Each year, the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research hosts the Harvard Symposium on Aging with a mission to present new advances in aging research and to stimulate collaborative research in this area. The symposium has become a significant forum for aging research at Harvard Medical School.
Harvard's Center for International Development—Online
Join Harvard University’s Center for International Development (CID) for its flagship Global Empowerment Meeting, where change-makers from academia, government, business, civil society, and philanthropy will gather to share insights and develop action-focused strategies and solutions to combat climate change.
GEM23: Growing in a Green World will explore different dimensions of climate change, with a particular lens on both the challenges and opportunities emerging from developing countries. The emphasis will be on action so that we have pathways to pursue evidence – driven...
Climate change is actively harming human health — not in some distant future, but now, in communities around the globe. The more we understand these harms, the better we can confront and overcome them. That’s the goal of this symposium.
We’re bringing together leading scientists, policy makers, and activists to examine our most urgent challenges and explore the most promising solutions. The audience will include professionals from a wide array of disciplines engaged in issues of climate, health, and environmental justice. We expect the afternoon to inform and inspire, to spark...
Online or at Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
Join us for "The Future of Climate Action: A Conversation with Gina McCarthy".
Speakers:
Gina McCarthy, the first-ever White House National Climate Advisor and former US EPA administrator.
James Stock, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University; the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University.
Chair:
Melani Cammett, Center Director; Harvard Academy Senior Scholar (on leave 2022–2023). Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Department of...
The Arnold Arboretum's sesquicentennial Director's Series traces the Arnold’s significance in the landscape architecture movement, value for the people of Boston, and leadership in creating global connections between plants and people.
Panelists include:
Dr. Michelle Kondo, Research Social Scientist, UDSA-Forest Service
Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space, City of Boston
Laurence Cotton, Consulting Producer, “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing...
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
Join the CfA live from the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, DC to learn about exciting new results from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), the team that brought us the first-ever image of a black hole!
Moderated by Smithsonian Under Secretary for Science and Research and former Chief Scientist at NASA, Dr. Ellen Stofan, this event will be live streamed and is open to the public. Panelists will include Shep Doeleman, founding director of the EHT; Kari Haworth chief technology officer of the CfA; and astrophysicists Angelo Ricarte and Paul Tiede.
Harvard Division of Science, Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store—Online
By the time a baby is born, its brain is equipped with billions of intricately crafted neurons wired together through trillions of interconnections to form a compact and breathtakingly efficient supercomputer. "Zero to Birth" takes you on an extraordinary journey to the very edge of creation, from the moment of an egg’s fertilization through each step of a human brain’s development in the womb―and even a little beyond.
The Harvard Museum of Natural History inspires college students and life-long learners to explore a myriad of scientific and creative pursuits. In this program, a group of professionals discuss how their experiences in the museum inspired their careers in science communication and storytelling, while they share images and videos of their favorite museum specimens and stories.
Presented in collaboration with the Harvard University Chapter of Storywish, a student-run organization that empowers chronically ill children to read, write, and share their own...
As the world has sought to understand the causes and impacts of climate change, the topic has long been situated within the domain of science. In the 21st century, data, studies, reports, and academic/technical discourses have been the central mechanisms by which we learn about and process climate change: its consequences, our roles, and possible solutions. In recent years, however, artists and cultural institutions have developed a powerful interest in the topic and begun to employ myriad strategies by which to explore, draw attention to, and process it. There is an evolving...
Across the United States, children under the age of 18 can be tried as adults in criminal court. Although the practice is condemned by international law, we are the only country in the world that sentences young people to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the same time, recent developments in neuroscience research demonstrate that the human brain is not fully developed until after the age of 25.
This program will consider the ways we punish young people in the American criminal legal system and how our policies could be reformed. We will bring together a...
As the coronavirus pandemic enters a new phase, science that can guide vaccination prioritization and business’ return-to-work strategies are more important than ever. In this webinar, we will explore the experience of the NBA bubble, in which players were sequestered at the Walt Disney World Resort. Data from this longitudinal testing program has important implications for our understanding of the natural history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the utility of frequent testing strategies. In addition, we will discuss modeling studies that compare different...
To what extent is our future with COVID-19 knowable? As new information about the transmission, demographics, and treatment of COVID-19 emerge, epidemiologists continue to address complex data and generate new predictive models to better understand the dynamics of the virus. Join leading epidemiologists for a panel discussion as they assess the current and future state of the epidemic.
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard—Online
The Next in Science series provides an opportunity for early-career scientists whose creative, cross-disciplinary research is thematically linked to introduce their work to one another, to fellow scientists, and to nonspecialists from Harvard and the greater Boston area. The speakers in this program will discuss water’s vital role across four areas of modern inquiry: biology, earth science, public health, and the search for extraterrestrial life.
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet empire, the West faces a new era of East-West tensions. Any vision of a modern Russia integrated into the world economy and aligned in peaceful partnership with a reunited Europe has abruptly vanished. Two opposing narratives vie to explain the strategic future of Europe, one geopolitical and one economic, and both center on the same resource: natural gas. In The Bridge, Thane Gustafson, an expert on Russian oil and gas, argues that the political rivalries that capture the lions share of media attention...
Difficult times are upon us. Central Asian states are dealing with the outbreak of COVID-19 and bracing for the second “tsunami wave” – the impact of the pandemic on their economies. With borders sealed, supply chain interrupted, prices on natural resources going down, and businesses forced to scale down or close, the unprecedented crisis requires strong and smart policies. Join Program Director Nargis Kassenova in conversation with Christian Josz, IMF Mission Chief for the Kyrgyz Republic, Roman Mogilevskii, Associate Director of the University of Central Asia Institute of Public...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
From Botox to bionic limbs, the human body is more upgradable than ever. But how much can we alter and still be human? The award-winning documentary Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement explores the social impact of human biotechnologies. Fixed rethinks “disability” and “normalcy” by exploring technologies that promise to change our bodies and minds forever. Join us for a discussion about the ethics of gene editing and disability.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
Gene editing holds extraordinary promise but also raises serious legal and ethical issues. In this science symposium, leading scientists, clinicians, and ethicists will explore case studies of particular therapies and the legal and bioethical implications of gene editing.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
The Next in Science series provides an opportunity for early-career scientists whose creative, cross-disciplinary research is thematically linked to introduce their work to one another, to fellow scientists, and to nonspecialists from Harvard and the greater Boston area. The focus of this year’s program is in the study of evolution. In this program, two leading researchers will explore the genetic impact of Neanderthal interbreeding with modern humans and consider how people migrated, adapted, and mixed over the course of human history. Two...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA
To paraphrase Louis Pasteur, sometimes luck favors the prepared mind, as when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by noticing that mold growing accidentally in his lab seemed to kill bacteria. This 2018 Radcliffe Institute science symposium will focus on how scientists explore realities they cannot anticipate. Speakers from across the disciplines of modern science will present personal experiences and discuss how to train scientists, educators, and funders to foster the expertise and open-mindedness needed to reveal undiscovered aspects of the world around us.