Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898
-
Articles
-
News
more News
Claudine Gay, social science dean and Cowett professor of government and of African and African American studies
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
The initative includes interdisciplinary conversation, annual symposia, and a postdoc program.
Nadya Okamoto
Courtesy of Nadya Okamoto for Cambridge City Council
Nadya Okamoto ’20 is juggling wider aspirations and school work.
Photograph by iStock/hayatikayhan
Growth in Harvard healthcare costs moderates.
-
Research
more Research
Image by Jezperklauzen/iStock
Oral bacteria can lodge in the gut and trigger inflammatory bowel conditions.
Illustration by Taylor Callery
Machine learning may raise the potential for predicting where—and when—an earthquake might strike.
Pakistanis eating rice, a staple crop and major source of protein in South Asia.
Photograph by A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images
How global warming can change crop nutrition
-
Students
more Students
Nadya Okamoto
Courtesy of Nadya Okamoto for Cambridge City Council
Nadya Okamoto ’20 is juggling wider aspirations and school work.
The Winthrop House library
Photograph by Peter Vanderwarker
Undergraduates return to newly improved digs.
Rachel L. Gable
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCHow some colleges help first-generation and low-income students succeed
-
Alumni
more Alumni
Fellow classics concentrators Sam Beck ’16 (left) and E.E. Cummings ’15
What one undergraduate learned
Kaey Nakae, of the champion Santa Barbara Condors, gets “totally horizontal,” exhibiting the Ultimate form David Gessner admired.
Photograph by Tom KennedyRecent books with Harvard connections
Stephanie Burt, recently named co-editor of poetry at The Nation, in her office at Harvard
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Stephanie Burt ’94 is the kind of poetry critic who provokes anger in other poetry critics.
-
Harvard Squared
more Harvard Squared
Celebrating Thanksgiving at Old Sturbridge Village
Photograph courtesy of Old Sturbridge Village
Cold-weather treats at Old Sturbridge Village
Photograph courtesy of the Boston International Book Fair
Rare books and ephemera at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair
Cooking lessons at the French Cultural Center
Photograph courtesy of the French Cultural Center
Greater Boston’s cultural centers offer a lot more than language classes.
-
Opinion
more Opinion
Readers comment on criminal injustices, alumni who died in Vietnam, political correctness, and more.
Drew Faust
President Drew Faust describes Harvard’s efforts to evaluate how well—and what exactly—its students learn.
-
Arts
more Arts
Among the nineteenth-century frauds Kevin Young explores are the pseudo-scientific Great Moon Hoax.
Photograph from Chronicle/AlamyFrom the Missouri Compromise to the 2016 election, Kevin Young's Bunk takes stock of American hoaxes, con men, and race fantasies.
Photograph courtesy of the Boston International Book Fair
Rare books and ephemera at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair
-
Sports
more Sports
Freshman Harvard quarterback Jake Smith showed some moves as he slalomed through Princeton defenders on a 26-yard run.
Photograph by Tim O'Meara/The Harvard CrimsonA shellacking in the Stadium
Harvard's Charlie Booker deployed a mighty stiff arm to fend off Lafayette's Philip Parham. The Crimson junior rampaged his way to a career-high 159 yards on the ground.
Photograph by Tim O'Meara/The Harvard CrimsonThe Crimson gets back on track.
On one of his 11 tackles, Harvard senior defensive back Tim Haehl wrapped up Cornell's James Hubbard after a seven-yard gain.
Photograph by Patrick F. Shanahan
Cornell inexorably outmuscles Harvard.
-
Harvardiana
more Harvardiana
Fellow classics concentrators Sam Beck ’16 (left) and E.E. Cummings ’15
What one undergraduate learned
Illustration by Mark Steele
“Vagabonding,” Harvard Student Agencies, and more from the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine
Massachusetts Hall
Photograph by Muns/Wikipedia
Twenty submissions have been selected as semifinalists to replace the final line in Harvard’s alma mater.
- Puzzles
-
News
-
Current Issue
Read the current issue
November-December 2017
A young girl jumps rope on the sidewalk next to her family’s belongings after they received a court order of eviction that was carried out by McLennan County deputy constables in Waco, Texas. Families like hers are the kind of clients badly in need of legal representation—and most often unlikely to receive it.
Photograph by Larry Downing/Reuters
America’s unfulfilled promise of “equal justice under law”
-
Archives
From the archives
April 2007: Drew Gilpin Faust at her then-office as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Photograph by Jim Harrison
A Scholar in the House
Tradition and the twenty-first century were tangled together in Barker Center’s Thompson Room on the afternoon of February 11, when Drew...
-
Class Notes
To access Class Notes or Obituaries, please log in using your Harvard Magazine account and verify your alumni status.
Don't have a Harvard Magazine account? Register Here
Or submit a class note or obituary
- Classifieds
-
Donate
Show your Support for
Harvard MagazineYour donation today ensures that Harvard Magazine can continue to provide high-quality content and remain an editorially independent source of news about the Harvard community.
September-October 2016
Letters
Readers comment on Harvard and slavery, scientists and sex, final clubs, Seamus Heaney, and more
President Faust on Harvard Divinity School's bicentennial
How Harvard might better explain itself to faculty, friends, and the world at large
A distinctive Harvard Magazine voice remembered
Welcoming an accomplished new editorial colleague
The College Pump
Robert M. Pennoyer, age 19, on duty in 1944
Photograph courtesy of Robert M. Pennoyer
A member of the class of 1946 on the horrors, and humor, of World War II.
Treasure
Common thistle (Cirsium vulgare) found in an open pasture in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 1921
Image courtesy of the Harvard University Herbaria
Digitized herbaria collections data allow researchers to predict future plant ranges.
In this Issue
Illustration by Andrew MacGregor
Colson Whitehead ’91 plays for higher stakes in his new novel.
Illustration by Adam Niklewicz
Making the case for charter schools and other choice options to boost educational performance
George Bucknam Dorr on the Beachcroft Path on Huguenot Head
Photograph courtesy of Friends of Acadia and the National Park Service and NPS/Archive
Brief life of a persistent conservationist: 1853-1944
As Jerry Mitrovica demonstrates, the weight of ice sheets in polar regions can actually flatten the earth’s rocky mantle, altering the speed of the planet’s rotation and changing sea levels.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Connecting climate change to the planet’s shifting crust
Nancy Rosenblum in her Greenwich Village apartment building
Portrait by Robert Adam Mayer
Nancy Rosenblum studies neighbors and the power of proximity.
Letters
Readers comment on Harvard and slavery, scientists and sex, final clubs, Seamus Heaney, and more
President Faust on Harvard Divinity School's bicentennial
How Harvard might better explain itself to faculty, friends, and the world at large
A distinctive Harvard Magazine voice remembered
Welcoming an accomplished new editorial colleague
Right Now
Illustration by Wesley Bedrosian
Evolution shaped humans to rest—and to run only when absolutely necessary.
A 3-D printer “draws” a coiled antenna in the air. What allows the printer to work this way is a laser that hardens an “ink” of silver nanoparticles as they emerge from the nozzle.
Image courtesy of Mark Skylar-Scott
A new kind of 3-D printer forms wires in midair.
Anthony Jack is interested in diversity among low-income students.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Sociologist Anthony Jack studies two types of low-income students.
Harvard Squared
The Saugus Iron Works sits on a tidal basin about a 10-minute drive off Interstate 95.
Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service
The Saugus Iron Works highlights early U.S. industrial history
Workers flood the cranberry bog, then collect and bag the berries that float to the top.
Photograph by Andrew W. Griffith/A.D. Maekpeace Company
Learn how New England’s iconic berries are cultivated at this annual event.
Harold Edgerton captured the interface between art and science, as in his photograph of a bullet passing through an apple.
Image courtesy of the Bruce Museum
The Bruce Museum highlights “Science in Motion” in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Figureheads, like this 1970s reproduction, often adorned fire stations in the 1800s.
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC
Children and adults alike are drawn to this eclectic array of firefighting artifacts.
Sevan’s Murat and Nuran Chavushian hold up a batch of feta.
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Ethnic markets serve up a world of food.
John Harvard's Journal
Assembling the Harvard Life Lab, on Western Avenue, at the edge of the Business School campus
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Harvard's sweeping building boom.
Michael Brenner
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Applied mathematician Michael Brenner on not knowing anything
An existing frame home begins its transformation into the new Winthrop House faculty dean’s residence.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Three projects in, some physical and financial assessments
Illustration by Mark Steele
From the pages of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine
Douglas Elmendorf
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
New HKS dean Douglas Elmendorf talks progressive policy and economics.
“P” with Mary surrounded by 12 stars, from Richard de Saint-Laurent, De laudibus beatae Mariae virginis, late 1200s
Courtesy of Wellesley College
Little-known treasures from Houghton Library and other collections
Advocate editors playing to the camera circa 1900-1910
Courtesy of Harvard University Archives
The Harvard Advocate turns 150.
Chao Center
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Chao Center, a Law School alumnus as vice-presidential nominee, sexual-assault lexicon, Gen Ed transition, and more
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JB
Continuing challenges to undergraduate-admissions policies, and diversifying faculties
The magazine’s Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellows for the 2016-2017 academic year will be Matthew Browne ’17 and Lily Scherlis ’18.
Photograph by Stu Rosner
The magazine's Ledecky Fellows provide an undergraduate perspective.
Anne Cheng
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Anne Cheng anchors Harvard's new golf prowess.
Montage
Could Science Prove There’s a God? (2014) is part of artist Judith Brodsky's ongoing series about science and philosophy, The Twenty Most Important Scientific Questions of the 21st Century.
Image courtesy of Judith Brodsky
From the beginning, artist and advocate Judith Brodsky felt “pulls in different directions.”
Composer Nicholas Britell has written scores for films including Moonlight, A Tale of Love and Darkness, and The Seventh Fire. He is also a pianist and producer (most recently of Whiplash, by Damien Chazelle ’07).
Courtesy of Nicholas Britell
A film composer's career, from annotating Sneakers to doing “archaeology” for 12 Years a Slave
Autumn harvest: a honeybee on Solidago gigantea (goldenrod)
Photograph by Helga R. Heilmann
Thomas D. Seeley on the craft and science of bee hunting
Melanerpes lewis, Meriwether Lewis’s woodpecker, in the MCZ’s collections
Photograph by Mark Sloan/Courtesy of the Museum of Comparative Zoology/Harvard University
Recent books with Harvard connections
Joseph Finder at the Boston Athenaeum, a membership library. The private investigator hero of his Nick Heller series is also based in the city, where Finder lives with his family.
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Joseph Finder makes technology the texture of his new thriller, Guilty Minds.
Illustration by James Steinberg
A focused briefing on degree-attainment, democracy, and economic opportunity
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words
Alumni
Posing with a tool of the trade, Alcorn can revel in her job’s reflection of film noir.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Boston-based private investigator Sarah Alcorn is “a bit of an oddball in this business.”
Martin J. Grasso Jr.
Photograph by Jim Harrison
President Martin J. Grasso boosts alumni volunteerism.
The Harvard Club of Boston’s renovated Harvard Hall foyer
Photograph by Richard Mandelkorn/The Harvard Club of Boston
The Harvard Club of Boston’s makeover, and new president
(From left) Annalee Perez ’17 and Brittany Wang ’17
Courtesy of the Harvard Alumni Association
The Aloian Memorial Scholars contribute to House life.
Harvard Alumni Association awards honor volunteer service to the University.
Paul Zeitz visiting with Proof School students last fall
A private San Francisco middle school and high school nurture a passion for numbers.
The College Pump
Robert M. Pennoyer, age 19, on duty in 1944
Photograph courtesy of Robert M. Pennoyer
A member of the class of 1946 on the horrors, and humor, of World War II.
Treasure
Common thistle (Cirsium vulgare) found in an open pasture in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 1921
Image courtesy of the Harvard University Herbaria
Digitized herbaria collections data allow researchers to predict future plant ranges.