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Stephanie Gil Helps Robots Work Better Together
Stephanie Gil’s first exposure to robot teams didn’t even happen on this planet. During her freshman year at Cornell, she interned with NASA and participated in the agency’s Mars Exploration Rover mission. NASA sent two robots named “Spirit” and …
A Wildlife Painter's Fantastic Beasts
When the conversation turns to frogs, wildlife artist Bradley Scott Davis ’97 starts talking faster. “Now, this guy right here,” he says—pointing to a recently completed painting on his studio wall, loosely abstract and thickly textured, depicting a …
Issue: March-April 2022
Brevia
Peak Professors John Y. Campbell John H. Coatsworth Justin Ide / Harvard News Office Justin Ide / Harvard News Office The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has recognized four members for excellence in undergraduate teaching and advising. Each becomes a …
Issue: July-August 2006
Looking for the Real Stan Lee
Sometime in the mid-1980s, comics, a centuries-old art form, became legitimate. Prompted by a sudden influx of adult-themed and thematically heavy works like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen , critics, seemingly with one …
Issue: March-April 2022
HMS Names Barbara McNeil Acting Dean
Barbara J. McNeil, Watts professor of health care policy and professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), has been appointed acting dean of the faculty of medicine beginning August 1, Harvard president Drew Faust and provost Alan Garber …
Universities in a Polarized Era
Speaking at the first Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting of the new semester this afternoon, President Lawrence S. Bacow addressed the polarization of American politics—including the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and fierce criticism of the …
Alexander Gassel’s “Painted Poetry”
At first glance, the more romantic paintings by Alexander Gassel could simply be storybook illustrations. Entranced lovers stand in a boat rocked by waves. Angels crane against a dark night. The swirling Madonna envelops her child amid blossoms. Yet the …
Issue: May-June 2021
Clothes Overboard!
The first hot-air balloon trip across the English Channel began buoyantly. “We rose slowly and majestically from the Cliff,” wrote John Jeffries, A.B. 1763. A “beautiful assembly” cheered on the Boston-born medical doctor and his more expert partner, …
Issue: May-June 2021
A New Day for Dunster
Smelling of fresh paint , and with the tags still dangling off the Herman Miller furniture, Dunster House welcomed students back on August 29 following 15 months of physical renewal. With construction under way since June 2014, the Dunster community had …
Curricular Conundrums
During the past decade, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has labored mightily and at length to construct a workable general-education component for undergraduates’ course of study. At present, Gen Ed comprises eight courses intended to lift young …
Issue: March-April 2016
Putting the Music in Musical Theater
Last spring, during the height of the pandemic’s catastrophic first wave in New York City—the streets empty, the air full of ambulance sirens—musical-theater composer Zoe Sarnak ’09 wrote a new song. Titled “Storm” and commissioned by the Guggenheim …
Issue: July-August 2021
Plans for Winthrop House Renewal Include Expansion
Harvard has released broad sketches of plans for the renovation of Winthrop House ; the work is scheduled to begin in 2016 and end the following year. Winthrop will be the second full House, after Dunster , to undergo renewal as part of a $1-billion-plus …
President Bacow’s Harvard Baccalaureate Remarks
Good afternoon, members of the Class of 2021, soon-to-be alumni of Harvard College. The role of the Harvard president in the Baccalaureate Service is to impart wisdom as you complete that last step in a long and sometimes difficult journey—the receipt of …
Harvard Law Dean Martha Minow to Step Down
Martha Minow, who became dean of Harvard Law School in 2009 , announced today that she would step down at the end of the academic year. Her message to the community emphasizd her plan to return to “the work of teaching and scholarship, and to more robust …
Harvard Confers 11 Undergraduate Degrees
Harvard has conferred degrees on 11 undergraduates who were denied their diplomas on May 23 because they were suspended or placed on probation for violating University standards pertaining to the statement of rights and responsibilities for actions …