The backdrop to the day was TD Garden, where Northeastern University held its commencement. As 20,000 people clapped and roared, Gov. Deval Patrick conferred an honorary degree on Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis for his handling of the marathon bombings investigation.

Criminologists and other social scientists should use their expertise to help the subjects of their research, including crime victims, says James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law, and public policy at Northeastern University. Mr. Fox recently helped a 2012 master’s-degree graduate from Northeastern who was drawn into the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. […]

Sometimes without warning, one of the autistic students in a classroom at the Center for Discovery will lose control. He will scream and cry. Throw things. Bang his head against the wall. The six adolescent boys in this Monticello, N.Y., classroom, some of the hardest-to-handle students in New York State, cannot explain what is upsetting […]

The recent announcement from the California State University System regarding its embrace of edX massive open online courses (MOOCs) is interesting and depressing at the same time. As with many aspects of the MOOC phenomenon, it comes packaged with good and bad aspects bundled up together. Instructors will offer a “special ‘flipped’ version of an electrical engineering […]

In today’s Academic Minute, Northeastern University’s Matthew Goodwin describes how wearable technology is improving the quality of autism studies. Goodwin is an assistant professor of health informatics at Northeastern. Find out more about him here. A transcript of this podcast can be found here.

Ever since the dreadful bombing at the Boston Marathon, I’ve been proud to call myself a native Bostonian. The slogan “Boston Strong” has spoken volumes about the character of the people and public officials of this great city. But the latest controversy surrounding where to bury — or whether to bury — the deceased Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one […]

Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, has said his nephew should be buried in Massachusetts, where he lived for the past decade. The situation is particularly heated because Tsarnaev is not thought of as sick or mentally ill like some killers, said James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University in Boston. People think he’s “evil,” […]

In today’s Academic Minute, Dr. Matthew Goodwin of Northeastern University reveals how wearable technology is improving the quality of autism studies. Matthew Goodwin is an assistant professor of health informatics at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. His current research project seeks to improve the understanding of minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder. He holds […]

There are surely more disruptions to come. Stephen E. Flynn, a security expert and former military officer who is co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University, ticks off the most likely threats: a breakdown in the power grid; interruption of global supply chains, including those that provide our […]

The chief victims of this shift in business behavior seem to be the long-term unemployed (more than six months), as some fascinating research by economists William Dickens and Rand Ghayad of Northeastern University suggests. By their estimates, virtually all the reduction in hiring falls on this group, regardless of their other characteristics (age, education, industry experience). Many […]

In the minutes after the Marathon bombings, phones began to ring and buzz as people checked on family members, friends, and distant relations in Boston. R U OK?, they texted. What happened, they asked. Researchers at Northeastern University are asking residents and visitors who used their cellphones to keep in touch with their social network […]

Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., will honor city Police Commissioner Ed Davis III with an honorary degree at the school’s commencement ceremony Friday.