Ask a Harvard Professor
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Rudolph Tanzi: What Can People Do To Maintain Brain Health As They Age?
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Harvard Medical School professor of neurology Rudolph Tanzi discusses how lifestyle choices can help maintain brain health during a person’s lifespa...
Makeda Best: What Does Landscape Photography Say About Our Politics?
13 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Makeda Best, curator of photography at the Harvard Art Museums and a visiting professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, shares her insights on lands...
Claudia Goldin: Why Do Women Still Make Less Than Men?
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Goldin, Henry Lee professor of economics, shares the reason why working mothers still earn less and advance less often in their careers than m...
Jerrold Rosenbaum: Are Psychedelics an Effective Treatment for Mood Disorders?
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jerrold Rosenbaum, director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics, discusses the potential of using psyche...
Nicholas Stephanopoulos: Why Does Gerrymandering Matter So Much?
22 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a political scientist and legal scholar whose research focuses on gerrymandering, explains its effect on American democracy a...
Emily Broad Leib: What Can be Done About Food Waste?
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
Sandeep Robert Datta and Venkatesh Murthy: Why is Smell Such a Mystery to Scientists?
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Neurobiologists Venkatesh Murthy and Sandeep Robert Datta discuss what scientists know about our sense of smell, and what big mysteries remain. Topics...
Michael Mina: Why Do We Still Need Rapid Tests?
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Epidemiologist and immunologist Michael Mina discusses the use of rapid tests as public health tools. Topics include using rapid tests to protect gath...
Preview: Ask a Harvard Professor, Season Four
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram....
Carrie Lambert-Beatty: What Happens When an Artwork Deceives its Audience?
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The term “parafiction” refers to an artistic performance or presentation that depicts fiction as fact. This idea has particular relevance for our ...
Francesca Dominici: How Does Air Pollution Affect COVID-19?
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Discussing the link between air pollution and effects of COVID-19, and the importance of data for rapid public-health responses —with Francesca Domi...
Rebecca Henderson: Does Capitalism Need to be Reimagined?
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How to reform capitalism to confront climate change and extreme inequality, with economist and McArthur University Professor Rebecca HendersonFor more...
Jeannie Suk Gersen: Do Elite Colleges Discriminate Against Asian Americans?
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Danielle Allen: What Do COVID-19 and Extreme Inequality Mean for American Democracy?
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, political philosopher Danielle Allen explains why the COVID crisis, extreme inequality, and undemocratic government are all connected...
Caroline Buckee: Can Mobile-phone Data Help Control the Spread of the Coronavirus?
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can cellphone technologies play a role in controlling the coronavirus pandemic? Knowing how public health policies interact with people’s actual beh...
Daniel Schrag and David Keith: Can solar geoengineering help fight climate change?
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 o...
Preview: Ask a Harvard Professor, Season Three
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Ins...
Doug Elmendorf and Karen Dynan: How much can the federal budget and the deficit continue to grow?
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
William C. Kirby: Is China ready for leadership on the global stage?
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Benjamin Sachs and Sharon Block: When did labor law stop working?
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 4...
Nicholas Burns: Why Does Good Diplomacy Matter?
23 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What role does diplomacy play in the modern world order, and what are the characteristics of a good diplomat? Which countries are the great powers tod...
Maya Sen: Have U.S. courts become political prizes?
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If judges truly are impartial arbiters of justice, why do politicians fight over who will be appointed to the bench? Are the courts actually a politic...
David Cutler: Can the U.S. Healthcare System Be Fixed?
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No country in the world spends more on health care than the United States, or has less to show for it when compared to other wealthy nations. The U.S....
Joseph S. Nye: How Do Past Presidents Rank in Foreign Policy?
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rating the foreign policy of presidents from FDR to the present day with Joseph Nye, formerly a government professor in FAS, later dean of the Kennedy...
Preview: Ask a Harvard Professor Season Two
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram....
Marcyliena Morgan: How has Harvard Cultivated Hiphop?
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does hiphop culture—rap music, break dancing, and graffiti—have to do with Harvard? In this episode, Monrad professor of social sciences Marc...
Robin Kelsey: Is a Photograph a Work of Art?
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a photograph art? A great photograph may be the result of artistry, or it may be the result of dumb luck: a fleeting, perfect composition c...
Edward Glaeser: Should We All Be Living in Cities?
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Cities are an integral part of Earth’s future: by 2050, 68 percent of the world’s population will be living in an urban area. Solutions to social ...
David Hemenway: Who Can Solve America’s Gun Problem?
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mass murders committed with firearms are becoming more frequent In the United States. And the total number of gun deaths, a majority by suicide, is no...
Staci Gruber: How Does Marijuana Affect the Brain?
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Weed, ganja, pot, flower, dope, grass, bud: marijuana has many names, but an even greater number of chemical constituents, from THC, the psychoactive ...
Lawrence Lessig: What Leads to Academic Corruption?
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a kind of academic corruption that most people have never considered. Not plagiarism. Not cheating on an exam. This is the kind of corruptio...
Introducing: Ask a Harvard Professor
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Ask a H...