News Archive

November 2009

The cause behind the characteristic shape of a long leaf revealed

By stretching a foam ribbon and dissecting leaves, a mathematical model emerges

Learning’s online fate

The digital age challenges teachers, teaching, books (Harvard Gazette)

David Clarke named life member of the American Ceramic Society

Honor recognizes his achievements in the ceramic arts and sciences and service to the society

Mimicking the building prowess of nature

Joanna Aizenberg builds new materials using inspiration from complex biological forms (Technology Review)

The Lab at Harvard opens its doors to innovation

Opening for The Lab, an experiment designed to foster and celebrate creativity across the arts and sciences, attracted crowds and curiosity

Materials scientists see glass creation in new light

Colloidal fluid model provides "tremendous insight" not possible with conventional means

Flying to the ends of the earth

Steve Wofsy leads a NOAA mission to measure greenhouse gases around the globe (NOAA News)

Undergrads think local to win big

Deals and discounts mobile app wins grand prize in AT&T Big Mobile On Campus Challenge

October 2009

Optical traps light the way

Crozier lab's enlightening devices could advance a range of diagnostic tools (Technology Review)

Making a difference

HUD secretary Shaun Donovan '87 (Engineering Sciences) shares his devotion to public service (Harvard Gazette)

SEAS grad student wins award for fuel cell research

Masaru Tsuchiya '09 awarded the 2009 Bernard S. Baker Student Award

Nanoscientists bend the once straight and narrow

New 'stereocenters' introduce triangular joints into otherwise linear nanomaterials

Celebrating Public Service Week at Harvard

From holiday lectures to hands-on help, the SEAS community answers the call

Team moves from stem cells to functioning strip of heart muscle

Engineering feat is a giant step toward the possibility of using human stem cells to repair damaged hearts

Scientists decipher 3-D structure of human genome

Fractal globule architecture packs two meters of DNA into each human cell, avoids knots

Parker lab mends hearts, tackles an 'invisible' trauma

The team from the Disease Biophysics Lab is featured in the Boston Globe and Men's Journal

Anthony Oettinger receives National Intelligence Medallion

Recognizes his role as Chairman of the Intelligence Science Board

Donald Ingber cited for outstanding achievements

Wyss founding director and SEAS faculty member awarded the Biomedical Engineering Society’s prestigious Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship for 2009

September 2009

Pioneer of ocean modeling and dynamics, Allan R. Robinson dies at 76

Deep thinker, consummate mentor and teacher, was a founding father of geophysical fluid dynamics

Zhigang Suo honored with Humboldt Research Award

Award is conferred in recognition of lifetime achievements in research and the awardee is invited to carry out projects in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany

L. Mahadevan wins MacArthur "genius" grant

Applied mathematician recognized for investigating everything from how a flag flutters to how the Venus flytrap snaps

Harnessing fun for serious science

Graphics processing units provide computational horsepower at SEAS and Harvard (Harvard Gazette)

Five SEAS students named 2010 Siebel Scholars

Siebel Scholars program recognizes outstanding graduate students from the world’s most prestigious business, computer science, and bioengineering graduate schools

Robotic grasper grabs worldwide exclusive license

Barrett Technology announces agreement to acquire exclusive rights to a polymer-based robotic-hand technology

Environmental scientists say China could meet future energy needs by wind alone

Study suggests that wind is ecologically and economically practical and could reduce CO2 emissions

Humans and computers connect in Discovery Room

New ways to manipulate large data sets envisioned (Harvard Gazette)

Eating by breathing

A Harvard biomedical engineer has come up with a new kind of dining experience, one that has the potential to revolutionize how we look at food (Boston Magazine)

August 2009

From physics to solid-state circuits, faculty member makes his mark

Donhee Ham appointed Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics; granted tenure

Coming home

Q&A with Kit Parker, Associate Professor of Bioengineering and US Army Major (Boston Globe)

Muscular blob suggests new direction for tissue engineering

A quivering blob of muscle proteins in a Harvard lab could lead to controllable biomaterials to replace damaged body tissue (New Scientist)

Erez Lieberman-Aiden recognized as among world's top young innovators

Technology Review honors graduate student whose interests span everything from the evolution of language to molecular biology

Bioengineer Debra Auguste awarded Young Faculty Award from DARPA

Grant will support research on understanding colloid morphogenesis

Research team receives $10M NSF grant to fund the development of small-scale mobile robotic devices

Using Nature as inspiration, scientists aim to advance micro-manufacturing, ultra-low-power computing, and multi-agent coordination

Crozier lab propels gold nanoparticles

Major step in understanding how to manipulate nanoparticles using optical forces from surface plasmons (Nature Nanotechnology)

Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Center for Research on Computation and Society join fellowship programs

Integration will foster multidisciplinary research opportunities at Harvard University

July 2009

Biophysicist Daniel Needleman wins prestigious NSF CAREER award

Grant will support research on physical aspects of spindle self-organization

Scientists expect wildfires to increase as climate warms in the coming decades

Resulting smoke and other particles from more fires could diminish air quality

Modified black silicon ("pink") might lead to mass-produced photo detectors

Material with unique optoelectronic properties pushes the limits of silicon (Technology Review)

Two at SEAS win Presidential Early Career Awards

Rob Wood and Patrick Wolfe recognized for "exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge"

June 2009

McElroy and team assess global wind power

Could harness enough power to supply more than 40 times present-day levels of electricity consumption (Boston Globe)

Computer scientists develop model for studying tissue networks by cell division

Provides insights about how systems achieve robustness from seemingly random behavior

SEAS professor leaves lab for Afghan deployment

Bioengineer Kit Parker balances life in the lab with time on the battlefield (AP Wire)

Meet "water guy" John Briscoe

Read a profile of the joint appointee at SEAS/HSPH (Harvard Gazette) and tune in to a podcast interview (Bloomberg News)

2009 Harvard Commencement

90 undergrads and 81 grad students at SEAS to receive degrees

Hanspeter Pfister is a co-winner of 2009 Petra T. Shattuck Award in teaching

Annual award established by the Harvard Extension in memory of Dr. Petra T. Shattuck, a distinguished teacher

Athlete, scholar, humanitarian

Andrew Berry '09 will be receiving an A.B. in economics and an M.S. in computer science (Harvard Gazette: Faces of the Future)

May 2009

Joost Vlassak explores properties of materials

Materials scientist helps academia and industry understand how materials stand up to a variety of conditions (Harvard Gazette)

Harvard hosts science across city

Kathryn Hollar, director of educational programs SEAS, organized the day’s events (Harvard Gazette)

Vadhan shares ACM's 2009 Godel Prize for zig-zag graph

Discovery is important for robust networks and theories of error-correcting codes (ACM)

Khaneja devises new pulse probes for details about molecules

Profile highlights work on nuclear magnetic resonance (Harvard Gazette)

Applied physicists demonstrate role of dielectrics in nanowire devices

Finding has potential to optimize performance of nanowire devices

April 2009

Lene Hau elected American Academy of Arts & Sciences Fellow

She is among 18 Harvard faculty members and affiliates elected to the 2009 class

Michael Brenner appointed associate dean

Brenner will oversee Applied Mathematics

Scientists demonstrate laser with controlled polarization

Innovation opens the door to a wide range of applications in photonics and communications

ES 96 students tackle reducing campus green house emissions

Solutions include green dorms, eco-friendly cooling, and smart grids (Sustainability at Harvard)

Breathable chocolate debuts

Bioengineer David Edwards launches Le Whif, a culinary art experiment originating with the help of Harvard students (Boston.com)

Harvard recognized by NVIDIA as a CUDA Center of Excellence

Highlights pioneering work using GPU computing for teaching and research

Narayanamurti named director of Sci, Tech, & Public Policy Program at Kennedy School's Belfer Center

Former SEAS dean succeeds John Holdren

March 2009

Innovators shine at I3 challenge

Student entrepreneurs awarded $80,000 in prize money to help spur idea translation (Harvard Crimson)

Barbara J. Grosz wins the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell award

Prestigious Honor from ACM/AAAI Recognizes Career Contributions in Bridging Computer Science with Other Fields

Cherry A. Murray is named dean of SEAS

Former Bell Labs exec will start July 1

Computer scientists deploy first practical, web-based secure, verifiable voting system

Helios used for the presidential election at Université Catholique de Louvain

February 2009

ES&T names paper by Martin and Na among best of 2008

Finding sheds new light on variability that nanostructures create on mineral surfaces

Colleen Hansel wins Faculty Early Career Development award

$212,000 NSF CAREER Award to support work in the emerging field of geomycology

Howard Stone elected to NAE

Election is among the highest professional distinctions for engineers

January 2009

Steve Wofsy chats about HIAPER

High-tech jet will conduct real-time sampling of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses from pole-to-pole (NSF)

Electrical engineer Marko Loncar wins prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Grants will support research on nanoscale optomechanics

Implants mimic Infection to rally immune system against tumors

Subcutaneous antigen-laden disks successfully marshal T cells against deadly melanoma

SEAS IT implements application streaming with Intel

Aims to simplify the deployment of scientific applications to students and faculty

Researchers control assembly of nanobristles into helical clusters

Finding has potential use in energy and info storage, photonics, adhesion, capture and release systems, and chemical mixing

Researchers measure elusive repulsive force from quantum fluctuations

Exotic force could lead to a wide range of nanomechanical devices based on quantum levitation

IEEE Software names Greg Morrisett's paper among 25th anniversary top picks

"Attacking Malicious Code" considered a classic in computer security