Faculty & Community

Insights into groundbreaking faculty research, innovative projects, and academic thought leadership across Harvard’s schools and institutes.

Alan Garber speaking at a podium in Memorial Church, with wooden panels in the background.

In Sermon, Garber Urges Harvard Community to ‘Defend and Protect’ Institutions

Harvard’s president uses traditional Memorial Church address to encourage divergent views.

by Jonathan Shaw

Life Sciences, Applied

Bioengineering--at the intersection of biology, medical science, and engineering--is where scientists Joseph Vacanti, Pamela Silver, Kit Parker, David Mooney, Joanna Aizenberg, and Radhika Nagpal are defining a new field.

by Courtney Humphries

Rosa Estrella Ortega Roa has big plans for the unit where she lives with her two-year-old grandson. Although the walls and ceiling of her kitchen are still unfinished... [click the images below for more]

For Santiago's Poor, Housing with Dignity

An innovative housing initiative with deep Harvard ties lets families in Chile who once lived illegally become homeowners.

Thomas Kane

Studying Schooling

Two new education centers, run by Roland Fryer and Thomas Kane, and an existing center, run by Paul Peterson, bring Harvard’s analytic resources to bear on public education issues: student achievement, teacher recruitment, and school choice.

Retirement Engine Rebuilt

Skeptical of both defined-benefit and defined-contribution retirement plans, Harvard Business School professor Robert Merton proposes a hybrid, SmartNest, to overcome the shortcomings of each.

by Paul Gleason

This image shows small brown-fat cells—which burn energy as heat—interspersed among larger white-fat cells, which store energy. The former are stained brown here; their natural color, which results from the density of mitochondria, would not be visible in this thin cross-section of tissue. (The blue staining marks cell nuclei.)

The Fit Fat

Harvard Medical School’s Bruce Spiegelman studies brown fat, a little-known type of tissue with health-promoting potential.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Does Thinking Make It So?

In The Cure Within, historian of science Anne Harrington explores the medical history of the mind-body connection.

by Erin O’Donnell

Habeas Corpus and the War on Terrorism

In the fight against terrorists, habeas corpus has played a key role in efforts to balance civil liberties against national security.

by Jonathan Shaw

Counterterrorism and Democracy

The most effective ways to fight terrorism do not involve important tradeoffs between security and democratic principles.

Howard Stone with audience members

Sweet Science

Using chocolate as their medium, Harvard scientists illustrate principles of physics and chemistry for children and their parents at a free public lecture—samples included.

A jumbo touchscreen allows the person running an experiment to control what appears on participants' screens.

Where Decisionmaking Is Measured

A new interdisciplinary decision-science lab will host experiments from psychology, economics, and beyond.