Author: Harvard Gazette Online

More than 200 people, including dozens of University employees transported by shuttle bus from the Harvard Business School and the Longwood Medical Area, attended a somber but hopeful service at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard today (Feb. 11) for victims of the earthquake in Haiti, and their families.

The Rev. Dorothy Austin led the service, which took place just one day short of a month after the tragedy. After the congregation sang “Abide With Me” and listened to Psalm 23 in both English and French, Harvard President Drew Faust spoke briefly, saying the service was meant to affirm solidarity and support. “We recognize that a loss to any of us is a loss to all of us,” she said, “and struggle together to understand the meaning of such terrible tragedy. In the face of the unbearable reality of such loss, we must turn to one another for support, for help, for comfort, and for compassion.”

The Rev. Gabriel Michel, parochial vicar at St. Angela Merici Parish in Mattapan and a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital, talked about Haiti’s dead, but also the injured who did not yet have access to medical care, those who were in refugee camps, those who are unaccounted for, those who have had to mourn without giving their loved ones proper burials, and those suffering from fear, anxiety, anger, and humiliation as they try to rebuild their lives. Michel said he learned much from a recent trip to the country.

“The bravery, resilience, and faith of the Haitian people are unbelievable,” he said. He quoted the Rev. Juan Huertas of Louisiana, who said the greatest tragedy in an earthquake or other natural disaster “is not the material damages it causes, but the destruction of what is human.” He expressed hope that help would continue to come, not only to rebuild roads and infrastructure, but to rebuild lives.

During the memorial, local Haitian musician Pierre Gardy Fontaine sang “It Is Well With My Soul” in a compelling baritone. Writer Patrick Sylvain, Ed.M. ’98, also a Massachusetts resident with Haitian roots, read from his poem “Catacomb.” The congregation observed two minutes of silence while the church’s bells chimed a dozen times.

Jean Claude Desanges, an operating engineer in Harvard’s Facilities Maintenance Department and a leader in the Haitian work force, spoke of his sense of belonging at the University and the solidarity here that has given him hope. “Thirty-five seconds destroyed everything,” he said, “but I do believe good arises from every tragedy.” He mentioned the country’s difficulties before the disaster, adding, “The Haiti I dream of is so much more. I know it will take time to reach those goals. But because of you and people like you, I know it has a chance.”

The final speaker was Harry Dumay, associate dean for finance and chief financial officer at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He sounded the only political note of the day, mentioning that he and other Haitians were “uplifted by the unprecedented show of support” but also “humbled if not shamed by the airing of our dirty laundry.” He pointed out that while news reports often mention the poverty of the country, they rarely note its “considerable achievement” as the world’s first black republic or how its poverty had its roots in the international community’s fear of “a thriving nation of free, black people.” (The country was in debt after France granted its independence in 1804 but demanded compensation for the revenue it would lose in the former slave colony.)

Still, Dumay grew upbeat in remembering the “spirit of people who burst into song in the midst of complete desolation.” He concluded by saying the disaster was a chance to rebuild Haiti as a modern nation, adding that, going forward, he would like the international community to see the country not as a charity case but as a financial opportunity. With proper investment, he said, people there could step up the ladder of economic success.

“Where there is life,” he concluded, “there is hope.”

The University has established a relief fund for Harvard faculty and staff directly affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Donations can be made online, in person, or by mail through the Harvard Credit Union.

When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, Louise Ivers narrowly escaped a building as it crumbled around her.

As it happened, Ivers, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and clinical director in Haiti for Partners In Health, was in Port-au-Prince to discuss disaster preparedness. Soon she was tending to acute injuries in a local hospital. She also had to take quick action when needed, such as providing urgent, life-saving surgery to a man without easy access to an operating room or anesthetics.

Such moments illustrate the “living links between Harvard and Haiti,” said Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health, a Harvard-affiliated aid agency, during a noontime address to the Harvard medical community today (Feb. 11). The discussion, titled “Harvard and Haiti: A Collaborative Response to the January 12 Earthquake,” included other tales displaying the fortitude of the Haitian people, the responsiveness of the Harvard community, and the power of partnership.

But the talk also focused on potential.

“What is the role of the American research university in addressing the great social problems of our time?” asked Farmer, HMS Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine. “How do we solve the problems of poverty, privation, inequity, and disasters, both natural and unnatural?”

The answer, according to Farmer and a cadre of panelists, is to act strongly. “To do global health, we have to do global health,” said Farmer. That is, he said, the only way to get at the root of international health care problems is to examine them in the process of delivering health care around the world.

Farmer described his approach in medical terms. To make a diagnosis, he said, “You have to do the physical exam yourself.” Having spent the past 25 years providing and examining health care in Haiti, Farmer characterized the current situation as “an acute injury on top of a chronic condition.”

As for prescriptions, Farmer also took a page from the clinician’s handbook:  “Plans for patients, if they are to succeed, must be plans made with the patient.” In the past, he said, there have been too many recommendations for Haiti, and too little done to strengthen the hands of the Haitian people.

Haiti has long suffered from health and poverty problems. Now, with government buildings reduced to rubble, with its only public teaching hospital in ruins, with 225,000 homes destroyed and millions of people in need of food and clean water, action is imperative. But, according to Farmer, such action must come in harmony and cooperation with the Haitian people.

“A university like ours can offer its own brand of pragmatic solidarity and set the highest standards for research, teaching, and service,” Farmer said.

More than 500 people attended the session, including Harvard President Drew Faust and HMS Dean Jeffrey Flier, who both gave introductory remarks; Provost Steven E. Hyman; and Dean Julio Frenk of the Harvard School of Public Health. Panelists included Ophelia Dahl, executive director of Partners In Health, and HMS instructors in medicine David Walton, Claire Pierre, and Koji Nakashima. Walton and Nakashima are also Partners In Health physicians.

The event was part of the Talks @ 12 series, periodic lunchtime discussions featuring faculty members and special guests who speak to the Harvard medical community.

At its eighth meeting of the year on Feb. 10, the Faculty Council heard a proposal to create a committee on Global Health and Health Policy and was briefed on the work of the Security Advisory Committee.

The next council meeting is on Feb. 24. The preliminary deadline for the April 6 Faculty meeting is March 22 at 9:30 a.m.

One of opera’s brightest stars shone her light on a few Harvard student singers and a group of fans at Paine Hall on Tuesday (Feb. 9).

Renowned soprano Renée Fleming gave an informative and entertaining master class for four Harvard undergraduates who performed Italian, American, and French arias for the down-to-earth diva. Displaying her humor and charm, Fleming offered the young performers equal amounts of praise and practical advice on developing their vocal range and technique.

“We are going to have a fun time together,” Fleming told the singers, their undergraduate accompanists, and a standing-room-only crowd, in an event sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard’s Learning From Performers program and the Harvard University Department of Music.

She didn’t disappoint, revealing her good nature and engaging style with amusing anecdotes about everything from a jaw condition that once forced her to sing a performance with her mouth almost shut, to opera’s notoriously tragic repertoire.

“I made the mistake of singing one happy-ending piece at the Met, and I got complaints,” she recalled with a laugh. “They were so disappointed that it ended well.”

Fleming challenged Sofia Selowsky ’12, a mezzo-soprano with a deep register, to explore her voice’s higher range while working on “Cruda Sorte,” from “L’Italiana in Algeri” by Gioachino Rossini. Hesitant, Selowsky obliged, ending her session on a high note that drew loud applause.

“That was really lovely,” chimed Fleming, adding, “You’ve got this.”

“Obviously, no one told you this is hard,” Fleming remarked to Bridget Haile ’11 after her performance of “The Trees on the Mountain” from the opera “Susannah” by American composer Carlisle Floyd. The soprano complimented Haile on her poise and comfort with the song, and encouraged her to work on her interpretation of the piece, and to feel the “passion, anger, and despair” of the character.

Working largely on breath support and technique, Fleming took each of the singers through a variety of exercises, occasionally coaxing them into comical positions that yielded solid results. She made Haile hold her own nose to help her to reach a high note, and she placed Michael Cherella ’11 up against the wall to help him to align his body, keep his head up, and develop resonance while singing “En Fermant les Yeux,” from the opera “Manon” by Jules Massenet.

Later, she encouraged the singers, on their own time, to try singing while lying down.

Fleming even involved audience members, making them inhale during one exercise and then release their breath in one long, sustained hiss, briefly transforming the space into a giant snake pit.

Music was in the genes of the Pennsylvania native who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., surrounded by singing. The daughter of two voice teachers, Fleming considered a career in music teaching as well while at the State University of New York, Potsdam, before going on to study at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and Juilliard’s American Opera Center in the 1980s, launching her professional career.

Known as the “the people’s diva” for her charisma and easygoing persona, Fleming debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991 as the Countess Almaviva in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” a part considered today by many to be her signature role. A multiple Grammy winner, she has performed at famed opera houses worldwide and is known for both her vocal lyricism and dramatic flair.

She also regularly hosts the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” broadcasts, taking viewers on intimate, behind-the-scenes tours of productions and introducing the stars of the shows while they take a break between acts.

Fleming’s voice, a full, lyric soprano with a range of rich sound, delighted the crowd as she worked with the aspiring singers. There was a collective gasp from the audience each time she opened her mouth to sing the pitch she was looking for or the phrasing of a particular line.

In his 2006 memoir, Joseph Volpe, former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, wrote that listening to Fleming was like “watching a bird in flight.”

“I’ve watched the most brilliant American singing career of my time grow opera by opera,” penned Volpe, who led the company from 1990 to 2006.

The soprano’s visit was part of Harvard’s Learning From Performers series. The annual program, created in 1975 by the Office for the Arts, hosts 15 to 20 artists involved in music, dance, theater, film, television, visual arts, and interdisciplinary arts. The visiting artists interact with undergraduates through lectures, seminars, master classes, workshops, and residencies.

The event attracted a diverse audience: music students and musicians, admirers and fans old and young who packed the theater. Even a collection of visual artists — a three-dimensional design class from the Massachusetts College of Art — was on hand. Their teacher, Taylor Davis, a former visiting faculty member at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, brought her freshman students to the class to help them “see detail with more clarity.”

Fleming stayed well past the two-hour mark to make sure she answered all questions from the audience.

Before the class began, Fred VanNess, a graduate student and a tenor studying opera at the nearby Longy School of Music, eagerly awaited the singer he called “breathtaking.”

“This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from one of the greats.”

Selowsky beamed her way off the stage after her final note.

“I am glad she pushed me to do that, because I realized sometimes you just have to let it go to see what your voice can do.”

Her accompanist, Matthew Aucoin ’12, said working with such an established talent was a “gigantic thrill.”

“She is really sort of the dream person to be giving this master class because she has been able to blend real artistic integrity with an extraordinary kind of appeal,” said Aucoin. “That is something that young musicians strive to maintain. She’s an idol of many of us.”

The afternoon’s other performers included Francesca Reindel ’11, who sang “Il Faut Partir” from Gaetano Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment,” accompanied by Jen Chen ’11. Accompanist Jesse Wong ’12 played with Haile and Selowsky.

For a list of upcoming Learning From Performers.

Harvard University will host a memorial service for victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti and their loved ones on Thursday (Feb. 11) from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

The service will feature readings by representatives of Harvard’s Haitian community, along with Haitian music and remarks by people who have recently returned from the island nation or are working to support the Haitian community in the Boston area. Harvard President Drew Faust will address the gathering.

The Rev. Dorothy A. Austin, Sedgwick Associate Minister and chaplain to the University, and the Rev. Jonathan C. Page, Epps Fellow in the Memorial Church, will conduct the service. The organist will be Edward E. Jones, Gund University Organist and Choirmaster.

More than 140 people who work at Harvard have been personally affected by the Jan. 12 quake. Faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend the service to support their colleagues.

For more information.

Harvard women’s hockey coach Katie Stone only granted her players a couple hours to celebrate their 1-0 Beanpot championship win over No. 7 Northeastern, but the No. 6-ranked Crimson earned every precious minute of that bliss.

“They have until midnight to enjoy the Beanpot,” said Stone. “That’s what we talk about. Whether we’ve won or we haven’t won, think about it, wake up tomorrow morning, and it’s on to the next thing.”

The game’s lone goal came from a shot by Harvard forward Liza Ryabkina ’11, the tournament’s unanimous most valuable player, who scored a career-high four goals in the Crimson’s 5-0 opening round win over Boston College on Feb. 2. She finished with a tournament-best five goals.

“It’s pretty amazing. There’s really no other word for it,” said Ryabkina. “We wanted to win this Beanpot, and I think everyone played really well and really hard.”

Claiming its 13th Beanpot overall, and second in the past three years, the team won a game eerily reminiscent of last year’s final, when Boston College needed just one goal to claim the title over the Crimson. That was the first 1-0 Beanpot final ever. This was the second.

“We’re certainly happy to bring the Beanpot back to Cambridge and Harvard. It was an excellent hockey game, back and forth,” said Stone. “Those are the kinds of games championships should be like.”

Harvard goaltender Laura Bellamy ’13, who stopped all 27 shots by the Huskies, finished the tournament with 42 saves and two shutouts. She was honored with the Bertagna Award as the tournament’s top goaltender.

“The team’s played so well offensively, it’s made my job easy to try to keep the puck out of the net,” said Bellamy, who, in her eight starts since senior netminder Christina Kessler went down with a season-ending injury, has recorded three shutouts.

Bellamy only saw 11 shots through the first two periods. But when Northeastern picked up the pace in the final one, the freshman goaltender was ready, stopping 16 shots.

“I just had to keep telling myself to stay locked in,” said Bellamy, because “you never know what can happen.”

“Just like any team that’s coming from behind in a championship, they’re going to take some risks, they’re going to get a little desperate, so we are going to need to manage that kind of pressure, and I thought we did a nice job with it,” said Stone.

Although the Crimson met the challenge of defeating a top-10 team in a midseason championship, more hurdles lie ahead for Harvard, which after a short rest will have two games on the road against Rensselaer (Feb. 12) and Union (Feb. 13), before closing the season at second-place Clarkson (Feb. 19) and fourth-place St. Lawrence (Feb. 20).

“That’s the beauty of being a college hockey player. You win, you have to turn it up and keep winning; you don’t win, you have to figure out a way to win again,” said Stone.

Despite the need for short-term memory in college hockey, Ryabkina couldn’t help but plead with her coach to extend the celebration, asking, “Could we have until 12:15 tonight?”

Tuesday, Feb. 9 (HealthDay News) — Children born to mothers who drink lots of milk and have a high dietary intake of vitamin D during pregnancy have a much lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life, researchers say…

“The risk of MS among daughters whose mothers consumed four glasses of milk per day [during pregnancy] was 56 percent lower than daughters whose mothers consumed less than three glasses of milk per month,” Dr. Fariba Mirzaei, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology…

Read more here (HealthDay News)

Harvard Law School today (Feb. 9) announced the creation of the Public Service Venture Fund, which will start by awarding $1 million in grants every year to help graduating students pursue careers in public service.

The first program of its kind at a law school, the fund will offer “seed money” for start-up nonprofit ventures and salary support to students who hope to pursue postgraduate work at nonprofits or government agencies in the United States and abroad.

“This new fund is inspired by our students’ passion for justice,” said Harvard Law School (HLS) Dean Martha Minow. “It’s an investment that will pay dividends not only for our students but also for the countless number of people whose lives they will touch during their public service careers.”

The creation of the Public Service Venture Fund is the latest step taken by the Law School to offer new forms of assistance for students who are interested in public service careers. In November, Minow announced an increase in the availability of financial aid overall and a broadening of eligibility for the School’s loan relief program. She also established 12 new Holmes Fellowships for students interested in postgraduate public service work. All told, financial support for students interested in public service has increased by $2.75 million this year.

To obtain support from the new fund, applicants will submit proposals explaining how the postgraduate grants will help them get started in public service. Minow said the fund will bolster the creative thinking of publicly spirited law graduates at a time when the legal profession itself is becoming more entrepreneurial.

“The new venture fund is exactly in sync with that,” said Professor David Wilkins, the faculty director of the Program on the Legal Profession and the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School. “It’s also in sync with the values emphasized in our curriculum, and with our pro bono ethos and our strong emphasis on clinical education, all of which encourage students to think creatively about designing interesting projects and approaches to helping people.”

The new venture fund follows a three-year pilot program covering the third year of HLS tuition for graduates who commit the first five years of their careers to public service. It will offer targeted and flexible support for students who are embarking on public service careers, said Alexa Shabecoff, Harvard Law School’s assistant dean for public service.

“When jobs are especially hard to come by, the fund may provide fellowships in order to create jobs,” Shabecoff said. “It will also supplement salaries for graduates hoping to work for nonprofits that can only afford to pay for part-time positions. In this ever-shifting legal job market, we will offer our students the ability to land the job of their dreams or create it.”

A number of HLS alumni have started nonprofits straight out of law school or soon thereafter, such as Alan Khazei ’87 and Michael Brown ’88, who started City Year, and Jennifer Gordon ’92, who started the Workplace Project and won a MacArthur “genius” award for her work. “The new Venture Fund honors some of our most successful and inspiring alumni even as it plants the seeds for the next generation of public service leaders and social entrepreneurs,” Minow said.

The fund is planned to start with distributions of $1 million annually and to increase as the Law School works to raise additional resources, Minow said.

The fund will be governed by a board established by the dean. The board will include senior administrators, faculty members, and alumni from both the private and public sectors.

To read the full story.

Noted neuroscientist Eric Kandel ‘52 looked to his audience to illustrate his lecture on the molecular basis of memory.

“If you remember anything about this lecture, it’s because genes in your brain will be altered,” said the Columbia University professor, who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his studies on memory. “If you remember this tomorrow, or the next day, a week later, you will have a different brain than when you walked into this lecture.”

Kandel’s standing-room-only talk in Science Center D on Monday (Feb. 8) was organized by the Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Medical School.

“Memory, as you know, makes us who we are,” Kandel said. “It’s the glue that binds our mental life together. Without the unifying force of memory, we would be broken into as many fragments as there are moments in the day.”

Kandel described what researchers have learned in recent decades about the molecular underpinnings of memory. Among other things, he said, neuroscientists have found that short-term memory — the ability to recall things for minutes or hours — is fundamentally different from long-term memory, which holds information for weeks, months, even a lifetime.

“Long-term memory differs from short-term memory in requiring the synthesis of new proteins,” Kandel said, adding that there’s a high threshold for information to be entered into long-term memory.

“Something really has to be important to be remembered,” he said.

Long-term memory stimulates protein syntheses, Kandel said, by altering gene expression. While the genes themselves remain unchanged, their activity levels are tweaked by the molecules involved in the creation of long-term memory.

“Many of us are accustomed, naively, to thinking that genes are the determinants of our behavior,” he said. “We are not accustomed to thinking that genes are also the servants of the mind.”

The genes affected, he said, lead the brain’s 100 billion neurons to grow new synapses, or connections with other neurons. A typical neuron, he said, connects to about 1,200 others. But neurons that are subject to repeated stimuli have been found to have much denser networks, with up to 2,800 synapses.

The brain is especially susceptible to forming such new connections early in life, he said, when its structure is highly malleable, or plastic.

“This is why almost all great musicians, all great basketball players, all great anything, all get started very early in life,” Kandel said.

But Kandel’s host, Jack Shonkoff, director of Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and a faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said the young brain’s plasticity also can be detrimental to children.

“Significant trauma, significant stress, may have some adverse effect on these circuits that makes it more difficult for children to learn,” Shonkoff said.

Kandel said better understanding of how the biology of the brain relates to individual behaviors and how complex behaviors develop in complex sociobiology “is really the great challenge of the 21st century.”

He later elaborated on that challenge in response to an audience question, alluding to the daunting work still to be done at neuroscience’s latest frontier: unraveling organisms’ “connectomes,” the complete diagrams of neural circuitry.

“There are a lot of cells up there,” he said. “Each one of them connects to 1,000 other cells, so you’ve got more synapses than there are stars in the universe. When you finish counting those stars in the universe, I will be ready for the connectome.”

The infamous Massachusetts controversy on the conviction and execution of Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti gets fresh eyes as Temkin examines how the polarizing murder case led to contemporary repercussions.

Olds and Schwartz hold a microscope to loneliness, in part a symptom of our chaotic contemporary lifestyles, revealing the widespread effects of our disconnection and a culture that romanticizes autonomy.

Rumors affect political outcomes, tarnish reputations, even ruin lives. Sunstein delivers this treatise on how misinformation is easily accepted and rapidly spread, and how, in the Internet age, some stories can’t be undone.

If you think Harvard is an animated place, you don’t know the half of it.

Though it is not widely known, the University famous for literature, languages, and medicine also helped to pioneer the art of making still images appear to move.

Sand animation got its start at Harvard (though artists in Switzerland were on the same sand-shifting track). And stop-motion clay animation — an art that has reached a zany zenith with the “Wallace and Gromit” films — had part of its start in Cambridge.

Manipulating sand and clay to simulate motion were among the fruits of an animation program begun at the Carpenter Center in 1963. That was the year when Robert Gardner, a documentary filmmaker and longtime director of Harvard’s Film Study Center, hired animators John and Faith Hubley to teach.

“I get bored of people saying: ‘I didn’t know there was animation at Harvard,’” said exhibit organizer Ruth Lingford. “And actually there’s this fantastic history.“

Lingford, professor of the practice of animation in the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) program, organized “Frame by Frame: Animated at Harvard.” The show of new and old work is in the Carpenter Center’s Sert Gallery through Sunday (Feb. 14).

The show runs on seven screens and in two looping wall projections. It includes early work by sand animator Caroline Leaf  ’68 (the magical “Sand, or Peter and the Wolf” from 1969) and Eli Noyes ’64 (whose “Clay, or the Origin of Species” drew an Oscar nomination for best animated short).

Another legacy Harvard film on view, Frank Mouris’ nine-minute “Frank Film,” an autobiography in frenetic collage animation, won a 1974 Oscar for best short subject.

Viewers get the long and short of animation, from the 18-second “Orgasm Loop” by Terah Maher, M.Arch ’06, to the epic (in animation terms) “Asparagus” by Suzan Pitt, a lavish 1979 production now considered a feminist classic. In the exhibit notes, Pitt wrote that she made a film that “flowed slowly forward like a daydream.”

But even daydreams take time to create on screen. Animators old and new admit to the art’s time intensity, saying it is “insanely labor intensive,” as Lingford put it.

For one scene in “Asparagus,” in which a woman watches a garden pass by as if it were a movie, Pitt recalled a 48-hour shoot at the Carpenter Center, “where I never slept or left the camera room.”

Animation’s time sink cost the 1997 movie “Titanic” a summer release — six extra months because of production bottlenecks. In those days, a single frame required a rendering time of 72 hours. (For today’s “Avatar,” whose credits include almost 1,000 animators, rendering time is now down to 24 hours per frame.)

Maher, an animation teaching assistant at VES who designed the “Frame by Frame” exhibit, said it took her six months to create her 18-second animation loop, though she was not working full time on it.

“It’s not just cartoons,” said Maher, who fell in love with the art form while studying architecture. “Animation is much more.”

For one thing, it is an art form that takes advantage of optical illusion. Still objects that vary slightly, when separated by a slight interval of darkness, appear to move.

In her exhibit notes, Lingford called animation “freedom from restraints of the possible.” And Leaf, visiting the exhibit at a Feb. 4 reception, recalled that at Harvard in the 1960s animation was taught like “another creative art, like poetry or writing.”

Charlestown animation designer and teacher Pell Osborn, founder of LineStorm.com, was a special student at the Carpenter Center in 1974-75, years that shifted his career path from French literature and playwriting to creating motion with still objects, drawings, or paintings.

He chatted with Leaf at the reception. Both recalled how the Carpenter Center shimmered with creative energy. “The animation felt free,” said Leaf, now a London-based animation artist trying to break into oil painting. “Nobody was checking up on that.”

Working at the 16mm Moviola editing machine was absorbing, Osborn said, but “you just felt this swirl of energy behind you,” as other animators worked with sand, puppets, and clay.

Harvard’s old Moviola editing machine is on display at the exhibit. It’s a steel contraption the size of a Franklin stove with switches, buttons, pedals, and “exciter lamps” that evoke Jules Verne more than James Cameron. There are puppets too — doll-size models of plaster gauze and armature wire — from a work in progress called “Shapeshifter” by Lillian Fang ’10.

Animation is even more than the liberation of art. It’s an expressive territory open to every academic path, said Lingford. “Animation includes acting, sound, music, painting, poetry, writing, physics, metaphysics — everything.”

She is co-teaching a course this semester on animation for the sciences, along with two Harvard cell biologists. A similar course is under way at Harvard Medical School.

“Harvard is the perfect place for animation,” said Lingford, whose work includes the eerie and erotic “Pleasures of War” from 1998. “Animation is such a meeting point of different disciplines.”

Perhaps two or three VES students a year produce animation projects for their senior theses, she said. But many more use the art to supplement their scholarship, including students in biology and chemistry.

“It’s quite a young art,” said Lingford of animation. “We’ve only scratched the surface of possibilities.”

The Harvard Crimson men’s hockey team faced a familiar foe on a familiar stage Monday (Feb. 8) in the consolation game of the 58th Beanpot tournament. But with just one win in its past six games, struggling Harvard received no consoling from Northeastern (13-12-1), who took down the Crimson (6-14-3; 6-7-3 ECAC), 4-1.

The matchup, which was the ninth time since 2000 that the Crimson faced the Huskies in the Beanpot, was the seventh time both teams clashed in the consolation game. But despite Harvard’s 22-16 all-time series record against Northeastern, the Crimson were unable to bounce back from an early two-goal deficit. The defeat followed a 6-0 loss to Boston College in the Beanpot opener on Feb. 1.

“I give a lot of credit to Northeastern. I think they wore us down as the game went on,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato. “We started the game a little bit flat, and put ourselves in some tough situations.”

The Crimson’s only goal came when a slap shot by freshman forward Conor Morrison found the back of the net at 11:13 into the second period. Although that pulled Harvard within a goal, the Crimson continued their Beanpot scoring woes going scoreless the rest of the game.

“Tonight we had a couple chances early. We just weren’t able to get shots through,” said Donato. “I don’t think we were sharp on the power play, and I think at times we looked disorganized in what we were trying to do. We certainly were able to get the puck in control, but weren’t able to get shots in traffic and get second and third opportunities.”

Despite their recent losses, the Crimson historically have closed the regular season with momentum after the Beanpot. Last season the Crimson went 4-0-2 in their remaining six games, and in 2008 Harvard closed the season 5-0-1.

With four of the remaining six games at home, Harvard’s recent struggles will likely be forgotten with another strong finish to the season. The Crimson currently stand in eighth place, but four points behind fourth-place St. Lawrence.

Harvard hosts Rensselaer Friday (Feb. 12) and Union on Saturday (Feb. 13). Both games start at 7 p.m.

In the mountains east of the Haitian capital, a field hospital established by two Harvard Medical School doctors is treating hundreds of victims of the Haitian earthquake.

The field hospital in Fond Parisien, near the border with the Dominican Republic, is part of a broader emergency effort in Haiti by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, building on experience responding to disasters including Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami. HHI is helping to coordinate the entire Harvard humanitarian response to the quake, and has deployed more than 70 surgeons, emergency physicians, anesthesiologists and nurses…

The field hospital in Fond Parisien, near the border with the Dominican Republic, is part of a broader emergency effort in Haiti by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, building on experience responding to disasters including Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami. HHI is helping to coordinate the entire Harvard humanitarian response to the quake, and has deployed more than 70 surgeons, emergency physicians, anesthesiologists and nurses…

Read more here (The Boston Globe)

Paul Farmer lives his life by one rule: the Golden Rule.

Farmer, a Harvard-educated medical doctor, operates a clinic in rural Haiti. “If you were sick, you’d want someone to walk or be willing to walk five miles to see you,” he said in a 2003 e-mail from his clinic. “These patients do not live near roads. Someone has to go and see them. I think doctors should be among those willing to schlep a few miles (to see) a sick patient. Even if others disagree, I like doing it…”

Read more here (Investors Business Daily)

The pictures are hauntingly static. In a series of modern photos matched against century-old postcards, Havana’s sprawling boulevards, public squares, and majestic hotels appear side by side, frozen in time.

With the Cuban revolution in 1959, most development on the island nation, including construction, came to an abrupt halt. The result is a city landscape rich with historic structures (those that have not crumbled), standing as they were close to 100 years ago, largely unhindered by progress or overshadowed by steel and concrete towers. Spanish, Moorish, Italian, Greek, and Roman influences can all be found in Havana’s architecture, which covers periods from colonial and baroque to art nouveau and art deco.

The starring role in Cathryn Griffith’s photographs are the once-grand buildings and urban environments that are now undergoing a grand revival. To emphasize the sense of structural stasis, Griffith paired her current photos with postcard images from long ago.

A selection of her work, captured in her new book “Havana Revisited: An Architectural Heritage,” is currently on view at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Located on the second floor of Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies’ south building, 25 photos in the exhibit are paired with historic shots of the same site. Each frame challenges the viewer to discern significant change.

In one photo, an angular old corner building has been carefully cleaned and restored. It looks identical to the postcard image from 90 years before, with the exception of a tall building that looms just to its left. In another, a plaza with a church is instantly recognizable, even though the horses and carriages of the postcard image are long vanished. In their stead stand a bride and groom. In the foreground of another postcard image, a lush park surrounds the elegant capitol building. In the photo below, the capitol remains pristine, but the park has been replaced with pavement.

For Griffith, an artist and photographer, the inspiration began on a trip to Havana in 2003, when she was struck by the city’s rich architectural heritage. Visiting Paris afterward, she bought several historic postcards that captured Havana’s grand colonial structures in hand-drawn images and vivid colors from long ago. With the help of eBay, Griffith was able to amass a collection of more than 600 similar cards.

Ultimately, she found herself in the office of Leland Cott of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), looking for guidance on her idea of uniting the past and present.

Cott understood Griffith’s desire to combine the images she had found with the photos she had taken in book form and helped her to conceptualize the project. Cott, a GSD adjunct professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Design who has taught in Havana, also connected her with his contacts.

Griffith made a dozen more trips to Cuba, searching for vantage points that matched some of her postcards, and taking digital photographs.

“Just think about what that means in terms of that city, that you can still do that,” Cott told a crowd gathered on Feb. 3 for an opening reception.

The almost imperceptible changes in the buildings, he said, were the result of two actions: a concentrated and well-designed campaign by government officials to restore historic structures to boost tourism, and what he called “benign neglect,” given the country’s dearth of material resources.

“Doing nothing in this particular case,” Cott said,  “may have proven to be the most valuable preservation act of all.”

While Cott helped put Griffith in touch with his contacts, her most important connection was to a young Cuban man who became her tour guide and translator. Together, with his limited English and her broken Spanish, they snaked through the city, stopping strangers on streets, ringing random doorbells, and persuading hotel security guards to let them in so they could seek vantage points matching the postcards.

“The preservation of old Havana emphasizes the restoration of buildings to their old appearance,” Griffith said, noting that the effort is “not about change; it’s really about preserving or returning to an earlier state.”

Griffith added that the underlying philosophy of the restoration, according to Cuban officials, “is that it’s necessary to have an understanding of the past in order to successfully engage with the future.”

The exhibit continues through June 1.

David H. Souter, a native New Englander and Harvard alumnus who served nearly two decades on the U.S. Supreme Court before stepping down in 2009, will be the principal speaker at the Afternoon Exercises of Harvard’s 359th Commencement.

“During his years on the nation’s highest court, Justice Souter approached the vital work of judging with a deep sense of independence and fairness, a close attention to the facts of each case, and a clear concern for the effects of the court’s decisions on the lives of real people,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “The dedication, humility, and commitment to learning with which he has pursued his calling should be an inspiration to any young man or woman contemplating a career in public service.”

Justice Souter was appointed to the high court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. The extensive legal experience he brought to the position, and his polite but persistent questioning of the lawyers who appeared before the court, helped to shape many of the most closely watched cases of our time.

“Many of the people who will be joining the ranks of Harvard alumni on May 27 are eager to make a difference in the world, through the arts and sciences or through community service or engaging in public affairs,” said Teresita Alvarez-Bjelland, president of the Harvard Alumni Association. “Justice Souter is a prime example of someone who has made a profound contribution to society not by seeking the limelight but by selflessly devoting himself to serving the public good.”

Justice Souter was born in Melrose, Mass., in 1939 and moved to New Hampshire at age 11. He graduated from Harvard College in 1961 and studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, after which he returned to Harvard and received a degree from the Law School in 1966.

After two years in private practice, he was named an assistant attorney general of New Hampshire, and he became the state’s attorney general in 1976. He served on the Superior Court of New Hampshire and that state’s Supreme Court before being named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Soon after, President Bush tapped Souter to replace Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on the Supreme Court.

While he was on the court, Justice Souter was known to return whenever he could to his farmhouse in Weare, N.H., favoring hiking in the nearby mountains and quiet time for reading over the public speaking circuit.

While maintaining a low-key public profile, he developed a reputation for long hours in his chambers and careful study of the issues brought before the court. When Justice Souter announced his intention to retire, President Barack Obama said he had shown what it means to be a “fair-minded and independent judge.”

“He approached judging as he approaches life,’’ the president said, “with a feverish work ethic and a good sense of humor, with integrity, equanimity, and compassion — the hallmark of not just being a good judge, but of being a good person.”

Souter will speak during Commencement day’s Afternoon Exercises on May 27, which serve as the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. The exercises will take place in the Tercentenary Theatre of Harvard Yard, between Memorial Church and Widener Library.

In recognition of his exceptional commitment to fostering broad appreciation for classical music, Boston Landmarks Orchestra conductor Charles Ansbacher was presented with the centennial medallion by Harvard Extension School Dean Michael Shinagel. The event was part of the Extension School’s centennial celebration. Held in Sanders Theatre, the Jan. 29 ceremony included an all-Beethoven concert performed by the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, featuring renowned pianist Andre-Michel Schub.  (The event also marked the Boston Landmarks Orchestra’s 10th anniversary.)

“The Extension School and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra share a mission of service to the community,” said Shinagel. “It is fitting that we honor maestro Ansbacher for his countless contributions to enrich the cultural lives of Bostonians, on the occasion when we celebrate 100 years of offering educational opportunities to the public.”

To learn more about the Harvard Extension School’s centennial events, visit the Harvard Extension School Centennial Web site.

FOND PARISIEN, HAITI — Nearly a month after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti, paramedic Anthony Croese looked into the crowd outside a destroyed orphanage near Port-au-Prince and spotted an emaciated baby cradled in his father’s arms.

The baby looked far too tiny for his eight months of life, and a short conversation explained why. His mother died in the Jan. 12 quake, and his father, Emilio Eliassaint, in the weeks since had been feeding him sugar water, devoid of the nutrients in mother’s milk.

Croese, who feared the baby wouldn’t survive long on such a diet, bundled him into a car and sent him to a field hospital that has sprung up amid the thorny trees and dried grass at Fond Parisien, near the border with the Dominican Republic.

There, the baby began a diet of formula, eating ravenously, to the relief of workers.

Sandwiched between mountains and a large lake, the site has become an oasis of medical care and hope in this still-reeling nation, where many thousands died and many more have been injured. The field hospital was willed into existence by two Harvard faculty members and researchers from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), an interfaculty program designed to harness expertise across Harvard’s Schools to understand and improve the response to disasters, both natural and man-made.

The hospital was started less than a week after the earthquake by Hilarie Cranmer and Stephanie Rosborough, both HHI researchers, emergency medicine doctors at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and faculty members at Harvard Medical School (HMS).

When the two first arrived, 25 patients already were huddled under sparse trees. The patients, some of whom still had open wounds and exposed bones, had gathered at the site, which contains an orphanage, church, and school run by the nonprofit group Love A Child Inc. Despite the exhortations of the group’s founder, the patients refused to go into a nearby church, where they had been resting the night before when a large aftershock struck.

Rosborough and Cranmer, who is also an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), immediately set to work. Drawing on training and extensive field experience in disaster settings, they secured tents, generators, toilets, food, medical supplies, and volunteers. Power and plumbing arrived in the form of the Rescue Task Force, which showed up one day and offered assistance that Cranmer gratefully accepted.

Drawing on an extensive network of Harvard affiliates, former students, and colleagues in the disaster relief field, HHI marshaled an array of volunteers, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and Haitian staff.

The result is an HHI-led field hospital that has about 200 patients and also runs outreach operations that provide vaccinations and other care for smaller area clinics. It collaborates with other organizations, including Love A Child (whose compound and permanent buildings provide the facility’s structural backbone), the University of Chicago, and the governments of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Though those groups have the major organizing role, the volunteers providing care hail from institutions around the world. In addition to the field hospital, there is a nearby displaced-persons camp run by the American Refugee Committee, where some patients go after finishing treatment.

The hospital focuses on rehabilitation, taking in patients from other hospitals, including the giant U.S. hospital ship Comfort moored off Port-au-Prince, the devastated Haitian capital. These patients’ broken bones, crushed limbs, and other injuries have received initial care but require additional treatment, whether it’s for handling follow-up care or complications such as new infections.

With physical therapists as part of the volunteer corps, the hospital not only continues the bodily repair begun after the quake, but also begins the long, slow recovery process.

HHI Director Michael VanRooyen applauded the efforts of all involved, particularly the guiding hands of Cranmer and Rosborough. To get the hospital up and running so quickly required putting into practice many of the principles taught by HHI, which not only conducts research, but which also runs courses in disaster relief, including a weekend-long simulated disaster workshop in New England’s forests.

VanRooyen, who is also an emergency medicine specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an associate professor at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, has begun the process of formalizing arrangements and collaborations that, of necessity, have been ad hoc until now. Last weekend VanRooyen was in Haiti for whirlwind meetings with officials from the Haitian and Dominican governments, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Love A Child, and representatives of the relief and nonprofit agencies that are lending a hand. He hopes to establish a sturdy administrative structure and secure support that will allow the field hospital to complete care of its patients and slowly transition them back to local health providers, a process that could take six months to a year.

Key needs, VanRooyen said, include gaining enough funds to keep the operation running, and partnering with other nongovernment organizations. The work so far has been financed by a combination of in-kind contributions from volunteers and relief organizations, HHI funds, and even personal funds from those involved. Gaining permanent funding may well determine the ultimate success of the effort, VanRooyen said.