Low-income adults overwhelmingly support Medicaid expansion and think the government-sponsored program offers health care coverage that is comparable to or even better in quality than private health insurance coverage, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. The study appears online October 8, 2014 in Health Affairs. “In the debate…

Donna Spiegelman, professor of epidemiologic methods at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has received a Director’s Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of 10 researchers honored, Spiegelman is believed to be the first epidemiologist and biostatistician, and the first faculty member from a school of public health, to receive the…

HILT awarded six Spark Grants of $5-$15K to projects intended to “spark” promising teaching and learning projects this year: A crash course in Harvard College undergraduates. Michael Zachau Walker and Sophia Watkins (College) will design a workshop equipping teaching fellows with increased understanding of teaching Harvard undergraduates in order to foster meaningful and productive relationships. Evaluating…

Increased access to digital materials advances knowledge while presenting complex issues. In “The Future of the Book,” a Harvard Library Strategic Conversation, audience members discussed how knowledge has been handed down over centuries and how to ensure that copyright and technology do not interfere with the longevity of 20th-century works. Panelists Jim O’Donnell, a Georgetown…

Research on the go for Harvard faculty, students, and staff just got a little bit easier: they can now check out library resources from 12 partner university libraries while traveling and even bring them home. With the launch of Borrow Direct Plus, patrons affiliated with a Borrow Direct partner (and Duke University) can visit their…

The Ebola epidemic is stoppable — if health professionals use procedures that are known to be effective in quelling such outbreaks, and by widening the international response to Ebola in West Africa, according to Atul Gawande. Writing in The New Yorker on October 3, 2014 — two days after the first Ebola patient in the…

Harvard Kennedy School has earned a Gold Starr. The Starr Auditorium renovation project, which was completed in the summer of 2013, earned LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in September. LEED is the USGBC’s leading rating system for designing and constructing energy efficient, high performing buildings. The purpose of the renovation…

Murat Ülker, a leading entrepreneur in Istanbul, Turkey, has contributed $24 million on behalf of the Ülker family to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) to establish the Sabri Ülker Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research. The gift will address what many scientists consider to be one of the greatest public health…

West African nations like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia could suffer exponentially more disastrous effects from the Ebola virus if the international response to the epidemic isn’t improved, according to a panel of experts speaking Sept. 23, 2014 at Harvard University’s Barker Center. Quoted in a Harvard Crimson article, panelist Patrick Vinck, a visiting scientist…

Power plant standards to cut climate-changing carbon emissions will reduce other harmful air pollution and provide substantial human health benefits, according to a new study. The research shows that, depending on the policy options included in the final Clean Power Plan, the power plant standards could prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospitalizations, and hundreds…

Women lack ambition. Well-intentioned people are bias free. It’s best to be color and gender blind. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In her recent provocative presentation, “The Changing Workforce: Intersections of Identity and Influence”, Robin J. Ely, Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for Culture and Community, dispelled myths that limit inclusion…

On October 8th at 7:15 p.m., HarvardX for Allston presents a free, public event with Harvard Business School Professor Tarun Khanna. Using the lens of health to explore entrepreneurial opportunities, Khanna will lead a discussion based on his HarvardX course “Entrepreneurship and Healthcare in Emerging Economies.” Attendees will learn about prior attempts to address complex health…

For scientists who study rare diseases, hospitals’ vast data banks hold tantalizing potential. Access to anonymized electronic medical records allows researchers to track the progress of a larger group of patients than would be possible in a traditional cohort study, at a much lower cost. If the records can be linked to blood samples that patients…

It’s been two years since a New York Times article declared the “year of the MOOC” — short for “massive open online courses.” Now, for the first time, researchers have carried out a detailed study that shows that these classes really can teach at least as effectively as traditional classroom courses — and they found that this…

This fall, Harvard Divinity School brings Russell Banks, one of the United States’ most celebrated writers of contemporary fiction, to Harvard to deliver the annual Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality. Banks’ topic will be “Feeding Moloch: The Sacrifice of Children on the Altar of Capitalism.” He will argue that immortality, if it exists, lies with people’s…

This summer, the Frances Loeb Library underwent a partial renovation on its lower level, transforming a portion of stacks space into dedicated semi-open workspace with an adjoining conference room for students in the Graduate School of Design’s PhD program. “We have been rethinking our library for over the last several years. The ability to support…

The inaugural Pforzheimer Fellows program ended with the summer, but each of the four fellows said the experience had a lasting impact on how they understand and use libraries. The program, launched earlier this year for humanities graduate students interested in learning about emerging library fields, exposed the fellows to new materials as well as…

The number of premature deaths worldwide could be reduced by 40 percent by 2030 with political commitment and sustained international efforts, according to a new study in The Lancet. The study suggests that half of all deaths under age 50 and a third of deaths between ages 50-69 could be prevented, largely by accelerating efforts…

Can any single object create more more anxiety for librarians than the simple X-Acto knife? At the inaugural Books@Baker event, Michael Blanding, author of The Map Thief and Baker Library staff member, discussed the damage wrought by a rare map dealer and his X-Acto knife. Between 1998 and 2005, E. Forbes Smiley III pilfered nearly…

On one of the last summer days, volunteers and community members met to share food, recipes and remedies at the Countway Community Garden’s Harvest Festival. Attendees enjoyed hand-bagged herbal teas and a potluck feast made by the gardeners.

Six Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers were among the recipients of the 2014 António Champalimaud Vision Award, the highest distinction in ophthalmology and visual science. The award was given for the development of anti-angiogenic therapy for retinal disease. The researchers include Joan Whitten Miller, Evangelos S. Gragoudas, and Patricia A. D’Amore, of HMS and Massachusetts…

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) epidemiologist Caroline Buckee and her team are using cell phone data to track travel patterns across West Africa to help fight the Ebola epidemic. Such data — including unique cell phone “pings” from cell phone towers — can show where people have gone after leaving a disease hot spot, thus suggesting where a disease cluster might…

Mosoka Fallah, MPH ’12, who grew up in Monrovia, Liberia, has returned to the capital city to help contain the spreading Ebola epidemic. An epidemiologist and immunologist, Fallah has been systematically leading teams of volunteers through the city’s slums to identify victims, remove bodies, and trace contacts of infected people. A New York Times profile published September 13, 2014…

Houston-based artist and community activist Rick Lowe has been named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. The founder of Project Row Houses, Lowe transformed 22 derelict shotgun houses in Houston’s historic Third Ward into a combined arts venue and community center for artists, single mothers, and low-income families. Twenty years and 71 structures later, Lowe’s unconventional approach…

People who have had colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy to remove low-risk colorectal polyps may have no greater risk of dying from colon cancer than the general public and likely do not need frequent follow-up colonoscopies, according to new findings by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues. The researchers, including Mette Kalager, visiting scientist in HSPH’s Department…

Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, has become a leading critic of experiments creating dangerous flu strains that are transmissible between mammals. Earlier this year, he co-authored an editorial calling for greater scrutiny of these so-called “gain-of- function” experiments, and for future studies on flu transmission to use safer and more effective alternative approaches. “Just learning…

The amount of methylmercury, a neurotoxin, in the earth’s atmosphere has quadrupled since the days before industrialization, and its toxic effects are changing the songs being sung by birds in the area of Waynesboro, Virginia. An article in Environmental Health News explores how the mercury emitted by a nearby factory contaminated Waynesboro’s South River, affecting the animals that the…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced today a $150,000 grant to the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC) to create an innovative learning experience titled “What’s in a Name? Species, Naming and the Scientific Process” to educate and engage the public in the scientific process of systematics, species identification and naming. …

Twenty-three public service visionaries and social entrepreneurs from Harvard Law School have been selected as recipients of grants from the Public Service Venture Fund, a unique program that awards up to $1 million each year to help graduating Harvard Law students and recent graduates obtain their ideal jobs in public service. This year’s recipients were…

Flashed on screen at a recent Harvard symposium was an illustration from the year 1308 showing students in a lecture-style class. Some are fooling around. Some look bored. One is even sleeping. Next on screen: a modern-day photo of a lecture-style class, surprisingly similar to the 1308 illustration. The professor is at a lectern —…