The field of comparative effectiveness research, which aims to determine the most effective medical treatments, has drawn criticism from those who believe that it will lead to health care rationing. Now, the nongovernmental board created by the health care reform law to oversee comparative effectiveness research funding— The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)—has released a…

Following a host of public meetings during the fall semester, Harvard College is offering undergraduates another chance to help define the College alcohol policy’s underlying principles. Working with the Office of Student Life (OSL), the committee charged by Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds with revising the College alcohol policy will open an online focus group to…

This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled its new Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), a development that has been long anticipated by gardeners and researchers. Like its earlier incarnations, the new PHZM provides guidelines to predict a region’s average annual minimum temperature, a vital statistic in determining whether or not a plant may survive…

All eyes are turned toward China, as it continuously grows in global importance. This phenomenon may have a contemporary ring to it, but the eighteenth century was equally enthralled by the Middle Kingdom. Everything about the distant empire was fascinating to the western world, including its music. Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Alexander Rehding, in…

“Toxic stress,” or adversity, in early childhood can lead to a lifetime of mental and physical problems—including disruption of the body’s metabolism or brain development —and pediatricians should take a leading role in providing care that addresses the problem, according to two reports in the journal Pediatrics co-authored by Jack P. Shonkoff, Julius B. Richmond…

In today’s economy data is power. “Open data leveraged by networks is the fuel that powers important decisions at each level of society,” writes Vivek Kundra, “from government to business to community to households.” In a new Shorenstein Center discussion paper titled “Digital Fuel of the 21st Century: Innovation through Open Data and the Network Effect,” Kundra…

Mark McKinnon wonders if the course of history would have been altered had P.T. Barnum moderated the famed Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858, implying that today’s political debates are a bit of a circus. In his new research paper, “Gone Rogue: Time to Reform Presidential Primary Debates,” the author asks: Does the current primary debate process…

Many school administrators, parents and policymakers advocate on behalf of improving the quality of teaching, but there is much debate over how best to do it. One method of evaluating teachers is based on students’ test scores, commonly referred to as the “value added” (VA) approach. But there are two fundamental questions about this approach.…

Two Harvard Kennedy School research centers have been recognized as among the best think tanks in the world. The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is ranked number one and the Center for International Development (CID) as the third best university-related think tank in the 2011 Global Go To Think Tanks Index, released on…

Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, announced today that they will officially launch the Born This Way Foundation (BTWF) on Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012 at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. Lady Gaga will be joined by some very special guests as she personally unveils BTWF before a crowd of policymakers, nonprofit organizations, foundation leaders, and…

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 Spring Fellows and Visiting Faculty. “This semester the Shorenstein Center will once again be bursting with brain power and talent,” said Alex Jones, the center’s director. “Pulitzer Prize–winner Ron…

The Harvard Kennedy School community is mourning the loss of Edith Stokey – economist, teacher, administrator, and “founding mother” of Harvard Kennedy School – who died during the evening of Jan. 16. She was 88. Stokey was a true believer in the Kennedy School’s mission. Since being recruited by Richard Zeckhauser in 1971, Stokey served…

Harvard University today launched Harvard Skate, part of the University’s yearlong 375th anniversary celebration. Scheduled to open on Jan. 17, Harvard Skate is a 40-foot-by-60-foot ice skating rink that will be temporarily located in the plaza adjacent to the Science Center.  It will be open and free to members of the Harvard community and the…

Playtime (Spielzeit), a film produced by Harvard Extension School graduate Ryan Slattery, A.L.B. ’09, has been selected to screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival International Shorts program in Park City, Utah, January 19 through 29. Slattery’s film is one of only 64 short films selected from a record 7,675 submissions for this year’s Sundance…

Medical historian Allan Brandt, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has authored the “Perspective” article in the 200th anniversary edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, published this January. Discussing the history of the Journal, Brandt tracks its seminal role in observing and investigating disease, reporting innovations in medicine, and educating the medical…

It’s one thing to understand the public health implications of scientific evidence. It’s quite another to use that information to successfully implement real public health improvements. The challenge of leaping from theory to practice has prompted the creation of new programming, offered through the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Public Health Leadership, that…

Michael VanRooyen and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) team he directs are working hard to develop new ways to offset the miseries of humanitarian disasters. In a January 2012 Boston Magazine article titled “The Saving Game,” VanRooyen talked about how relief workers — if their efforts aren’t properly coordinated—can sometimes do more harm than good.…

Nan Laird was appointed the new Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of Public Health. This honor recognizes her more than 35 years developing statistical methodology, teaching, and doing applied research. Laird succeeds the first holder of the professorship, Howard Koh, who is now Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.…

Addressing the growing need for fresh ideas and research in news reporting, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society announce the creation of the joint Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation. Candidates for the new yearlong fellowship will be asked to propose a specific course of study or…

It is a typical morning in rural Malawi. Women wearing colorful red, yellow, and blue patterned dresses carry large metal buckets, many balancing them on their heads, and often with young infants strapped to their backs. To get fresh water for their families, most travel an average of two miles on unpaved, meandering roads. At…

The Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) Project recently co-hosted a groundbreaking conference with U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) on preventing and stopping genocide and other mass atrocities around the world. Harvard Kennedy School’s Sarah Sewall, lecturer in public policy, founded the MARO Project in 2007 with the goal of enabling the U.S. and…

When Bambo Sosina, a PhD student in the Statistics Department, came to the United States for the first time, he soon noticed that people had trouble understanding him. “Being originally from Nigeria, an English speaking country, this naturally felt devastating, and I sought to correct things quickly,” Sosina recalls. One opportunity in particular caught his…

Sarah Tudesco and Jindra Miller are the recipients of the 2011 Carol Ishimoto Award for Distinguished Service in the Harvard College Library. Created through a 1991 endowment established by former Associate Librarian of Harvard College for Cataloging and Processing Carol Ishimoto, the award annually recognizes a member or group of the professional staff who has…

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il brings up many questions about the future of the communist country and the Korean peninsula as a whole, where remnants of the cold war are still felt. “Internally, the North Korean regime will need to show consistently that they’re in command since the U.S. and South…

We all play an important role in reducing energy and conserving resources on campus and in our offices. Our actions make a big difference in helping Harvard meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2016. Astonishingly, the energy used by a building to support just one office worker for a day causes…

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is pleased to announce the release of Collection Researcher version 1.0, an innovative web application that provides unique access to the Arboretum’s living plant collections through its geographic information system (GIS). Available on the Arboretum website, Collection Researcher integrates a searchable inventory of the Arboretum’s nearly 15,000 curated trees,…

When a group of NATO and European Union (EU) ambassadors met recently in Brussels, there were a lot of familiar faces in the room. At least a dozen of the diplomats at the meetings can trace their roots back to Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), where they spent time as participants in the Black Sea Security Program.…

The Dudley House Jazz Band and Harvard GSAS are proud to present the music of Horace Tapscott and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. The concert will take place on Saturday, December 10 at 8 p.m. in Dudley House on the Harvard campus and is free and open to the public. Born in 1934, pianist and…

GSAS is ready to help students tackle their top new year’s resolution, and has prepared a robust month of professional development offerings, courtesy of the Office of Career Services and January@GSAS. Graduate Students can anticipate programs aimed at job-seekers in various stages and disciplines, from improving networking approaches, to transitioning from academic to nonacademic fields:…

A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has found that a group of volunteers who consumed a serving of canned soup each day for five days had a more than 1,000% increase in urinary bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations compared with when the same individuals consumed fresh soup daily for…