Leverett Gets Physical
Starting at 10:00 on Wednesday nights, Leverett House dining hall explodes with student activity. From every table in this bright, welcoming space, undergraduate voices generate the power of “Physics Night.”
Doctors in the House
Recently, a small group of undergraduates gathered in Kirkland House’s Senior Common Room with the goal of solving a medical mystery. Led by Senior Lecturer on Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience James Quattrochi, they wanted to understand what had happened to a real patient, given the pseudonym David Gramelli, while he was sculling on the Charles River.
Changing Minds: Eric M. Candell helps to find elusive connections between the brain and behavior
What happens to our brains when we change our lives? Psychotherapist Eric M. Candell ’88 has a personal and professional interest in that question, and during a recent event for Seattle alumni, he was able to discuss it with Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Jeff Lichtman, who studies the organization of the brain.
Forging Connections
When Voranaddha “Bim” Vacharathit ’10 steps from the elevator into the fourth floor of the Engineering Science Building at 40 Oxford Street, she enters a world of unexpected connections. There, Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering David Mooney’s lab brings researchers and students in biology, chemistry, materials science, and engineering together at the center of a new field—biologically inspired engineering.
Bringing Science Home
Inside a Harvard bioengineering lab, David Sengeh ’10 develops new health-care solutions for the least developed country in the world—his native Sierra Leone. Galvanized by his personal experiences and encouraged by his mentor, David Edwards, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering, Sengeh “translates” his own ideas into action.
Mentoring One-on-One
One student sticks out in Kelly Heffner’s memory of her first semester as a teaching fellow: sophomore Katie Fifer ’08 seemed particularly pessimistic about “Introduction to Computer Science.” “She seemed upset about having to take the class and exacting about what she was learning,” Heffner, now a third-year doctoral student, recalls.
Open Space for Expansive Teaching: New undergraduate science laboratory named for esteemed FAS Dean Jeremy R. Knowles
Taking shape within the massive Northwest Science Building, the Jeremy R. Knowles Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory is a new kind of research lab. Named for the late chemist who led the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1991 to 2002, the lab is the latest manifestation of Harvard’s continuing transformation of its undergraduate science and engineering curriculum.
Considering a Cancer Vaccine
Omar Ali, a postdoctoral fellow in Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering David Mooney’s laboratory, is combining his interests in fundamental, clinical, and applied science to invent materials that could lead to vaccines against some forms of cancer. Watch his story after the break.
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