Within the past decade, health care costs have risen by 88% and are expected to account for 18% of GDP in 2012. Many patients can no longer afford their health care and 40% of patients with a serious medical condition face financial hardship because of the cost of their care, according to the Institute of…

Leslie and Abigail Wexner, founding and sustaining donors of the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at Harvard’s Kennedy School, announced today an additional gift of $3 million to the center. Their gift, an extension of the couple’s longtime commitment to inspiring, preparing, and connecting tomorrow’s global leaders, brings the Wexners’ total commitment to the center…

The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, located at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is pleased to announce its 2012 Fall Fellows and Visiting Faculty. “This fall we have an outstanding group of fellows and visiting faculty representing both broad experience and cutting-edge work and scholarship,” said Alex Jones, the…

Earlier this summer, 29 undergraduate students from three countries and 10 states came to Harvard’s campus for advanced training in Arabic language and culture teaching. They were here for an intensive three-week workshop, the Arabic Institute for the Next Generation, run through the Outreach Center at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Funded by a…

Pratheev Sreetharan ’06, Ph.D. ’12, a pioneer in pop-up robotics, has been recognized by Technology Review magazine as among the world’s top innovators under the age of 35. A panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review, published by MIT, selected him from more than 300 nominees. Sreetharan recently graduated with a…

The Harvard Art Museums are pleased to announce the appointment of Ethan Lasser as Margaret S. Winthrop Associate Curator of American Art, effective Sept. 18, 2012. Lasser will join the Art Museums’ Division of European and American Art. Lasser’s innovative work as a curator and academic experience align well with the Art Museums’ teaching and…

Inspired by one of the most talked-about Harvard College courses in recent history, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter,” the Science & Cooking public lecture series will return on Sept. 4. Members of the general public are once again invited to attend talks by world-class chefs and eminent food…

Is Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans, a costly program that doesn’t work well? Or is it an essential program vital to the health of millions? The debate over Medicaid has heightened in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2012 health care ruling, which made Medicaid expansion optional for states. While some…

Harvard School of Public Health experts Leonard Marcus and Ashish Jha commented on the new bill passed by Massachusetts lawmakers on July 31, 2012 aimed at controlling health care spending in the Commonwealth, in a Boston Globe story published the following day. Gov. Deval Patrick has said that he will sign the bill, which includes among its cost-control strategies payment system…

Men diagnosed with prostate cancer are less likely to die from the disease than from largely preventable conditions such as heart disease, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). It is the largest study to date that looks at causes of death among men with prostate cancer, and suggests that…

The 24-year international campaign to eradicate polio is “within striking distance of its goal,” but could become undone if obstacles to vaccination stall further progress, Jay A. Winsten, associate dean for health communication and Frank Stanton director for the Center for Health Communication, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on July 24, 2012. Emily Serazin, a…

It takes more than a “free ride” to bring students to the collegiate finish line. That is the finding in a new research study co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor Joshua Goodman. Goodman and co-author Sarah Cohodes examined outcomes for students enrolling in Massachusetts public colleges under the terms of the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship…

One size fits all? Not on the Web. Users from different countries and cultures actually interact with information in different ways. To explore how people click and tap through the vast network of online offerings, a team of computer scientists from Harvard have launched the “Lab in the Wild.” The project, led by Katharina Reinecke…

The nation’s health care system needs to learn to serve millions of Americans with consistent quality, reasonable cost, and decent service — much like popular chains like the Cheesecake Factory have learned to do in the restaurant world, Atul Gawande writes August 13, 2012 in The New Yorker. Gawande, professor in the Department of Health…

For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain. Extremely high levels of fluoride are known to cause neurotoxicity in adults, and negative impacts on memory and learning have been reported in rodent studies, but little is known about the…

Antiretroviral drug treatment for HIV appears to have more payoffs than the promise of better health and a longer life – it also seems to help people living with HIV stay employed or get new jobs, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s…

Sitting for more than three hours a day may shorten your life by two years, even if you are physically active and don’t smoke, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC) in Baton Rouge, La. Watching TV for more than two hours…

With one in three U.S. children considered overweight or obese, food served in schools is being scrutinized closely. For many low-income students who eat free breakfasts and lunches at school, the cafeteria offerings may represent more than half of their daily calories. The Chef Initiative, featured July 18, 2012 in a Boston.com article, “Healthier School…

Curtis Huttenhower, assistant professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Department of Biostatistics at HSPH, was one of 96 researchers named by President Obama as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages…

Growing and improving Main Streets’ farmer’s markets, tracking bicycle related injuries and developing landscape visualizations are just a few ways Rappaport Institute Fellows are making a difference in local neighborhoods this summer. This year, three Harvard Kennedy School students were among the 14 fellows chosen to work in state and local offices in the Greater Boston…

With the battle for Aleppo now under way in Syria’s largest city, the world is watching to see what happens next in the latest violent political standoff in the Middle East.  The nation’s military leaders are promising to defeat rebel soldiers, just as they did in Damascus. But rebel leaders and freedom activists are pledging to…

The Research Excellence in Administration Certificate at Harvard (REACH) program, a University-wide sponsored training program, is currently accepting applications for the Fall 2012 in both the Foundations and Intermediate levels. Applications are due August 31st, 2012. If you would like more information on the program, we invite you to attend one of our upcoming information…

In a vacuum, light travels so fast that it would circle the Earth more than seven times within the blink of an eye. When light propagates through matter, however, it slows by a factor typically less than 5. This factor, called the refractive index, is positive in naturally occurring materials, and it causes light to…

Clarifying what students should be learning does not necessarily translate into higher achievement in the classroom. That is the finding in a new research study conducted by Joshua Goodman, assistant professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. All states have documents describing what students should be learning in various academic subjects at various ages. Goodman sought to determine…

Eighty percent of Americans believe the nation’s schools are in crisis, yet 80 percent of parents think the schools in their own communities are fine. That being the case, during a recent panel at the Harvard Kennedy School, Jon Schnur – executive chairman and co-founder of America Achieves and co-founder of New Leaders for New Schools…

The Simons Foundation has appointed Michael P. Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), a Simons Investigator. Now in its inaugural year, the program offers an appointment of five years with a grant of $100,000 for research support per year, with the possibility of…

When Arnold Aboretum horticulture staff need to break up heavily-trod ground or move a large plant from one location to another in the landscape, an air knife helps them get the job done. Through a $10,000 gift from the Arnold Arboretum Committee, a Jamaica Plain non-profit advocacy organization, the Arboretum has acquired an air compressor…

President Obama today named three researchers from Harvard University as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. The Harvard affiliates are Erez Lieberman Aiden, Ph.D. ’10, junior fellow of…

Steven C. Wofsy, the Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has been awarded the 2012 Roger Revelle Medal by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The Revelle medal is awarded annually to an individual who has contributed in an outstanding manner to the understanding…

This summer, 20 kids ranging from ages 9 through 12 will embark on a two-week cooking adventure of science, cooking, and fitness in a program co-organized by ChopChop magazine and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Taking its inspiration from the famed “Science & Cooking” undergraduate course and related public lecture series…