SEAS alumna Joanne Chang ’91, owner of Flour Bakery & Cafe, prepared the enormous cake for Harvard’s 375th birthday party in October. (Photo by Rose Lincoln, Harvard News Office.)
Summer 2011
SEAS announced the creation of a graduate secondary field in Computational Science and Engineering .
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law and Computer Science, was named a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence of the Federal Commission.
Materials scientists and applied physicists at SEAS created a device that can identify unknown liquids based on surface tension.
Jim Waldo, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, was named Chief Technology Officer for Harvard University.
Michelle Borkin (A.B. ’06), Erez Lieberman Aiden (Ph.D. ’09), and Jean-Baptiste Michel (S.M. ’06, Ph.D. ’10) presented research on "astronomical medicine" and "culturomics" at TEDxBoston (videos here and here ).
A conference at SEAS celebrated the 80th birthday of Professor Michael Rabin, one of the most prominent computer scientists of the past 50 years.
Bioengineers led by Kevin Kit Parker, Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, identified the cellular mechanisms of traumatic brain injury .
September 2011
SEAS announced the appointment of five new faculty members: Ryan Adams , David Keith , Eddie Kohler , Jelani Nelson , and Conor Walsh.
The Science & Cooking Public Lecture Series returned to Harvard, featuring highly popular talks by guest chefs from around the world.
The HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations project, led by Professor Steve Wofsy, completed its 3-year series of research flights. The resulting data paint a complete and vivid portrait of the atmosphere.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India and current Chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, gave a talk at SEAS on the future of engineering.
Applied physicists led by Professor Federico Capasso and visiting scholar Zeno Gaburro created a new device called a phase mirror , producing bizarre optical phenomena from a flat surface.
(Photo courtesy of Nanfang Yu.)
October 2011
Harvard University celebrated its 375th birthday with a major celebration. Despite pouring rain, faculty, staff, and students glowed with SEAS pride in light-up t-shirts bearing the School’s shield.
A team of engineers and physicists led by Marko Loncar captured light in nanoscale diamond pillars and released a stream of single photons at a controllable rate. The achievement represents progress toward quantum computing.
Computational scientists at SEAS demonstrated a new tool called HemoVis , which improves clinical diagnostic accuracy for heart disease from 39% to 91% (compared to traditional methods) simply by changing the graphical presentation of data.
Harvard’s deans gathered to cut the gigantic H-shaped cake at the University’s 375th birthday party. (Photo by Jon Chase, Harvard News Office.)
November 2011
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg returned to campus to recruit computer science students for coveted jobs and internships.
A team of computer scientists at Harvard, BU, and Yale identified a security leak in Yelp’s mobile website. (The problem was resolved within a day).
Experts in control systems and robotics developed and successfully licensed a swarm of Kilobots , small autonomous robots that can collaborate to perform simple tasks.
SEAS hosted a week-long symposium , with BASF, on the future of nanotherapies in medicine.
The Harvard Innovation Lab officially opened its doors with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Harvard President Drew Faust and Boston Mayor Tom Menino.
December 2011
SEAS’ most popular Gen-Ed course wrapped up with the annual Science & Cooking Fair, featuring student projects that included tofu pâté, sinking ice, artificial raspberries, and all-egg noodles.
Applied physicists led by Vinothan Manoharan discovered that Pickering emulsions, common in food products and cosmetics, may take years to fully stabilize. The process was thought to be instantaneous.
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