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The Undergraduate: The Scientist’s Daughter
My mother has a theory on exactly where she went wrong. We can pinpoint the moment precisely: I was eight, and she brought home an oversized, illustrated children’s anthology of Greek myths. I became obsessed. During long car rides, I would retell the …
Issue: July-August 2015
Topping Off
The final beam of the Science and Engineering Complex in Allston was lowered into place on an unseasonably warm day this November. For years, I have watched the building come into focus in artist renderings and architectural blueprints. Standing at its …
Issue: March-April 2018
Harvard's Black-Hole Debunker
Kareem El-Badry smiles as he recites one of his favorite quotes: “It’s not the things you don’t know that hurt you. It’s the things you think you know but just ain’t so.” The paraphrased line, often attributed to Mark Twain, has guided El-Badry’s thinking …
Toward a Zika Vaccine
Researchers have made a surprising discovery in their search for a vaccine against Zika, a virus that can cause pregnant women to bear children with small heads (microcephaly) and other birth defects. The disease has infected more than 5,000 people from …
Lighting the World
During the past few decades, colorful abstractions by Ellen Carey have exemplified the Greek origins of the word photography— pho - s for light, graphis for drawing. “I capture light working with film and chemistry” while mining the materiality of the …
Issue: November-December 2023
Take a Break
Anyone taking a late-day stroll in search of coffee or tea and something sweet would notice that Harvard Square has moved happily beyond the multiple Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts outlets—but almost to a ludicrous point. Most lavish are newcomers Tatte …
Issue: May-June 2017
Baking Sourdough Bread Is a Survival Instinct
When Noah Evers ’22 ran into problems with his final project for Psychology 15 (“Social Psychology”) during the spring 2020 semester, he went not to his professor for advice, but to his grandmother. It wasn’t a bad idea. Psychologist Patricia Marks …
Rebuilding or Reloading?
It was either sheer inertia or a heartfelt tribute to Tim Murphy that made the voters in the Ivy League’s preseason football poll place two-time defending champion Harvard on top again for 2016. More likely it was the latter; in his 22 seasons on the …
Issue: November-December 2016
Final-Clubs Battle Rejoined
Following a year of sharp debate within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) over the proposed sanctioning of undergraduates who join final clubs or other unrecognized single-gender social organizations (USGSOs) , the divisions now appear likely to …
Social Club Ban?
In July , a Harvard committee recommended banning students from joining any final club or other unrecognized social organization, whether gender neutral in its membership practices or not. The ban, modeled on one at Williams College, would take effect …
Issue: September-October 2017
"Wade in the Water"
“Giving care is an ultimate act of love and hope, and hope is an act of communion,” said associate professor Dr. Joia Mukherjee, M.P.H. ’01 at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) Class Day ceremony today. …
Arctic Meltdown Turns Up the Heat
At the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) , researchers have found that rising temperatures and thawing permafrost in the northern region of the Alaskan tundra are leading to increased emissions of carbon dioxide into the …
Women, Working
When Harvard Business School's Baker Library amassed the bulk of its manuscript collection in the first half of the twentieth century, curators were mostly interested in big businesses and well-known industrialists. "Search aids and cataloging records did …
Issue: January-February 2002
Harvard Launches Center for LGBTQ Health
The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute announced the launch of a new LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence on June 4, in partnership with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). Citing both the LGBTQ community’s growing size in the US and the …
Harvard on Housing
Deepening its involvement in Boston and Cambridge, Harvard has pledged financial support for affordable housing in the two cities. At a news conference held November 10 before an enthusiastic audience that included both cities' mayors, state …