Ask a Harvard Professor

Harvard Medical School professor of neurology Rudolph Tanzi discusses how lifestyle choices can help maintain brain health during a person’s lifespan. Topics include Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia, the role of genetics and environment in health, and the importance of sleep, exercise, and diet in controlling neuroinflammation. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and...

Makeda Best, curator of photography at the Harvard Art Museums and a visiting professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, shares her insights on landscape photographers, as well as photographers of war and protest, capture their historical moments, and what their work says about cultural history and politics. Topics discussed include Best’s research on Alexander Gardner, a Civil War photographer who was also active in the worker’s rights movement, her current book project on American...

Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee professor of economics, shares the reason why working mothers still earn less and advance less often in their careers than men: time. Even with antidiscrimination laws and unbiased managers, certain professions pay employees disproportionately more for long hours and weekends, passing over women who need that time for family care. Goldin also discusses how COVID-19’s flexible work policies may help close the gender earnings gap. For more information about Harvard...

Jerrold Rosenbaum, director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics, discusses the potential of using psychedelics, such as MDMA and magic mushrooms, to treat treatment-resistant mood disorders like depression and anxiety. Topics include the effect of psychedelics on the brain, how psychedelic therapy is conducted, the legality of medicinal psychedelics, and current research findings. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast,...

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a political scientist and legal scholar whose research focuses on gerrymandering, explains its effect on American democracy and how it might be stopped. Topics include recent state laws that limit voting, the voting-rights bills being debated in Congress, and the current state of “alignment” between voters’ wishes and government actions. A note to our listeners: This episode was recorded on September 30, 2021. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this...

Emily Broad Leib, founder and director of Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, discusses how to reduce food waste in the United States and abroad. Topics include the confusion caused by misleading date labels, the impact of COVID-19 on food waste, and the FLPC’s collaborations with governments and non-profit organizations to enact better food laws. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and...

Neurobiologists Venkatesh Murthy and Sandeep Robert Datta discuss what scientists know about our sense of smell, and what big mysteries remain. Topics include smell loss from COVID-19, experimental approaches to understanding olfaction, and the role of artificial intelligence in olfactory research. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to...

Epidemiologist and immunologist Michael Mina discusses the use of rapid tests as public health tools. Topics include using rapid tests to protect gatherings of friends and family; the differences between rapid tests and PCR tests; and why rapid tests are useful even for people who are vaccinated—particularly the elderly. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of...

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2021/preview-ask-a-harvard-professor-season-four Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Lydialyle Gibson, Jonathan Shaw, Jacob Sweet, and Nancy Walecki, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

The term “parafiction” refers to an artistic performance or presentation that depicts fiction as fact. This idea has particular relevance for our current post-truth moment, in which Americans find themselves overrun with conspiracy theories, misinformation, and fake news. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to...

Discussing the link between air pollution and effects of COVID-19, and the importance of data for rapid public-health responses —with Francesca Dominici, professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/francesca-dominici. Ask a Harvard...

How to reform capitalism to confront climate change and extreme inequality, with economist and McArthur University Professor Rebecca Henderson For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/rebecca-henderson. Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob...

Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen breaks down the use of race in college admissions and the future of affirmative action at the Supreme Court. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/jeannie-suk-gersen. Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and...

In this episode, political philosopher Danielle Allen explains why the COVID crisis, extreme inequality, and undemocratic government are all connected—and how democracy in America can still be reinvigorated. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/danielle-allen. Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan...

Can cellphone technologies play a role in controlling the coronavirus pandemic? Knowing how public health policies interact with people’s actual behavior, even at an anonymous population-level view, can help guide the decisions of leaders. Mobile phone location data can reveal large-scale patterns of activity and travel between regions. In this episode, associate professor of epidemiology Caroline Buckee explains how such data—carefully stewarded to ensure individual privacy—can even be used...

Climate change may be the hardest problem the human race has ever confronted. In a single century, humans have set in motion events that will unfold on a geological timescale, ultimately redrawing coastlines around the globe as ice sheets melt and sea level rises. Can humanity agree to meet its energy needs with renewables such as wind and solar power? Is there a threshold beyond which the effects of greenhouse gases will become irreversible? Can solar geoengineering help stop this runaway...

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/podcast/2020/preview-ask-a-harvard-professor-season-three Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

What should be done now about the federal budget and the deficit, with Doug Elmendorf, dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, and Karen Dynan, professor of the practice of economics. For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/podcast/2020/doug-elmendorf-and-karen-dynan Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw...

CHINA IS THE MOST POPULOUS COUNTRY ON EARTH, and until a few hundred years ago, it was also the most economically powerful. Today, China is ascendant on the world stage. What does its government seek in its relationship with the United States? Do China and the U.S. share common goals with respect to nuclear North Korea? How far will China press to reunite with Taiwan? What are the country’s economic prospects, and is the perception that it is governed by engineers accurate? How is China...

Why would it take an Amazon worker, employed full time, more than a million years to earn what its CEO, Jeff Bezos now possesses? Why do the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than all African-American households combined? And how are these examples of extreme income inequality linked to the political disenfranchisement of the lower- and middle-income classes? The established “solutions” for restoring balance to economic and political power in the United States have been tax increases on...