Harvard Magazine

12/19/2025

The Trump administration filed an appeal this week of the U.S. District Court ruling that had restored $2.7 billion to Harvard University in federal grants and contracts to fund the government’s research priorities.

Thursday’s long-anticipated filing came two days before the government’s deadline to file an appeal after a final judgment was entered in the court record. During the appeal window, Harvard received most of the funding it was owed for work performed on those grants and contracts.

The appeal, which had been expected, came two days before the deadline to file.

12/18/2025

The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens is Harvard University’s favorite cannibalism case.

And it’s as relevant today as ever. It raises one of the greatest moral quandaries of all time: is it acceptable to sacrifice one life to save more lives?

The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens changed the course of legal history. Here’s why it’s been fodder for countless classroom debates.

12/18/2025

At the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation's conference “After Neoliberalism: From Left to Right" from December 11-12, scholars and policymakers examined how social media, AI, and digital platforms are reshaping markets, labor, and even the way the United States is governed.

Across panels, one question surfaced repeatedly: How should societies develop policy around technologies that may, unlike most other goods and services, have the capacity to undermine democracy itself?

Experts debate whether markets alone should govern tech in the U.S.

12/16/2025

Physician and researcher Katrina Armstrong spoke at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health last week, describing the current state of biomedical science in the United States. Armstrong’s talk addressed an urgent question: “How did we get here, and what can we do?”

A former Harvard physician on why public trust in healthcare is falling.

12/16/2025

Our January-February 2026 issue is now LIVE on site! Cannibalism…getting to Mars…campus speech…axolotls. What more could you ask for?

Read FREE here: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/node/88569

🎨: Illustration by Adam Gustavson

12/16/2025

Harvard University has named Sam Liss as the next leader of its Office of Technology Development (OTD).

The office handles corporate partnerships, licensing agreements for intellectual property, and funding programs to accelerate University research with real-world applications.

Liss will start his new role on January 2. He succeeds Isaac Kohlberg, who will remain an adviser through June 2026.

Technology licensing and corporate partnerships are an important source of revenue for the University.

12/15/2025

Harvard University President Alan M. Garber—who began his service on an interim basis in 2024, then agreed to stay on through the end of the 2026-2027 academic year—has agreed to remain Harvard president for an indefinite term, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation Penny Pritzker wrote to members of the Harvard community on December 15.

Harvard had previously said that a full-scale search for Garber’s replacement would begin in the spring or summer of 2026.

A once-interim appointment will now continue indefinitely.

12/13/2025

The race to send humans to Mars is underway. That’s the sense conveyed by certain politicians and wealthy entrepreneurs, who have spoken broadly about creating a Red Planet outpost. The website of the U.S. federal space agency, NASA, echoes that optimism, citing its work on “many technologies to send astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s.”

Faculty and alumni across Harvard University’s schools and disciplines have been among those tackling the challenges astronauts would face if they traveled to the Red Planet…and stayed.

Some of it is long-term work. But as it turns out, much of the research and innovation that could eventually get humans safely to Mars has the potential to improve life here on Earth in the near future.

Mars mission proponents say the answer lies in what space gives back—to science, society, and the soul. “I really do believe it’s just part of us as humans,” says Jessica Meir, a former assistant professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School who spent more than 200 days in orbit on the International Space Station in 2019 and 2020.

Read more in “Getting to Mars (for Real)” by Olivia Farrar, from the January-February 2026 issue of Harvard Magazine—on our site now.

🔗: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/science/harvard-mars-habitability-research-space-medicine

📸: Photograph by Magdalena Wosinska / Courtesy of Jessica Meir and NASA.

12/10/2025

Four Harvard University students and one alumna won Marshall scholarships this week, the most of any American university, for two years of graduate study at a U.K. university of their choosing.

Nine Harvard students were previously named 2026 Rhodes Scholars, affording them at least two years of study at the University of Oxford.

Nine Rhodes and five Marshall scholars will study in the U.K. in 2026.

12/10/2025

On Tuesday afternoon, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Dean Andrea Baccarelli informed the school community that Mary Bassett ’74, Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, will step down on January 9.

The FXB Center will also narrow its focus to children’s health, Baccarelli said in the same email. But the narrowed mission could also affect an FXB Center initiative, the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, which had drawn controversy, particularly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

The health and human rights center had drawn attention for its Palestine-related program.