Features

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Harvard Commencement 2025

Harvard passes a test of its values, yet challenges loom.

by Jonathan Shaw

Biographical sketch of French artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

A brief profile of an enterprising French artist

by Laura Auricchio

Latanya Sweeney

The erosion of privacy in the Internet era

The erosion of privacy in the Internet era

by Jonathan Shaw

This portrait of Smith forms part of a mural, by Nelson Chase, that decorates the Aesculapian Room of the Harvard Club of Boston.

Theobald Smith

A brief profile of the pioneering comparative pathologist

by Steven M. Niemi

Michael McCormick

Sexual apartheid in medieval England

Cutting-edge science helps historians push further and more fully into the past.

by Jonathan Shaw

All in a day’s treatment: Khaled, seen in these photographs with hemapheresis practitioner Beverly Gedutis, R.N., and author David Nathan, spent May 8 at Children’s Hospital Boston, where for decades he has been transfused with red blood cells every three weeks. The bottles he carries below contain the iron chelator deferisirox.

Lessons from an Unexpected Life

One patient’s struggle with chronic illness highlights the complexities of modern medicine and the healthcare challenge.

Scenes from Havana, taken in March 2007

Cuba

Raúl Castro is changing Cuba. Will the United States respond?

Agee as an aspiring writer at Harvard, cigarette and Dostoevsky's <em>The Posses

Vistas of Perfection

A profile of writer James Agee, at Harvard and beyond

by Adam Kirsch

Andy Borowitz

April Fool Every Day

Comedian Andy Borowitz ’80 has moved from Hollywood success to a multifaceted life as a humorist in New York.

by Craig Lambert

Caroline Farrar Ware

A brief profile of the activist and scholar

by Anne Firor Scott

A human fibroblast—part of the body’s connective tissue—sits on a bed of vertical nanowires in this image from a scanning electron microscope. Hongkun Park and his colleagues hope that the nanowires, which penetrate the cell without harming it, can be a way to introduce genes into cells without the use of an engineered virus or invasive delivery method. One application could be adding a set of genes to fibroblasts that “reprogram” them to act like stem cells.

Untangling the Brain

Three Harvard scholars trained in chemistry and physics pursue innovative approaches and tools that address problems in neuroscience.

by Courtney Humphries