Christy DeSmith

Boston

Freelance Writer and Editor at Freelance

Writer, editor, journalist, runner, reader, mom. First-gen college grad. Current: @Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Former: @BostonGlobe and @StarTribune.

Articles

Slave trade database moving to Harvard

4 days ago | phys.org | Christy DeSmith

SlaveVoyages, a tool for data on history's largest slave trades, is getting a new home. Word of the project's upcoming move was shared recently by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.
SlaveVoyages finds new home at Harvard — Harvard Gazette

1 week ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

4 min read SlaveVoyages, a groundbreaking tool for data on history’s largest slave trades, is getting a new home. Word of the project’s upcoming move was shared recently by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.
Slave trade database moving to Harvard — Harvard Gazette

1 week ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

4 min read SlaveVoyages, a groundbreaking tool for data on history’s largest slave trades, is getting a new home. Word of the project’s upcoming move was shared recently by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research.
What we still need to learn from pandemic — Harvard Gazette

1 week ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

6 min read Social distancing, school closures, and stay-at-home orders became hotly disputed during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. How should these protocols be viewed today? The new book “In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us” by a pair of Princeton University professors finds no evidence these “non-pharmaceutical interventions” actually reduced mortality rates.
Heartbreak Hill? These marathoners have seen worse. — Harvard Gazette

1 week ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

9 min read For two years, grief left her body feeling like a pressure-cooker. “It wasn’t until my junior year that I discovered something that really helped with the release of my emotions,” said Brooke Stanford ’25, who lost her mother, Andrea, to pancreatic cancer two weeks before arriving on campus as a first-year in 2021.
Separated by a border, but with fates entwined — Harvard Gazette

2 weeks ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

Nation & World 5 min read From afar, the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico appears as a hard economic, political, and cultural boundary. But mayors of cities that flank the divide have a different view. “We’re a binational community,” said Mayor Carlos Peña Ortiz, HKS ’20 of Reynosa, Mexico, which mirrors McAllen, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
New Ethics Center events mull real-life conflicts — Harvard Gazette

3 weeks ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

6 min read Social media exerts a powerful influence on college campuses. Has the technology helped broker new connections across ideological difference? Or has it simply siphoned students into conversations with those who share their views? This was the topic of last Thursday’s inaugural Ethics IRL (or, in real life,) a new series organized by the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics.
When a stove’s virtues amount to more than just hot air — Harvard Gazette

3 weeks ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

8 min read Joyce Chaplin thought she was done with Benjamin Franklin. “But then I was reading about the Little Ice Age and the particularly bad winter of 1740 to 1741,” said Chaplin, the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History. “Major harbors were reported as freezing over — in Boston, in London, in Venice.
Maybe a teacher. Or maybe an education policy reformer. — Harvard Gazette

1 month ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

4 min read Andrew Zonneveld sees teaching as the most important job in the world. “Doctors are great. But doctors are only doctors because they had great teachers,” said the first-generation College student from North Carolina. Zonneveld ’26, a government concentrator with a secondary in education studies, is attending Harvard College on full financial aid. Graduating debt-free means he can prioritize public service.
Rising econ star sheds light on power of exchange rates — Harvard Gazette

1 month ago | news.harvard.edu | Christy DeSmith

Exchange rates aren’t a hot topic in the U.S., due to the dollar dominating global trade and acting as the benchmark for all other currency valuations. “But in most countries of the world, the exchange rate looms very large,” said Professor of Economics Oleg Itskhoki, Ph.D. ’09. “In smaller open economies like Canada, Australia, Switzerland, or even Great Britain and Japan, the exchange rate matters quite a lot.