The Harvard Gazette

Global Harvard: Latin America

Harvard’s role in an increasingly connected world includes deep ties to Latin America, where faculty and students are engaged in a range of research projects and initiatives — from climate research in Brazil to disaster relief work in Chile to protecting Maya art and architecture in Honduras. Get an in-depth look as our stories unfold in this engaging series.

Harvard’s Bill (pictured) and Barbara Fash have developed a program that trains local people in Copán, Honduras, to preserve and protect the area’s ancient Maya heritage. Photo by Ned Brown/Harvard Staff

World

Protectors of the Maya

Harvard couple helps train local Hondurans to study, maintain ancient site

Harvard Professor Judith Palfrey describes Un Buen Comienzo to a gathering of teachers and administrators in the Chilean town of Dichato.

World

In Chile, a head start

Harvard-backed program promotes early literacy

Harvard College student Sarah Joy Martini '16 excavates llama bones at the Archaeology Field School at San José de Moro, Peru (photo 1). A tower at the Moche archaeological site (photo 2) helps researchers get a bird's-eye view of the ongoing work. The ancient burial tomb of the eighth priestess of Moro (photo 3). Photo by Luis-Jaime Castillo-Butters

Arts

Moving dirt, and history

Student interested in archaeology spent summer on Peruvian dig

A builder takes a breather from reconstruction efforts in the coastal town of Cobqueruca, Chile, which was the epicenter of an earthquake in February 2010. More than three years later, the work continues ... with the help of Harvard's Recupera Chile. Ned Brown/Harvard Staff

World

Brick by brick

Long after Chile’s deadly quake, Harvard continues to help rebuild

“I just kind of fell in love with the Brazilian way, the Brazilian Portuguese language,” said Tim Linden '12, who learned Portuguese while at Harvard and now lives in São Paulo, where he works for the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

World

Following his passion

Tim Linden ’12 makes his mark helping children in Brazil to learn

A sculpture of the head of the Maya ruler 12, K’ahk’ Uit’ Ha’ K’awiil, recovered at Rastrojón in the Copán Valley, Honduras. Researchers believe the site was a residential palace and military outpost.

World

Unraveling Maya mysteries

Harvard couple teams with Hondurans to excavate, safeguard ancient ruins

The Magellan telescope (pictured) christened “Clay” after astronomer Landon Clay, a Harvard graduate and philanthropist, is one of the two large Magellan telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

Science

The building blocks of planets

Twin Chilean telescopes will team with NASA spacecraft to hunt distant objects

A sunset view from the Brazil office of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies in downtown São Paulo. The regional hub supports Harvard faculty and students in research, teaching, and learning throughout the country.

World

Hub away from home

Harvard’s São Paulo office establishes connections in Brazil and Cambridge

“It’s the U.S./Brazil collaboration that really makes this possible,” said Scot Martin, Harvard’s Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, discussing the GoAmazon2014 project and its many partners.

Science

One goal, many players

Collaborations among Brazilian organizations are another vital part of the project

Deep in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, Harvard Professor Scot Martin studies air pollution from atop a 177-foot aluminum tower. Though scientists have long understood the impact of carbon dioxide and methane gas on global warming, they know relatively little about the particles that Martin studies, or their possible influence on climate shifts and global warming trends.

Science

Atop the Amazon rainforest

Harvard scientist, others study how pristine air becomes polluted, and how that may change climate 

Nathan Black, the French Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, is spending two years investigating the connection between changing agricultural conditions — specifically the supply of agricultural land — and civil war.

Science

Seeds of violence in climate change

Uruguay holds lessons for avoiding conflict, scholar says

Harvard’s role in an increasingly connected world includes deep ties to Latin America, where faculty and students are engaged in a range of research projects that take them to Maya ruins, above the Amazon rainforest, and coastal towns in Chile.

World

Deepening ties to Latin America

To get a sense of Harvard’s breadth in the world, look to the south