New research by scholars from Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco, finds that service sector workers in the United States have limited and unequal access to paid sick leave. The study also finds that fewer women have access to paid sick leave than men, but this gender gap is eliminated in states that…

The Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship is launching two new programs — the Banga Family Social Entrepreneur Postgraduate Fellowship and the Banga Family Social Innovation Research Research Grant — to catalyze social entrepreneurship and support social impact research.  This fund expands the center’s campus-wide efforts to incubate promising ideas, transform research into actions…

Buildings renovated with healthier furnishings had significantly lower levels of the entire group of per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) — toxic chemicals linked with many negative health effects — than buildings with conventional furnishings, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study was published online Nov. 4…

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University, led by Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus ’88 and Executive Director Kelvin Dinkins Jr., announced today its 2023 Gala will honor departing Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow, M.P.P. ’76, J.D. ’76, Ph.D. ’78 and Adele Fleet Bacow for their inspiring impact on the arts…

English concentrator William Lohier ’23 was awarded first place and a $4,000 prize by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in its national writing contest, “Celebrating Black Writers: Voices Calling for Activism and Social Justice.” The gifted writer, who was New York City’s Youth Poet Laurate in 2018, beat 47 other submissions to…

Following a pandemic-induced two-year delay, the Harvard Varsity Club (HVC) was finally able to honor the Hall of Fame Class of 2020 last month, in celebrations attended by more than 250 guests. Eight varsity athletes and four national championship heavyweight crew boats joined the over 600 Harvard student-athletes already enshrined. Normally an annual October event…

In November 2021, researchers in the Botswana lab of Sikhulile Moyo discovered a coronavirus genome that contained dozens of new potentially dangerous mutations. The researchers rapidly alerted the rest of the world about the mutated virus — which eventually became known as the highly transmissible Omicron variant. With the quick warning, public health officials ramped up vaccination…

Three faculty members from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — Wafaie Fawzi, Vikram Patel, and John Quackenbush — have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Membership is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service. Fawzi,…

Over the past two decades, there’s been a steady proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. In recent weeks, the threat posed by these weapons has loomed larger, with Russian president Vladimir Putin threatening to use them in his nation’s war against Ukraine. David Hunter thinks the way to minimize the threat is by increasing…

The Harvard Innovation Labs is welcoming 26 ventures into the 2022-2023 Launch Lab X GEO cohort, a global startup leadership program designed to help early-stage, Harvard alumni-led ventures grow into sustainable and disruptive businesses.  “As we kick off the fourth Launch Lab X GEO cohort, we are thrilled to welcome high-potential ventures across a variety…

Kang-Kuen Ni, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics, has been named among the first cohort Moore Experimental Physics Investigators. Each of these investigators is pushing the boundaries of what is known and what is possible. “The breadth and scientific audacity of experiments proposed by these individuals is stunning and inspiring,” said Theodore…

Massachusetts Center for the Book has named Harvard Professor Tiya Miles the recipient of its Nonfiction Award for “All That She Carried” (Penguin Random House). This National Book Award winner is a compassionate account of three generations of Black women’s lives, from slavery to freedom. The 22nd Annual Massachusetts Book Awards recognize achievement in five categories…

The U.S. has a lot to learn from Costa Rica. That message came through loud and clear in a fireside chat with former Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, held Oct. 13 at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Alvarado took office in 2018 at the age of 38 and stepped down last May,…

The Harvard Business School’s Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship has announced the Rock Executive Fellows, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Venture Capital Advisors, and Lawyers-in-Residence for the 2022-2023 academic year. Rock Executive Fellows (REF) are comprised of four non-faculty affiliates/practitioners who support and contribute to the extensive Rock Center programming through a rich set of co-curricular and curricular activities. REF is a yearlong program appointment…

The European Research Council has awarded Harvard Professor Charles Langmuir and researchers the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany a €14 million Synergy Grant to explore the link between shrinking ice sheets and volcanos on the ocean floor. The six-year grant will allow Langmuir and his German colleagues to establish a first…

As a child, Venerable Dorjey Dolma was mesmerized by how her aunt, a Tibetan Buddhist nun, wore the maroon monastic robe. It was her admiration for her aunt, and appreciation for the robes, that made her decide when she was 6 years old that she would become a Buddhist nun, too. “I got inspired by…

In the wake of Hurricane Ian, with some Florida hospitals closed or damaged and their health care staff exhausted, a team of 37 Massachusetts doctors, nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and paramedics traveled near Sarasota — north of the state’s most-damaged areas — to run an emergency department in tents outside of a local hospital. During their weeklong clinical…

Jay O. Light, dean of Harvard Business School from 2005 to 2010, died on  Oct. 15 at his home in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, of cancer. He was 81 years old. Light served on the HBS faculty for more than four decades. He loved being in the classroom and engaging with his students (including after they…

At the first in-person faculty meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since February 2020, Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS Claudine Gay announced a cluster hire of three scholars specializing in the environment, climate, and sustainability. The hiring effort marks initial steps in advancing FAS research and teaching efforts focused on the climate…

Harvard Business School (HBS) announced today the formation of the Race, Gender, and Equity Initiative, which is both a renaming of the Gender Initiative and a reflection of work it has done and will do to understand and advance equality, including racial equality, in organizations and business. The role of the initiative, much like the Gender Initiative…

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has welcomed six new primary faculty members over the past few months: Irini Albanti is a lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the executive director of Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). Her research interests are in capacity building in resource-limited settings, impact strategy, storytelling, and the role of corporate philanthropy…

When Chester Pierce ’48, M.D. ’52, took the field at the University of Virginia on Oct. 11, 1947 as a member of the Harvard football team, it was recognized as the first time a Black student-athlete played college football at an all-white university south of the Mason-Dixon line. The practice at the time was for…

More than 700 graduate and professional school students convened at the Smith Campus Center  on Sept. 29 for the fifth annual Harvard Grad Fest.  Hosted by the Graduate Student Affairs Circle, Grad Fest brings graduate students and their families together early in the academic year to increase networks and support systems. The event was supported…

The Arnold Arboretum is celebrating its Sesquicentennial and this year it served as the backdrop for a unique training program aimed at keeping Harvard’s workers safe and its trees healthy. During October, Harvard Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) brought together a collection of arborists, landscapers, and safety experts to ensure that employees have the knowledge…

Xiaowei Zhuang, David B. Arnold Jr. Professor of Science, has won the 2022 Heinrich Wieland Prize of the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for making seminal discoveries in cell and neurobiology with the ingenious imaging technologies she developed.  This international award honors outstanding research on biologically active molecules and systems in the fields of chemistry, biochemistry, and…

Harvard Business School has announced this year’s recipients of the Robert S. Kaplan (M.B.A. 1983) Life Sciences Fellowship. Established in 2008, the fellowship was created by Robert S. Kaplan, who served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and was the…

When Jessica Lovett developed long COVID, her fatigue was so severe that she could not move her body. “I was a first-time mom, and I had a 2-year-old son,” she said. “I wanted to be able to pick him up, but I couldn’t even stand up.” Lovett and several other patients shared their experiences in a…