. Rosenthal Professor of Law and Economics and director of the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business at Harvard Law School. The…

The Umpiem Mai refugee camp in eastern Thailand was erected three decades ago to provide temporary housing for Burmese refugees fleeing the repressive rule of their country’s military government. Today, more than 13,000 people still live in this well-organized community of straw and bamboo buildings packed tightly together on a steep and verdant hillside. This…

What is the total price tag for the Great Recession? Almost five years after the official end of the worst downturn since the Great Depression, there is still no clear answer. What we do know is this: A full accounting must reflect its impact on the nation’s health costs. So writes Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath, professor of health…

Every year the Harvard Foundation holds an award ceremony to honor those who have contributed to intercultural and race relations on campus. The awardees include faculty, staff, and students from a variety of Houses and class years, all working to promote intercultural understanding on campus. Distinguished Faculty Award: Professor William Gelbart Race Relations Advisor Award: Jonathan Gramling…

On May 14, the Harvard Innovation Lab celebrated the accomplishments of six finalist teams and crowned winners of the Deans’ Cultural Entrepreneurship Challenge. Now in its second year, the challenge calls upon students to utilize the platform of entrepreneurship to help sustain the longevity of the arts and expand their impact on society. PIVOT was…

Neighbors of foreclosed homes may face an elevated risk of high blood pressure, according to findings by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues. A study of 1,750 Massachusetts residents participating in the long-running Framingham Heart Study from 1987 through 2008 found that each foreclosure within 100 meters of a person’s home raised his or her…

This January, three master’s students from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) participated in a Harvard winter term field study course on the Syrian refugee crisis led by Professor Claude Bruderlein of the Harvard School of Public Health. Supported by a financial grant from CMES, master’s students Stephanie Sobek, Jenny Quigley-Jones, and Elsien van…

The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) awarded three Cultivation Grants of up to $200K to projects toward: Assessing curricular innovation (HMS). Edward Krupat, Richard Schwarzstein, Jeremy Richards, Amy Sullivan, and David Roberts will evaluate the impact of curriculum renewal at HMS and develop a model for educational assessment by analyzing student data of…

In spite of conventional wisdom that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish can protect against depression, a large new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found no such benefit. Researchers examined the link between suicide and fatty acid intake among more than 205,000 participants in three long-term studies. Looking at data from biennial questionnaires administered to 42,290…

Don’t take your toilet and clean drinking water for granted. In many parts of the world, good sanitation systems don’t exist and the consequences—such as deadly outbreaks of waterborne infectious diseases—can be devastating, emergency medicine physician Miriam Aschkenasy, M.P.H. ’03, told a group of Boston and Cambridge high school students recently at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). About…

“There are 600,000 food items in America. Eighty percent of them have added sugar,” according to the new film Fed Up, which was screened at Harvard School of Public Health on April 23, 2014 in Kresge G3. The exclusive advanced screening event was co-hosted by Let’s Talk About Food, an organization dedicated to changing the way we eat,…

It’s not always a glamorous job, being the behind-the-scenes wrangler, the deal broker, the messenger. It’s often thankless and can sometimes feel like a constant uphill battle — yet day after day, year after year, Tom Lucey shows up to work with a smile and sets out doing what he does best — doing right by our…

The phone call from Ghana clinched Asare Christian’s career path. His grandmother was exhibiting sudden, puzzling symptoms including loss of balance, coordination, and bladder function. To Christian, who was learning about brain injury in his clinical rotation in rehabilitation medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, this sounded like a case of hydrocephalus, fluid accumulation…

A newly discovered molecule may play a role in controlling both asthma-induced airway muscle thickening and tumor growth—and manipulating it may lead to new asthma and cancer drugs, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The researchers discovered the molecule, “microRNA-10a,” using state-of-the-art sequencing, and found that it regulates pathways…

In an interview with the blog Thought Economics, Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk, together with several leading experts, reflected on the last century of accomplishments in the field of public health and the challenges and opportunities for the future. Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, Baron Peter Piot, director of the London…

For generations, the training of history Ph.D. candidates has remained relatively static. Graduate students are expected to research and publish book-length dissertations with the ultimate goal of obtaining a tenure-track position at a four-year college or university. But in practice, Ph.D.s are increasingly seeking alternative, non-academic careers, while advances in technology and the development of…

Young people who start taking antidepressants at higher-than-average doses may be twice as likely to commit suicide, especially in the first three months of treatment, as those who begin treatment with customary doses, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Earlier studies found that taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants…

Heart attack survivors who eat more fiber may live longer, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. People who ate the most fiber after a heart attack had a 25% lower chance of dying in the following decade, compared with those who ate the least fiber, the study found. Additionally, researchers…

Harvard College sophomore Wilder Wohns grew up in Tacoma, Wash. with a globe in his bedroom — a hand-me-down from his brothers. To him, its most striking location was the country that stretched from Eastern Europe to the Pacific: the vast stretch of land labeled “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” Wohns’ interest in Asia led…

Harvard’s Defeating Malaria initiative, spearheaded by Harvard School of Public Health, sponsored a student-led event called “Mob Malaria” in commemoration of World Malaria Day on April 25. Two hundred students gathered in the Science Center Plaza to participate in a synchronized flash mob designed to raise awareness of the need to eradicate malaria. Dyann Wirth, director of the…

Five Harvard doctoral students from across the University have been named 2014-15 recipients of the Julius B. Richmond Fellowships from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Daniel Busso is a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), and his research will explore how childhood adversity disrupts cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological…

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has selected the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) to lead a multidisciplinary effort that will merge research in classical and quantum physics and accelerate the development of advanced optical technologies. Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow…