Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) nutrition expert Walter Willett spoke about the value of fruits and vegetables during an interview with CBS Boston that aired June 5, 2014. Willett, Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition, stated that while fruits and vegetables may not be as helpful in cancer prevention as previously thought,…

With a bachelor’s degree in mathematical biology, Nadia Abuelezam once considered herself a mathematician who used her skills to tackle public health problems. But after five years as a doctoral student at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), she no longer identifies herself as a numbers person first: “I think I’m an epidemiologist at heart,” she says.…

The Library Leadership Team (LLT) approved funding for 19 Open Your Hidden Collections proposals, following recommendations of a screening group and review by the LLT and Sarah Thomas, vice president for the Harvard Library and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Read the full story to find out more about the funded…

Throughout April, the Gutman Library’s first-floor gallery space was home to a collection of collaboratively created works by underprivileged African American youths. The “Life Pieces to Masterpieces” exhibit, comprising 29 pieces, touched on subject matters ranging from Cirque du Soleil to absent fathers to Mitt Romney. (View full slideshow on the Library Portal.) The artists,…

Visitors to the Materials Collection at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library will never be admonished to look without touching. In this tactile paradise, fingers—and imagination—are encouraged to roam free. Tucked in a long, narrow room off the stacks, the collection consists of 600-plus physical material samples, often with multiple pieces…

During Preservation Week (April 27 – May 3), the Library’s Weissman Preservation Center and Collections Care unit welcomed more than 75 visitors to learn more about methods, tools, and materials. Presses, cutters, solvents, brushes, needles, and paper patches galore were on display at Weissman, as well as some of the materials being treated, such as…

Spring may have played hide-and-seek this year, yet the community gardeners at Countway Library recently spent a sunny, windy afternoon at the Countway Community Garden prepping the soil and planting the year’s first seeds and seedlings. (View full slideshow on the library’s site.) The garden, one of three community gardens at Harvard, evolved from conversations in Countway’s “Salad Club”—a group of library staff…

The Obama administration has announced one of the most ambitious plans to fight climate change taken by the U.S. government. The proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation aims to cut carbon pollution 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, explains what the plan entails, and the…

Conservators and preservation specialists from across Harvard gathered to learn about the projects and challenges faced by several interns and fellows working across Harvard, in the museums and libraries. “It was a great learning experience,” said Kelli Piotrowski, a Kress Fellow working at Weissman Preservation Center. “My background is in rare books, and I got…

  A March 17 or December 24 birthday often meant that the woman did not know her real birthday or perhaps even her age. She perhaps adopted a date significant to Irish Catholicism as a memory aid and as a link to home. A patient who listed two addresses usually worked in service as a…

In November 2013, Harvard received 23 takedown notices from Elsevier, a publisher of academic journals. A takedown notice is a request from a copyright holder to remove a work from the Internet because of alleged copyright infringement. To comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet hosts like Harvard must comply with takedown notices even if…

Electronic images can be poor substitutes for images in print—one reason why art and architecture scholars continue to rely heavily on print publications despite a shift to digital. Vanessa Kam, acting head of music, art, and architecture at the University of British Columbia Library, joined a Harvard Library Strategic Conversation to share her findings from a study…

The Harvard Library launched the Pforzheimer Fellows program this summer, which will bring together humanities graduate students who will have the opportunity to learn in-depth about the work of libraries today, especially about emerging fields in librarianship. Named in honor of Carl H. Pforzheimer III’s generous contributions to the library, the fellows will work on projects…

A collaborative project of the libraries of the Seven Sisters schools, including Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library, received a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support development of a digital portal that gathers letters, diaries, and scrapbooks of the first generations of their students. The History of Women’s Education Open Access Portal Project…

Curbing carbon pollution from U.S. power plants will help address both global climate change and reduce other air pollutants — including ozone, fine particulates, acid rain, and mercury pollution — that can harm people, forests, crops, lakes, fish, and wildlife, according to Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Forest, and Syracuse University researchers. The scientists released a study…

Maggie Williams, who has served in a variety of high-profile governmental, political, and managerial leadership positions for more than 30 years in public service, has been named director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), it was announced today. Williams will begin at the IOP this summer. “The IOP was created…

A new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) air pollution study of millions of deaths from heart disease, lung disorders, and other causes in 75 American cities found that the effect of particles on mortality rates was about 75% higher in cities with a high proportion of sulfates from coal burning power plants than in cities with little sulfate…

Reflecting its decades-long commitment to confronting climate change, Harvard University was one of four inaugural members of Boston Mayor Martin Walsh’s Carbon Cup, which launched Saturday, May 31, 2014. By opting into the challenge Harvard, Boston University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital have collectively agreed to commit roughly 15 million square feet…

Outside the gates of her Mexico City high school, Thalia Porteny would always see kids begging for food. “It made me feel uneasy and frustrated,” said Porteny. “I knew I’d had amazing opportunities given to me, and I felt responsible. I wanted to do something about it, but at the time I didn’t know how.”…

The Howard T. Fisher Prize for excellence in Geographic Information Science (GIS) for the 2013-14 academic year has been awarded to Graduate School of Design master’s candidate Leif Estrada for “Temporal Morphology: Synthetic Growth and Natural Decline of Alameda Island” and Jake Sobstyl for “Zero-touch scale-free and climate independent thermal energy audits.” Both students will receive…

Workers exposed to solvents may continue to experience cognitive difficulties decades later, according to new findings by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues. In a study of retired male utility workers, the researchers found evidence of damage to thinking and memory as long as 50 years after exposure. They also found that the men most exposed…

Food vouchers and baskets provided through WIC (The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) should continue to exclude white potatoes, according to a column co-authored by Eric Rimm, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The piece, published online May 22, 2014 in USA Today, was written in response…

A research team from Harvard University and MIT has released its third and final promised deliverable — the de-identified learning data — relating to an initial study of online learning based on each institution’s first-year courses on the edX platform. Specifically, the dataset contains the original learning data from the 16 HarvardX and MITxcourses offered in…

It’s not always comfortable being a person committed to what others see as an impossible goal, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Dean Julio Frenk told graduates at the School’s 2014 Commencement ceremony. He spoke from experience. When Frenk was Mexico’s minister of health from 2000 to 2006 and attempting what some thought was “impossible”—expanding…

The Gutenberg Research College of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz granted this year’s Gutenberg Research Award to two internationally renowned academic, including Professor Michèle Lamont, Harvard’s Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and acting director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Lamont examines how symbolic boundaries and boundary-making stand for practices of distinction and…

Harvard’s Graduate School of Design is pleased to announce its participation in Fundamentals, the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (June 7-November 23), curated by Rem Koolhaas, professor in practice of architecture and urban design at the GSD. For the past two years, 24 students enrolled in GSD’s Studio Abroad program have been based at Koolhaas’s OMA/AMO…

Founded in 1973, the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies (RI) promotes research on Japan and brings together Harvard faculty, students, leading scholars from other institutions, and visitors to create one of the world’s leading communities for the study of Japan. For graduate students with a Japan interest, RI has provided dissertation completion grants, language study grants, and other travel and research…

Would you eat chips made with grasshoppers? That was the question posed by Laura D’Asaro ’13 and Rose Wang ’13, founders of Six Foods, the inaugural winner of the Deans’ Design Challenge, during Demo Day last Thursday at the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab). Dean Mohsen Mostafavi of the Graduate School of Design and Dean Cherry…

Zachary Gerson-Nieder spends a lot of time thinking about the role hospitals can play in communities. Of course they provide health care—but they also serve as regional economic anchors. Which makes him wonder: How much do hospital administrators, city planners and other key stakeholders consider hospitals’ impact on communities? Is it a major focus or more of…

Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean James E. Ryan announced May 19 that Susan Fliss has been named librarian and director of the Ed School’s Gutman Library. Fliss will begin this new role on July 1. “We are thrilled to welcome Susan to the HGSE community. Her expertise in teaching and learning, her passion for our…