Say you’ve got $30 million to develop a five-year pilot plan for preventing and treating thousands of women in India who suffer from a serious childbirth-related injury called an obstetric fistula. But you have just five days to come up with the plan. That was the challenge faced by five Harvard graduate students—two from Harvard…

The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, are pleased to announce the 11 recipients of the annual undergraduate arts prizes for 2016. The awards, presented to more than 130 undergraduates for the past 34 years, recognize…

On April 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in confirming a link between Zika and the severe birth defect microcephaly. While officials at WHO also believe that there is enough evidence to conclude that the virus causes the autoimmune nervous disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome, the CDC is waiting…

While the world is as close as it has ever been to having a malaria vaccine, the fight to eradicate the disease is far from over. That was the consensus among experts in the field who gathered at a forum hosted by Harvard’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe initiative on April 6, 2016. Focused…

Being a person of color in America is bad for your health. That’s the theme of a new op-ed written by David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Writing…

The late Nelson Mandela’s leadership skills and issues related to organ donation were among the topics Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discussed in an April 12, 2016 STAT news’ “Pulse of Longwood” interview. Koh returned in 2014 to Harvard…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded a major grant to the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab to further develop its Perma.cc tool to combat link rot. The IMLS grant awards over $700,000 to the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, in cooperation with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and…

Harvard University’s 24th annual Arts First festival, showcasing student and faculty creativity, will take place Thursday-Sunday, April 28-May 1. Sponsored by the Board of Overseers of Harvard College and produced by the Office for the Arts at Harvard with partners across the University, this year’s festival will feature more than 200 music, theater, dance, film,…

From smoking to the ravages of war, adolescents in developing countries face numerous threats to their health. Experts discussed these threats—and possible policy responses—at the third annual State of Global Health Symposium, hosted on March 29 by the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Theresa Betancourt, associate…

Theresa Betancourt discussed her research on the role of conflict, adversity, and resiliency in children at the Sixth Annual Alice Hamilton Award Lecture on April 5 in Kresge Cafeteria. Following her talk, Betancourt, associate professor of child health and human rights and director of the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity at Harvard T.H.…

Dean James Ryan and the Harvard Graduate School of Education Speakers Committee announced today that Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), will address graduates and their families at the 2016 Convocation ceremony on May 25. “Freeman Hrabowski is a singularly successful scholar and education leader. He has dedicated his career…

Although we often think of improvisation in an artistic context, improvisation in fact plays a central role in our lives, informing our behavior during social interactions, playing sports, and in moments of protest and civil disobedience. Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA) is sponsoring a symposium, “Bending Toward Justice: Improvisation, Freedom, and the Arts,”…

The global cost of diabetes is now 825 billion dollars per year, according to the largest ever study of diabetes levels across the world. The research, which was led by scientists from Imperial College London, and involved Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the World Health Organization, and nearly 500 researchers across the globe,…

Colonoscopies, mammograms, and childbirth services are the most searched-for medical services when it comes to cost information—and millennials with higher annual deductible spending are the most frequent comparison shoppers—according to an analysis of a large national health insurance plan database by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study appears in the April…

Young, low-income transgender women with a history of unsafe sexual behavior face a high rate of mental health problems, according to a new study. The study, led by Sari Reisner, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and Boston Children’s Hospital, looked at mental health and substance abuse among…

The parasite responsible for a form of malaria now spreading from macaques to humans in South Asia could evolve to infect humans more efficiently, a step towards enhanced transmission between humans, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The researchers say that defining the means by which the Plasmodium…

Communities in three states—New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont—have found elevated levels in their drinking water of the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which has been linked to cancer and negative health outcomes in children. Phillippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thinks the problem may be even…

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Open Technology Institute surveyed U.S. Internet and telecommunications companies to highlight best practices and encourage standardization in transparency reporting.  The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Open Technology Institute at New America (OTI) are releasing The Transparency Reporting Toolkit: Survey…

Many people in U.S. households where someone is pregnant or considering getting pregnant in the next 12 months are not aware of key facts about Zika virus, according to a new poll by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers. The nationally representative poll of 1,275 adults, including 105 who live in households where…

On Thursday, April 7, and Friday, April 8, the Fromm Concerts at Harvard assemble some of the finest musicians in creative music for a series of free concerts, “Creative Music Convergences,” in John Knowles Paine Concert Hall. “These are musicians who just go up there and create,” says Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of…

More than 70 sixth grade scholars and teachers from Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn recently spent the day exploring Harvard University and talking with faculty, students and staff about a variety of topics. “We learned about segregation and the Children’s Crusade in 1963,” said 12 year old Kamora Thompson. “It was really powerful and…

The University of California’s Office of the President has joined with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), a research-practice partnership based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, to launch a faculty exit survey that is the first of its kind. Given the academy’s struggles to diversify the professoriate and regular media…

The Partnering in Education Research (PIER) program is now accepting fellowship applications from first- and second-year doctoral candidates at Harvard University interested in conducting quantitative education research in partnership with school districts and state education agencies. PIER, an interdisciplinary predoctoral program hosted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and the Center for Education Policy…

A new STAT-Harvard poll finds overwhelming bipartisan support among Americans for President Obama’s proposed National Cancer Moonshot, with eight out of ten favoring at least a 20% increase in federal cancer research spending. Nearly half of those polled view cancer as the most serious health condition in the U.S. today; however, more than two-thirds believe…

Martin Luther did more than just serve as a catalyst for the Reformation. By nailing his 95 theses to the door of a Wittenberg, Germany, church in 1517, he became the world’s first mass media figure and launched a new form of theological writing, argues University of St. Andrews Professor Andrew Pettegree. Pettegree will discuss his…

Truck drivers with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who failed to adhere to treatment had a rate of preventable crashes five times higher than that of truckers without the ailment, according to researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Morris, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and colleagues. The study—which looked at…

Botswana appears to have achieved very high rates of HIV diagnosis, treatment, and viral suppression—better than most Western nations, including the United States—according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues in Botswana. The findings suggest that even in countries with limited resources where a large percentage of the…

The 2016 Harvard Horizons Symposium will take place on April 5 at 6:00 p.m. in Sanders Theatre. The symposium features brief talks by Harvard Horizons Scholars, highlighting the scholarship of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Ph.D. students across the disciplines. The 2016 Harvard Horizons Scholars and their subjects are: Ashley Anderson, Government Going…

Harvard Chan School’s Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath co-authored a study that looked at how low-income people use the Internet. According to your study, there’s not a lot of data on how this population uses the web. Why would that data be helpful? The lack of information is a problem, because if we want to create websites…

Earthquakes or floods can wipe out infrastructure—including health care facilities, when they’re needed more than ever. Given the risks to public health in the wake of a natural disaster, it’s important for health systems to plan ahead, according to disaster health expert Ali Ardalan. “Health systems have to take a proactive approach, preventive measures to…