Love Data Rodeo: A Roundup of Useful Ways to Wrangle Your Data
2026-02-12 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Lamont Library, 1 Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Wrangle your data at the Harvard Library’s Love Data Rodeo. Celebrate Love Data Week by learning how to tame and transform your data in style!

You are cordially invited to this exciting round-up of platforms, tools, and strategies to help you successfully work with your data. During this 2-hour event, representatives of Harvard approved platforms will be on hand to provide demonstrations and share the support they can provide to help you make the most of your research data.

This event will be held in-person in the Lamont Library Forum Room. The Forum Room is located on the third floor of Lamont Library. A Harvard ID is required to enter the Lamont Library. We recommend attendees bring their laptops to more deeply engage with the resources that will be demoed. Registration is recommended, but not required.

This event is open to all Harvard students, postdocs, researchers, faculty, and staff. There are no prerequisites or assumptions of knowledge.

Organizers

Harvard Countway Library

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Brown Bag Seminar: Economic inequality and violent mortality: Evidence from Ecuador
2026-02-12 13:00 - 14:00 | Building 1, Room 1208, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, Massachussetts, 02115
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Omar Galárraga, PhD, is a health economist and tenured professor of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. He currently serves as the director of the Center for Global Public Health (CGPH) at Brown. Galárraga’s research applies principles from health and behavioral economics to improve public health outcomes, with a specific focus on: (a) HIV prevention and treatment: designing and evaluating economic-based interventions, such as conditional economic incentives to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy and reduce risk behaviors; (b) Health systems: analyzing health systems reform and insurance expansion in low- and middle-income countries; and (c) Applied econometrics: utilizing rigorous experimental and non-experimental methods to evaluate health interventions. He conducts research globally, collaborating with partners in Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. He is the former director of the doctoral program in health services research at Brown and was an appointed member of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council (OARAC) from 2021 to 2024. Currently, he is a standing member of the NIH Science of Implementation in Health and Healthcare (SIHH) study section, and an associate editor for the journal Health Economics. Galárraga has authored over 150 publications in leading health economics and public health journals.

Speaker Information

Omar Galárraga
Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health; Director, Center for Global Public Health, Brown University

Organizers

Department of Global Health and Population

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Crossroads Conversation Series
2026-02-12 13:00 - 14:00 | Kresge room 110, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02120-2702
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join Harvard Chan faculty and alumni as they share how someone’s advice, encouragement, or challenge impacted their life, and the ways they apply those lessons today. Lunch will be provided.

Organizers

Office of the Dean

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Harvard Chan i-Night 2026
2026-02-13 18:30 - 21:00 | Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

The Harvard Chan Student Government Association’s i-Night is back for its 35th year!

Join us for an exciting evening of performances that celebrate and showcase the talents, cultures, and diversity of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health community!

Food and refreshments will be provided! Please RSVP to inform catering needs. Families and guests are welcome to join; up to two guests are allowed per student attendee. Children under 10 do not count towards the guest list.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and performances begin at 7:00 p.m.

Organizers

Office for Student Affairs

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Social Demography Seminar with Jessica Finlay
2026-02-19 12:00 - 13:15 | Online
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

VIRTUAL

Jessica Finlay, PhD, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, presents ‘Cognability: A mixed-methods approach to neighborhoods and cognitive health across the life course.’

The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the University to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.

With the aim of disseminating scholarly research, The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies hosts a diverse array of speakers. They do not represent or speak for the Center, the School or the University, and hosting them does not imply endorsement of their views, organizations, or employers.

Speaker Information

Jessica Finlay, PhD

Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder

Organizers

Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

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Alumni insights: Careers in entrepreneurship and innovation
2026-02-19 13:00 - 13:45 | The Studio & Online
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Presented jointly with the Office of Career and Professional Development

Join a panel of Harvard Chan School alumni for an engaging discussion on bringing innovation and entrepreneurship to public health. Discover how they built their careers, what skills matter most, and how to apply their insights to your own professional journey in this candid conversation.

Register for free to submit your questions.

An on-demand video will be posted after the event.

Speakers

Hailey How
MPH ‘25, Founder/CEO, CareCorgi

Ivan Hsiao
MPH ’24, Founder and CEO, Trans Health HQ; Instructor of The Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Amber Nigam
SM ‘23, Co-founder and CEO of basys.ai

Fiza Shaukat
MPH ‘22, CEO and co-founder of Patient First.AI

Moderator

David Garcia Lou
MPH ‘24, Co-founder Amigdala Boston

About The Studio

The Harvard Chan Studio is the hub for the School’s premier in-person and live-streamed events.

Unleash your potential at Harvard Chan School.
In addition to our degree programs, we offer highly targeted executive and continuing education, directed and taught by Harvard faculty.

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Africa Health Conference - Future-Proofing Africa: Investing in Impact and Innovation
2026-02-21 07:00 - 21:00 | Kresge, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02120
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us at the 2026 Africa Health Conference to explore innovative solutions to advance health in Africa by pre-registering by Sunday, January 18 HERE.

The Africa Health Conference is a dynamic platform that brings together experts, researchers, practitioners, students, and community stakeholders dedicated to advancing forward-thinking solutions for Africa’s evolving health challenges.

The 2026 conference will take place on Saturday, February 21, 2026, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with an online attendance option available. This year’s theme is “Future-Proofing Africa: Investing in Impact and Innovation”. It builds on last year’s sessions that focused on adaptive strategies in health financing, technology, and resilience. This year, the conference will guide participants in reimagining Africa’s development landscape amidst a rapidly changing global context. We will move beyond traditional approaches to explore innovative financing mechanisms and highlight how African entrepreneurs, businesses, and creative thinkers are driving impactful solutions in various fields, from healthcare to technology.

For questions, please contact us hsphafricahealthconference@gmail.com or visit our website: https://africa-health-conference.hsph.harvard.edu/

Organizers

Harvard Chan Africa Health Students Forum

Harvard Medical School

Harvard School of Dental Medicine Africa Health Student Club

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Monday Nutrition Seminar | Have federal nutrition labeling policies improved diet? Evidence from the last 10 years
2026-02-23 13:00 - 13:50 | FXB G-13 & Online, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02120
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Please join the Department of Nutrition for the Monday Nutrition Seminar featuring Joshua Petimar, ScD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute & Harvard Medical School. Dr. Petimar’s talk—”Have federal nutrition labeling policies improved diet? Evidence from the last 10 years”—will take place on February 23 at 1:00pm ET in FXB G-13 and via Zoom (registration is required).

Healthy snacks will be provided, thanks to the generous support of the Office of the Associate Provost for Student Affairs’ Wellbeing Project Fund.

The Monday Nutrition Seminar Series is free and open to the public. If you plan to attend this event and do not have an active HUID, please fill out the registration form by 3:00pm ET on the Friday before the seminar to request a visitor pass to access the building.

Seminar speakers share their perspectives, they do not speak for Harvard.

Speaker Information

Joshua Petimar, ScD

Assistant Professor, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute & Harvard Medical School

Organizers

Department of Nutrition

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Pressure points: Balancing clinical and financial priorities in health care
2026-02-24 13:00 - 13:45 | The Studio & Online
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Pressure Points is a webinar series co-hosted by The Studio and Executive and Continuing Education at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health bringing you inside the business of health care.

As financial pressures intensify across health care, leaders face difficult choices that test their ability to protect clinical excellence while sustaining their organizations. Join leading experts for a candid conversation about navigating the tensions between clinical and financial priorities—and the skills, strategies, and innovations needed to lead effectively through these competing demands.

Register for free to submit your questions.

An on-demand video will be posted after the event.

Speakers

Jeanne-Marie Guise
Director, Center for Learning Health Care Delivery Maternal Newborn Child Health, BIDMC; Cochrane Co-Chair, Executive Committee Cochrane US

Gregg Meyer

President of the Community Division and Executive Vice President of Value Based Care, Mass General Brigham; Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Erika Werner
Chief Physician Executive, Tufts Medicine; President, Tufts Medical Center Physician Organization; Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tufts University School of Medicine

Moderator

Rifat Atun

Vice Dean for Non-Degree Education and Innovation, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

About The Organizers

The Harvard Chan Studio is the hub for the School’s premier in-person and live-streamed events. We convene global leaders in health policy, advocacy, industry, and research for insightful conversations about public health’s most pressing challenges and most promising solutions.

Learn more about The Studio

Executive and Continuing Education

Strengthen your expertise and build new capabilities to address pressing healthcare and public health challenges. Learn from industry experts and esteemed Harvard faculty and join a global community of peers driven to creating a healthier world.

Explore programs for Individuals and Organizations.

Unleash your potential at Harvard Chan School.
In addition to our degree programs, we offer highly targeted executive and continuing education, directed and taught by Harvard faculty.

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CHDS Seminar with Mark Strong of University of Sheffield, UK
2026-02-24 13:00 - 14:00 | online
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join the Center for Health Decision Science for a seminar with Mark Strong of the University of Sheffield, UK, School of Medicine and Population Health, “Understanding and Managing Uncertainty in Model-Based Decision Making.” We commonly use computer models to help us make decisions in healthcare resource allocation. Should we fund a particular new drug, for example? However, even with our best model we still might make a wrong decision. This is because we can almost never eliminate uncertainty. This seminar will cover the meaning of uncertainty in a model-based decision making context, and how we can manage it, with particular reference to the quantification of the value of new information.

Mark Strong is Dean of the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is a public health physician and Professor of Public Health, and has conducted research on a wide range of topics relating to public health, health economics, health services research, epidemiology and statistics. He is a Chartered Statistician of the UK Royal Statistical Society and his core research interests relate to the quantification and management of uncertainty in healthcare decision making.

Speaker Information

Mark Strong

Dean of the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield

Organizers

Center for Health Decision Science

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What If … Public Health Had to Be Built From Scratch? Revisiting 19th-Century Debates
2026-02-25 13:00 - 13:50 | Virtual
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, February 25th for the Department of Epidemiology seminar series featuring Dr. Alfredo Morabia discussing What If … Public Health Had to Be Built From Scratch? Revisiting 19th-Century Debates.

Abstract: What would public health look like if it had to be invented today, without assuming the institutions, divisions, and categories we inherited? This lecture revisits the formative debates of the 19th century, when scientific public health first took shape. By examining the tensions between competing visions, particularly between approaches centered on specific causes of disease and those focused on the broader conditions of life, I show that public health emerged not as a single, inevitable model but as the outcome of choices. Situating epidemiology and the early schools of public health within these debates, I argue that some options were abandoned rather than disproven. Revisiting these debates allows us to think more clearly about what public health could be today, not by returning to the past, but by recovering the range of possibilities that once existed.

Bio: Alfredo Morabia is a Professor of Epidemiology at the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment, Queens College, CUNY and a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. As Principal Investigator of the World Trade Center-Heart cohort study, funded by NIOSH, he examines the long-term cardiovascular effects of 9/11 on first responders. A historian of epidemiology, he explores the evolution of methods and concepts used to study and improve population health. His last book, The Public Health Approach: Population Thinking from the Black Death to COVID-19 (2023), traces the evolution of public health methods from past pandemics to modern crises. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Public Health from June 2015 to June 2025.

Speaker Information

Alfredo Morabia, MD, PhD, MPH
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

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Health journalism case study series with Gabriella Stern
2026-02-25 13:00 - 13:50 | Kresge room 201, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02120
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us for part one of an engaging case study series led by Gabriella Stern, journalist and former Director of Communications at the World Health Organization. In this session, we’ll dig into a compelling piece of health journalism—how complex health topics are communicated to the public, what we can learn from journalistic choices, framing, and impact, and actionable-takeaways for your own health communication.

Lunch will be served.

Speakers will share their own perspectives; they do not speak for Harvard.

Speaker Information

Gabriella Stern
Journalist and former Director of Communications at the World Health Organization

Organizers

Center for Health Communication

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Born to Flourish
2026-02-25 13:00 - 14:00 | Online
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

All are welcome to join us for the fourth installment in our Virtues for Well-being seminar series on Wednesday, February 25th, 2026, from 1-1:50 p.m. Please note that this talk is now online only.

RSVP TODAY!

Event Description

This talk will consider scientific evidence that suggests that we can change our brains by transforming our minds and cultivate habits of mind that will improve well-being. These include happiness, resilience, compassion, and emotional balance. Each of these characteristics is instantiated in brain circuits that exhibit plasticity and thus can be shaped and modified by experience and training. Mental training to cultivate well-being has profound implications for the workplace including its impact on leadership, creativity, employee health, productivity, and collaboration.

Speaker Biography

Our speaker, Dr. Richard Davidson, is the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, and Founder of Humin (fmr Healthy Minds Innovations). He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology in 1976. Dr. Davidson’s research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices. He has published over 600 papers, numerous chapters and reviews, and edited 20 books. Dr. Davidson’s newest book, “Born to Flourish” with Cortland Dahl, is set to release in March 2026. He is also author (with Sharon Begley) of “The Emotional Life of Your Brain” published in 2012, and co-author with Daniel Goleman of “Altered Traits” published in 2017. Dr. Davidson was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and appointed to the Governing Board of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) in 2018. In 2014, Dr. Davidson founded Humin (formerly Healthy Minds Innovations), a global nonprofit on a mission to make wellbeing real by translating science into action.

Speaker Information

Dr. Richard Davidson
Founder and Director, Center for Healthy Minds

Organizers

Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness

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Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “Credibility laundering as a vector: Change-point detection and socio-technical afterlives of reactionary demographic knowledge”
2026-02-26 12:00 - 13:15 | Harvard Pop Center & online, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Brian Keegan, PhD, associate professor of information science, University of Colorado-Boulder, and visiting scientist, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents “Credibility laundering as a vector: Change-point detection and socio-technical afterlives of reactionary demographic knowledge.”

With the aim of disseminating scholarly research, The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies hosts a diverse array of speakers. They do not represent or speak for the Center, the School or the University, and hosting them does not imply endorsement of their views, organizations, or employers.

Speaker Information

Brian Keegan, PhD

Associate professor of information science, University of Colorado-Boulder, visiting scientist Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

Organizers

Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

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When and How Best to Use Online Panels for Epidemiologic Research
2026-03-04 13:00 - 13:50 | Kresge 502, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

Time

Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, March 4th for the Department of Epidemiology seminar series featuring Dr. Ronald Kessler discussing When and How Best to Use Online Panels for Epidemiologic Research.

Abstract: Recent years have seen a sea change in population survey methods, with online panels increasingly replacing traditional in-person and telephone surveys. A small number of vendors now offer “probability-based” online panels, in which households are recruited using probability sampling methods. The Census Bureau’s new Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey (HTOPS) is based on such a panel. However, most online panel providers rely on nonprobability, or “opt-in,” samples. Online panels can substantially reduce costs and shorten the time from data collection to results, addressing mounting challenges faced by traditional survey modes. At the same time, they raise important concerns about selection bias and generalizability. This is true even in probability-based panels, which typically have effective response rates in the range 2-5% (i.e., they fail to represent 95-98% of the population). Given that online panels are now a permanent feature of the research landscape, an important question is whether there is a viable middle ground between traditional probability samples and purely opt-in designs. This presentation reviews the approaches that have been proposed to find such a middle ground and describes a hybrid design now being implemented in the new round of the World Mental Health Surveys.

Bio: Ronald Kessler, Ph.D. is the McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. He is a psychiatric epidemiologist whose work involves implementing mental health needs assessment surveys, preventive interventions, and clinical interventions for mental disorders and suicide-related behaviors. His intervention work focuses largely on developing precision intervention rules to get the right interventions to the right patients. He is the Director of the World Mental Health Surveys, a cross-national series of community epidemiological surveys on prevalence and correlates of common mental disorders in 30 countries (https://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/wmh/). He is also the Harvard Site PI of the Study of Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS), a coordinated series of epidemiological and neurobiological studies of social determinants of suicide-related behaviors among US Army soldiers and veterans (https://www.starrs-ls.org/), and of a series of pragmatic trials based on STARRS designed to reduce soldier suicide-related behaviors. Dr. Kessler is the author of over 1000 publications and has for many years been rated the most widely cited researcher in the field of psychiatry according to the Science-wide Author Databases of Standardized Citation Indicators. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin, and was on the faculty at the University of Michigan before taking his current position at Harvard Medical School in 1995.

Speaker Information

Ronald Kessler, PhD
McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

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Cross-Disorder Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders: Findings and Methodologic Challenges
2026-03-11 13:00 - 13:50 | Virtual
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

Time

Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, March 11th for the Department of Epidemiology seminar series featuring Dr. Jordan Smoller discussing Cross-Disorder Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders: Findings and Methodologic Challenges.

Abstract: Psychiatric disorders are highly comorbid, heritable, and genetically correlated, raising fundamental questions about the nature of shared versus disorder-specific genetic influences. Large-scale genome-wide association studies and multivariate genetic models now provide compelling evidence for both pervasive pleiotropy and meaningful etiologic differentiation across major psychiatric disorders. This seminar will review key findings from recent cross-disorder genetic analyses including recent work characterizing shared and disorder-specific genetic architecture using multivariate genomic approaches. We will also discuss methodological challenges that complicate cross-disorder inference, including heterogeneity in phenotypic assessment, differences in case and control ascertainment, and selection biases inherent in clinical cohorts, electronic health records, and population biobanks. Addressing these challenges will be important for robust and clinically-meaningful inferences about the underlying structure of psychopathology.

Bio: Dr. Jordan Smoller is a psychiatrist, epidemiologist, and geneticist whose research focus has been understanding the genetic and environmental determinants of psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and using big data to advance precision mental health including improved methods to reduce risk and enhance resilience.

Dr. Smoller is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Professor in Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. At Massachusetts General Hospital, he is the Jerrold F. Rosenbaum Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, Director of the Center for Precision Psychiatry, Director of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the Center for Genomic Medicine, and co-Director of the Center for Suicide Research and Prevention at MGH and Harvard. Dr. Smoller is a Tepper Family MGH Research Scholar and also serves as Director of the Omics Unit of the MGH Division of Clinical Research and co-Director of the Mass General Brigham Training Program in Precision and Genomic Medicine. He is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute and past President of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics.

He has played a leading role in national and international efforts to advance precision and genomic medicine. He is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the eMERGE (Electronic Medical Records and Genomics) network, founding PI of the PsycheMERGE Consortium and lead PI of the New England Precision Medicine Consortium as part of the NIH All of Us Research Program. He is also co-Chair of the Cross-Disorder Workgroup of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). He is an author of more than 650 scientific publications and is also the author of The Other Side of Normal (HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2012).

Speaker Information

Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD
Professor of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

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The Big Joy Project: Using Daily Microacts to Promote Global Well-Being
2026-03-11 13:00 - 14:00 | FXB G13 or online, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

Event Type

Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

On Wednesday, March 11th, 2026, from 1-1:50 PM in FXB G13 and online, all are welcome to join us for the fifth installment in our Virtues for Well-being seminar series, featuring leading expert on joy Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas.

Lunch provided.

RSVP TODAY

Event Description

Greater well-being predicts better health, more satisfying relationships, and overall success in life – and it is of utmost importance to most people. Recent scholarship has yielded a growing canon of empirically-tested interventions to enhance well-being, though few are multifaceted or widely, freely accessible. This presentation will share insights from the Big JOY project, an interactive public online program that offers 7 daily well-being micro-acts alongside individualized feedback about momentary and pre-to-post impact. A global, collaborative Citizen Science initiative, analysis of voluntary single-arm Big JOY participant responses sheds light on key patterns of engagement and impact; financial strain predicts drop off, younger people report greater benefit to well-being, and greater adherence ties to stronger endorsement of prosocial mores. Published findings and ongoing examination of the Big JOY dataset promise to inform continued efforts to promote well-being effectively, sustainably, and at scale.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas is the Science Director at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). She runs the GGSC’s annual research fellowship program as well as major research initiatives on topics like gratitude, humility, and love. She teaches the science of well-being widely, including open online courses that have enrolled over 1M learners worldwide. Dr. Simon-Thomas leads collaborative efforts to give widespread access to well-being insights and practical strategies for improvement, and also investigate impact on individuals, interpersonal dynamics, and biological processes. She co-edited the 2017 Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, and co-authored the 2025 Daily Flourish: A Science Backed Journal to Build Positivity, Connection, and Resilience. Dr. Simon-Thomas serves as an expert voice on the neuroscience and social implications of prosocial states like compassion and awe and the well-being benefits of generous and nurturing behaviors.

Speaker Information

Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas
Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center

Organizers

Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness

Unleash your potential at Harvard Chan School.
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US Life Table Program: Data Challenges, Methodological Solutions, and Moving into the Future
2026-03-25 13:00 - 13:50 | Virtual
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

Time

Event Type

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, March 25th for the Department of Epidemiology seminar series featuring Dr. Elizabeth Arias discussing US Life Table Program: Data Challenges, Methodological Solutions, and Moving into the Future.

Abstract: The presentation will provide a historical overview of the US Life Table Program and a summary of the data challenges and methodological solutions employed over the years. The talk will include a description of the US National Vital Statistics System with its inherent challenges and limitations. Specific topics covered will include old age data quality, racial and ethnic misclassification, and small geographic area estimates. The goals for the future of the program will be discussed.

Bio: Dr. Elizabeth Arias is the Director of the US Life Table Program and the Mortality Statistics and Research Team Lead in the Division of Vital Statistics, at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Dr. Arias received her Ph.D. in Sociology (Demography) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At NCHS, Dr. Arias has worked to expand the US Life Table Program’s racial, ethnic, and geographic coverage, developing methods to address data quality limitations. Under her leadership, the program has expanded from two race groups to five race and Hispanic origin populations, annual state life tables, and life tables by census tracts. Dr. Arias also conducts research on racial and ethnic mortality disparities with a special focus on the Hispanic population.

Speaker Information

Elizabeth Arias, PhD
Mortality Statistics and Research Team, Statistical Analysis and Surveillance Branch, Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

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Some Recent Results on the Epidemiology of Dementia
2026-04-01 13:00 - 13:50 | Kresge 502, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, April 1st for the Department of Epidemiology seminar series featuring Dr. David Hunter discussing Some Recent Results on the Epidemiology of Dementia.

Abstract: Studies of the epidemiology of Dementia are complicated by the fact that until recently the two main subtypes – Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementia could not be readily distinguished clinically, and may have distinct etiologies. Although that has changed somewhat with the advent of PET scans and CSF biomarkers, these are not yet used in routine clinical practice that is reflected in the clinical records that are available in large-scale observational databases such as the UK Biobank. I will discuss some recent collaborative studies in the Department of Population Health at Oxford and elsewhere that both illustrate these issues, and seek to help resolve them.

Bio: David Hunter is the Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine and Director of the Translational Epidemiology Unit at Oxford Population Health, the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, UK. He founded the Program in Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics at Harvard and was co-chair of the steering committee of the Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium at the National Cancer Institute. He was co-director of the NCI Cancer Genetic Susceptibility Markers project focused on genome-wide association studies, and Dean for Academic Affairs and Acting Dean at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He is the founding Chief Science Advisor of Our Future Health a major new national initiative in the UK that aims to return genomic information to consenting participants. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021 and appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Australian King’s Birthday Honours List in 2023.

Speaker Information

David Hunter, ScD, MPH
Vincent L. Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention, Emeritus, Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Emeritus Affiliates, Harvard Medical School

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

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Awe on the Margins: Youth Perspectives on the (im)possibilities of Human Flourishing
2026-04-15 13:00 - 13:50 | FXB G13, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

On Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, from 1-1:50 p.m. in FXB G13 and online, all are welcome to join us for the sixth and final installment in our Virtues for Well-being Seminar Series, featuring Dr. Demond Hill.

Lunch provided.

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Seminar Description

Awe—an emotional response to vastness that transcends our ordinary frames of reference—has the power to transform perspectives, foster human flourishing, and enhance well-being. Yet little is known about where awe emerges in marginalized urban contexts, who can access it, and how it might disrupt structural inequality. This seminar asks: What would it take for us to be more honest with the lives we are living, living on, stepping over, and forgetting?

Drawing from the first year of a three-year youth participatory action research project with 20 Black and Brown high school students in Boston, this work explores how youth make sense of, complicate, experience, locate, and mobilize awe. Through an after-school awe and flourishing literacy program, students embarked on awe excursions, documented their insights, and designed awe-inspiring spaces. This project cultivates healing, civic engagement, and bold visions for communal health equity. Together, we will consider how “actionable awe” can transform “awe-ful” spaces into “awe-inspiring” ones and illuminate new pathways for collective flourishing.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Demond M. Hill is an Assistant Professor of Health Equity at Tufts University in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. His research, grounded in transdisciplinary, critical, applied, humanizing-based approaches, focuses on the mental health and well-being of marginalized children, youth, and their families, with a particular emphasis on Black populations. Dr. Hill collaborates with communities to promote and protect opportunities for awe, belonging, and human flourishing among Black and Brown communities within systemic inequality. His work centers marginalized communities’ voices and lived experiences and incorporates youth- and community-based participatory action approaches to identify and strengthen protective factors that inform policy and promote mental health equity.

Speaker Information

Dr. Demond Hill

Assistant Professor, Tufts University

Organizers

Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness

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The Grand Challenge of Child Mental Health: Lessons from the Great Smoky Mountains Study
2026-04-15 13:00 - 13:50 | Virtual
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Dementia Risk and Prevention – Lessons from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort

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From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

Join us on Wednesday, April 15th for a joint seminar between the Department of Epidemiology and the Maternal and Child Health Concentration featuring Dr. Bill Copeland discussing The Grand Challenge of Child Mental Health: Lessons from the Great Smoky Mountains Study.

Abstract: Child psychopathology is common, costly, and impairing. Indeed, the greatest burden of disease in the first 2 decades of life is related to mental health. This presents a great opportunity: Effective care for these diseases in childhood has the potential to mitigate and forestall later psychopathology (i.e., treatment as prevention). This talk will use data from a 30+ year psychiatric epidemiological study to demonstrate the ways in which this opportunity is often squandered contributing to misery, morbidity, and mortality in adulthood.

Bio: Dr. Copeland is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont and the Thomas M Achenbach Chair in Developmental Psychopathology. He was trained as a clinical psychologist at the University of Vermont and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology at Duke University Medical Center. He is the principal investigator of the prospective, longitudinal Great Smoky Mountains Study has been following 1420 participants in rural Appalachia for over 30 years to understand the long-term consequences of early adverse experiences and the development of mental illness. His research program has focused on understanding the developmental epidemiology of emotional and behavior problems across the lifespan. This work includes understanding the interplay between early adverse experiences and genetic vulnerability with other individual, family, and contextual characteristics.

His research has been supported by NIMH, NIDA, NICHD, NIA, and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. This program of research has led to over 180 peer-reviewed manuscripts including publications in JAMA, JAMA: Psychiatry, the American Journal of Psychiatry, Lancet Psychiatry, American Journal of Public Health, Molecular Psychiatry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Communications. His work has been covered in such national news outlets as Slate, the New York Times, TIME magazine and CNN. Dr. Copeland was named on the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher list in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Speaker Information

Bill Copeland, PhD
Mortality Statistics and Research Team, Statistical Analysis and Surveillance Branch, Division of Vital Statisti Thomas M. Achenbach Chair in Developmental Psychopathology, University of Vermont; Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont

Organizers

Department of Epidemiology

Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence

Unleash your potential at Harvard Chan School.
In addition to our degree programs, we offer highly targeted executive and continuing education, directed and taught by Harvard faculty.

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Executive and Continuing Education
