Harvard Magazine

Harvard University's Science Center will soon be getting a new name. Earlier this month, the University announced that the building will be renamed Zimmer Hall, in recognition of a 2018 gift from the Zimmer Family Foundation of $100 million.

The name honors Alan Zimmer, the late father of Stuart Zimmer ’91. Alan Zimmer was an American neuroradiologist trained in Switzerland who helped research and develop the use of computer axial tomography (CAT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the United States. Those technologies revolutionized medicine beginning in the 1970s and ’80s.

Science Center to Become Zimmer Hall | Harvard Magazine Harvard will rename the building following a $100 million gift from Stuart Zimmer ’91.

In our July–August 2026 issue, St. Louis–based writer Matt Crossman explores the growing movement to curb light pollution and highlights Serena Wurmser ’23’s astronomy tours in Hawaii, where she guides visitors beneath some of the world’s clearest night skies.

We’d love to see the night sky through our readers’ eyes. Whether from your backyard, a favorite travel destination, or a remote dark-sky site, share your best photos of stars, constellations, and the Milky Way.

Send submissions to [email protected] by July 10th for a chance to be featured on Harvard Magazine’s social media channels.

📸: Photographs by Serena Wurmser

In 1976, Harvard University planned to renovate a biological lab in Cambridge to enable researchers to experiment with recombinant DNA—then a novel technique for making viral and genetic modifications to living organisms. The changes were intended to bring the facility to a higher biosafety level.

But instead of a green light from the city, the University’s plan was met with protests, hundreds of hours of public debate, and a six-month moratorium on recombinant DNA research until the city devised its own regulations.

On a muggy June evening 50 years later, the MIT Museum and Central Square Theater invited residents back to City Hall to relive the debate in an immersive staging of the standoff. The show — titled “No Recombination Without Representation,” a reference to residents’ protest chants at the time—debuted on June 13

Cambridge Once Fought Harvard’s DNA Research. Now There’s a Play About It. | Harvard Magazine A theatrical reenactment explores a 1976 clash between science and democracy.