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The Experiment Fund, a venture fund created by Harvard alumni...

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:37:05 -0400

The Experiment Fund, a venture fund created by Harvard alumni and based here in Cambridge, recently celebrated its first year in business.

“There are basically two approaches to venture capital investing,” said Xfund Partner Harry Weller ‘94, who is also General Partner of New Enterprise Associates. “One is to ‘spray and pray,’ and the other is to make fewer, more selective investments. We back big, bold experiments.”

Computer scientist Salil Vadhan has been named a Simons...

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:39:41 -0400

Computer scientist Salil Vadhan has been named a Simons Investigator!

An applied mathematician by training, Prof. Vadhan studies topics at the interface of cryptography and complexity theory. The goal of his research is to design systems that can withstand adversarial behavior, within the limits of efficient computation. Major areas of focus include pseudorandomness and interactive, zero-knowledge proofs—proofs that reveal no information beyond the validity of the proof itself.

He also studies data privacy and is working to develop new algorithms that allow social scientists to interrogate large data sets while preserving the personal information they contain.

“Spring is like a perhaps hand,” wrote the poet E....

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:49:27 -0400

“Spring is like a perhaps hand,” wrote the poet E. E. Cummings: “carefully / moving a perhaps / fraction of flower here placing / an inch of air there… / without breaking anything.”

With the hand of nature trained on a beaker of chemical fluid, the most delicate flower structures have been formed in a Harvard laboratory—and not at the scale of inches, but microns.

Find out how they’re grown.

Photo courtesy of Wim L. Noorduin, Harvard SEAS.

Engineer John Hutchinson has been elected to the Royal Society....

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:47:54 -0400

Engineer John Hutchinson has been elected to the Royal Society. He’s an expert in materials engineering, especially buckling and cracking behaviors.

A laser harp. An automatic fish feeder. A self-balancing...

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:45:08 -0400

A laser harp. An automatic fish feeder. A self-balancing electric vehicle. A secret-knock-detecting door. A mind-controlled car… You won’t believe some of the design projects our students created this year. Read about the SEAS Design & Project Fair.

(Photos by Eliza Grinnell, Harvard SEAS Communications.)

"It’s about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:34:00 -0400

“It’s about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of human ingenuity.”

- Graduate student Kevin Ma, who helped create tiny flying robotic insects after years of work at Harvard.

Photo

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:07:55 -0400

Mind control at the SEAS Design & Project Fair! (May 3rd, 11...

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:46:21 -0400

Mind control at the SEAS Design & Project Fair! (May 3rd, 11 to 3)

A group of undergraduate students in ES 50 created a device that reads brain waves and transmits them wirelessly to rotate a large pink pyramid on demand.

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an...

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:23:15 -0400

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Half the size of a paperclip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, the robot was inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second. Read more about this work.

The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an...

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:21:18 -0400

The classroom doors are open! Join us this Friday, 11 to 3, for...

Wed, 01 May 2013 11:01:41 -0400

The classroom doors are open! Join us this Friday, 11 to 3, for a spectacular display of 200+ student projects, 3D printers, a laser cutter, robotics, and more! Details here.

Congratulations to Riju Agrawal ‘13 (center), who is...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:29:33 -0400

Congratulations to Riju Agrawal ‘13 (center), who is receiving a $1000 scholarship from the Society of American Military Engineers! Agrawal, who studies engineering sciences at SEAS, completed a senior thesis on affordable water filtration technologies for developing nations. Read more.

From smart skin to coconut bottles, students in ES 20 dream up...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:54:00 -0400

From smart skin to coconut bottles, students in ES 20 dream up the future. Read more.

(photos by Kris Snibbe, Harvard Staff Photographer.)

Congratulations to Aaron Kuan, a SEAS grad student in applied...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:50:52 -0400

Congratulations to Aaron Kuan, a SEAS grad student in applied physics, who is among eight innovators selected for the Harvard Horizons program at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences! Read more.

We’re very pleased to announce that Prof. Federico Capasso...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:06:43 -0400

We’re very pleased to announce that Prof. Federico Capasso has been selected to receive the 2013 SPIE Gold Medal. The Gold Medal, awarded to a single recipient annually, is the highest honor bestowed by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Read more.

A Harvard-led team of researchers has created a new type of...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:05:41 -0400

A Harvard-led team of researchers has created a new type of nanoscale device that converts an optical signal into waves that travel along a metal surface. Significantly, the device can recognize specific kinds of polarized light and accordingly send the signal in one direction or another.

The findings, published in the April 19 issue of Science, offer a new way to precisely manipulate light at the subwavelength scale without damaging a signal that could carry data. This opens the door to a new generation of on-chip optical interconnects that can efficiently funnel information from optical to electronic devices.

(Images courtesy of Jiao Lin, Balthasar Mueller, and Samuel Twist.)

What use is a hand without nerves, that can’t tell what...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:40:45 -0400

What use is a hand without nerves, that can’t tell what it’s holding? A hand that lifts a can of soda to your lips, but inadvertently tips or crushes it in the process?

Researchers at Harvard SEAS have developed a very inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic hands that is sensitive enough to turn a brute machine into a dextrous manipulator.

Robot hands gain a gentler touch.

Congratulations to Prof. David Mooney, who has just been...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:45:00 -0400

Congratulations to Prof. David Mooney, who has just been recognized with the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, nominated by his own happy graduate students! Find out why they like him.

The scourge of the health care industry, bacteria like E. coli...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:00:22 -0400

The scourge of the health care industry, bacteria like E. coli are adept at clinging to the materials used in medical implants like pacemakers, prosthetics, stents, and catheters, spreading slimy biofilm and causing dangerous infections. New research from Harvard University helps to explain how waterborne bacteria can colonize rough surfaces—even those that have been designed to resist water.

"Our students don’t sit back. When they see a need in health care, in government, or in everyday..."

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:34:07 -0400

“Our students don’t sit back. When they see a need in health care, in government, or in everyday life, they also see tremendous innovative solutions. But more importantly, they believe in their own ability to make change.”

- Paul Bottino, Executive Director of the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) http://hvrd.me/10Q8wR6