The Scoop
Brittany Charlton’s Fight for Funds
In January, speaking out would have endangered both Brittany Charlton’s professional work and threatened the center’s longevity. However, when the funding cuts were announced, Charlton felt she had nothing to lose. She made the decision to fire her executive director, who had only joined the team a few months ago. On April 2, she sued the NIH.
‘Killing a Generation of Scientists’: Two HMS Researchers on the Toll of Funding Cuts
Harvard School of Public Health professor Nancy Krieger ’80 tells a similarly sudden story. At 5:45 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28 — the evening that the first terminations began — Krieger received a letter from the NIH saying that her grant, which funded a study on ways to analyze the impacts of discrimination on health, had been canceled.
Environmental Concentrators Are on Unsteady Ground
Students and faculty in environmental fields recognize that public sector jobs, particularly within the federal government, are less available and less stable. “Scrambling is probably the right word,” says Eamon C. C. OCearuil ’25, an ESPP concentrator and peer concentration advisor.
From Coop to Campus
During Cas Li’s sophomore year, they began selling eggs from their family’s backyard chicken coop in Haverhill, Massachusetts on the Currierwire email list.
Room & Bored? — Inside Harvard’s Twelve Housing Lotteries
While Housing Day is governed by a centralized algorithm, Houses’ upperclassman lotteries are far from standardized.
Seeing Your Future Self with Future You AI
How much can an AI chatbot tell you about your future based on the choices you make?
Peggy Yin portrait
Peggy Y. Yin ’25 is part of a team that designed the AI chat platform Future You, which she describes as "a tool that allows people to explore different possibilities of their future."
Parsing the Past of Our Present in History 10
The new gateway course, which aims to expose students to different ways of doing, practicing, and talking about history, was advertised on Canvas under the headline: “Not your high school history class!”
Rich Losick portrait
Molecular and Cellular Biology professor Richard M. Losick views the Bio Labs as a "Nobel incubator."
AI glasses vertical portrait
Ardayfio and Nguyen argue that their “awareness campaign” has taught people how easily others can access their personal information on the internet, challenging people’s assumptions of how they should act and whom they should trust in public.
Could Strangers Become a Thing of the Past?
Media outlets have framed Caine A. Ardayfio ’25-26 and AnhPhu D. Nguyen ’25-26 as architects of a terrifying doxxing device. But the pair argue that their new facial recognition glasses are a “public awareness campaign.”
Caine Ardayfio portrait
I-XRAY leverages the recording function in the smart glasses to feed video footage directly to users’ phones via an Instagram livestream. An algorithm written by Ardayfio and Nguyen then detects faces in the footage and prompts face search engines to scour the internet for matching images.
Is the Bio Lab a “Nobel Incubator?”
To Molecular and Cellular Biology professor Richard M. Losick, an intense culture focused on scientific excellence had resulted in the Bio Labs becoming a “Nobel incubator." But colleagues of his disagree.
AI Glasses Cover Photo
Caine A. Ardayfio '25-'26 and AnhPhu D. Nguyen '25-'26 met in a makerspace their freshman year. Now, the pair have created a pair of AI sunglasses that can provide wearers with information about strangers.
Third Floor Biolabs
The third floor of Bio Labs has had a long history of hosting Nobel Prize winners, though some professors contest using the awards as a metric for the floor's success.
Quincy house aides photo
In Quincy, house aides bake in bulk for the faculty deans’ famous open houses, cook for events such as “Feast and Film,” and organize Quincy’s Junior Family Weekend.
House or Home? Recent Grads’ Strategies of Stickin’ Around
No more than four rooms in the dorms or in faculty deans’ residences of each house are earmarked every year for these people who love Harvard so much that they stay, simultaneously building community and operating in the shadows.
Resurrecting Film Photography in the Eliot House Basement
When Elmer and Social Studies lecturer Bonnie Talbert stepped into the position of Eliot’s faculty deans earlier this year, they wanted to bring a piece of themselves into House life. So Elmer decided to resurrect the abandoned Eliot darkroom and teach a House seminar on film photography.
Want to Become a Lorax? A New Course Rethinks Environmental Rights
In their new course, “The Rights of Nature,” visiting Law School professor James Salzman and American History and Harvard Law School professor Jill Lepore investigate a burgeoning American legal movement known as the Rights of Nature. The movement argues that granting legal personhood to wildlife and natural features could help stave off environmental destruction.
The Academic Policing of Academics on Policing
In 2022, professors Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani argued that to reduce violent crime, the U.S. needs to drastically shorten its prison sentences — and increase its police force by half a million officers. Their ideas soon become a flashpoint of online discourse.
Right to Read Exhibit
At the Harvard Law School library’s latest exhibit, “Challenging Our Right to Read,” controversial books, formerly resigned to the shadows, are once again on display — right beside the objections raised against them.