Critical thinking skills — analyzing facts to make reflective and informed decisions — are essential for students when it comes to civic engagement. However, in today’s fast-paced news cycle, it’s become increasingly difficult for students to discern fact from fiction to make informed decisions. This is especially true of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new educational report from Project Information Literacy (PIL) uses the first…

Danielle Allen, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, has long studied what citizens need in order to succeed in democracy and how our social studies and civics education have impacted democracy. In a recent episode of the Harvard EdCast, Allen discussed how the nation got where it is today and what it will…

Spring classes will begin on Jan. 25, 2021 and end April 28, as previously announced, FAS Edgerley Family Dean Claudine Gay confirmed today in a message to faculty and staff. But spring break will be reimagined in a continued effort to minimize student travel off campus to help control COVID-19. It will be replaced, instead,…

Harvard professor Elizabeth A. Phelps was named this year’s winner of the George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience. Winners of the prize are honored for a career characterized by distinguished and sustained scholarship and cutting-edge research in cognitive neuroscience that has the potential to revolutionize the field. The prize is presented by the Cognitive…

The National Institutes for the Humanities of Japan (NIHU) awarded Andrew Gordon the 2020 International Prize in Japanese Studies. Gordon is the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History, with a special focus on modern Japan. In the announcement of the prize, the NIHU recognized Gordon’s extensive work on the history of labor in…

The Harvard Innovation Labs announced that it has accepted 22 startups into the Launch Lab X GEO (LLX GEO) accelerator, a nine-month program designed to bring together Harvard alumni-led ventures from around the world and help them build sustainable, disruptive businesses with real-world impact. “From making surgery safer for patients and healthcare providers, to turning restaurants into micro grocery stores, all of the ventures participating in this year’s Launch…

Data science is at the core of modern business, impacting industries ranging from healthcare to government to advertising. In response to the growing demand, Harvard Online is announcing a new course, Data Science Ready, to help managers speak the language of data science and contribute to data-oriented discussions. The nearly code- and math-free, four-week online…

The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters has invited Jan Ziolkowski from Harvard University as an external member. Ziolkowski is a member or corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, and American Philosophical Society as well as a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and of the American Academy of Arts…

Women who always have irregular menstrual cycles or cycles lasting more than 40 days may have a greater risk of dying before age 70 compared to women with very regular cycles, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They found that among women ages 29-46, those with…

This summer, the British Academy welcomed a new group of 86 Fellows in the humanities and social sciences to its ranks from the United Kingdom and around the world. Of the 30 overseas academics selected, seven are from Harvard: Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and Senior Advisor on the Humanities to…

A groundbreaking initiative for undergraduate students is making the  liberal arts even more actionable at a crucial moment in history. The Lemann Program on Creativity and Entrepreneurship (LPCE) empowers students to solve global challenges right now, says Harvard professor Robert Lue. He is leading the program, which has been generously funded by Brazilian innovator Jorge…

The percentage of Americans who were heavy consumers of sugar-sweetened beverages — those who drank more than 500 calories’ worth every day — dropped significantly from 2003 to 2016, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They found that the percentage of children who were heavy…

Steven Levitsky, the best-selling author of  “How Democracies Die,” co-authored with Daniel Ziblatt, has been named faculty director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard (DRCLAS). The center brings together in a multidisciplinary fashion all the work that is being done at Harvard from the Law School to the Medical School…

The Harvard Art Museums have announced a gift of nearly 50 works by major figures in postwar German art from the collector Dorette Hildebrand-Staab, a member of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. The works include drawings by such notable artists as Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Antonius Höckelmann, Jörg Immendorff, Imi Knoebel, Sigmar Polke,…

Areas of New York City that experienced a drop in work-related commuting during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic had a lower prevalence of infections when compared with areas that did not have as significant a reduction in work-related commuting, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The…

The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) has launched a new online review dedicated to advancing social impact work across sectors. Founded by a team of current and past ALI Fellows, the Harvard ALI Social Impact Review features original work from Harvard professors and fellows, along with leading thinkers and social impact leaders from business, government,…

Leslie Kirwan, dean for administration and finance for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) for more than a decade, will retire this spring, Edgerley Family Dean Claudine Gay announced in a Tuesday message. “Anything but a technocrat, Leslie is a leader who lives her belief in the dignity of every person and who will…

Three scientists will receive the 2020 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize on Thursday, Oct. 1, for pioneering work in the field of metabolism. The researchers elucidated the role of gut hormones, their effects on metabolism and informed the design of treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity and short bowel syndrome. The work of Holst, Habener and Drucker propelled the…

How a family functions and manages conflict during pregnancy may influence the development of cortical white matter and subcortical volumes in the fetus and could be associated with brain characteristics that underlie behavioral problems later in life, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study focused on data…

The Harvard Business School Action Plan for Racial Equity, an ambitious plan to advance racial equity both within and beyond the School, was announced today in a message from HBS Dean Nitin Nohria to the community.  “This moment has made urgently clear that the School must redouble its commitment to combat racism — and anti-Black…

Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today named 24 world-class researchers from six countries as Citation Laureates. These are researchers whose work is deemed to be ‘of Nobel class’, as demonstrated by analysis carried out by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Each year since 2002, ISI analysts have drawn on  Web…

Rates of vaccination for the human papillomavirus (HPV) are on the rise among children in the U.S., but still fall short of national goals, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study was published online Sept. 14, 2020 in the journal Pediatrics. Harvard Chan School co-authors included research…

As Boston area children head back to school under very different circumstances, Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) continues to deliver critical services this fall to thousands of youth in the Greater Boston Area. Taking the lessons they learned from running 11 virtual summer camps, PBHA staff and volunteers are working with public schools and after-school…

The Global Empowerment Meeting (GEM) is the annual flagship event offering of Harvard’s Center for International Development. GEM is a thought-provoking, invitation-only conference that brings together the top business leaders, policymakers, and academics to engage around the most cutting-edge work in international development. GEM20 will be the 12th annual installment of an event that distinguishes…

Children diagnosed with malaria in nine sub-Saharan African countries often did not receive recommended care, and as many as 20 percent of children diagnosed with malaria in these countries received no antimalarial at all, according to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. The…

A work requirement policy imposed by the state of Arkansas on Medicaid participants failed to achieve its stated goal of boosting employment, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Instead, the policy harmed health care coverage and access, the study found. Under Arkansas’ requirements, which were implemented in the…

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) has named Jorge Campos ’21 of Currier House and Reeda Iqbal ’21 of Quincy House this year’s David and Mimi Aloian Memorial Scholars. Each year the Aloian Memorial Scholarship is given to two juniors who demonstrate thoughtful leadership and who improve the quality of life in Harvard Houses. The award…

A recent epidemiological study finds that the rate of COVID-19 for incarcerated individuals in Massachusetts is almost three times that of the state’s general population and five times that of the U.S. general population. The study also finds that higher rates of decarceration are linked to lower rates of COVID-19. The team analyzed publicly available anonymized…

Health experts should focus on messages to build public trust around a COVID-19 vaccine and tamp down the hype around the innovative and sophisticated technologies that are being leveraged to rapidly develop such a vaccine, according to a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective article co-authored by Barry Bloom, Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson…