2018
Physicist to Shed Light on an Emerging Field in Physics
Bo Zhen, an assistant professor of physics, has been awarded a Young Investigator Grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Zhen will receive $450,000 for a three-year period to investigate non-Hermitian topological photonics.
Political Scientist Rudra Sil Reconsiders Russia
Rudra Sil, the director of the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, does research in the fields of comparative and international politics with a special interest in Russian and post-communist studies, Russian foreign policy, and United States-Russia relations.
2017
Dagmawi Woubshet Is Ahuja Family Presidential Associate Professor
Dagmawi Woubshet has joined Penn as the inaugural Ahuja Family Presidential Associate Professor of English. A scholar of African American literature and visual culture, Woubshet comes to Penn from Cornell University, where he received Cornell’s highest honor for undergraduate mentoring and teaching, the Paul Award for Excellence, in 2012, as well as being named one of “The 10 Best Professors at Cornell” in 2013 by Business Insider.
Anne Norton Named Stacey and Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Professor
Anne Norton, Professor and Department Chair of Political Science, has been named the inaugural Stacey and Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science. A scholar of political theory, Norton is the author of seven books, including On the Muslim Question and 95 Theses on Politics, Culture and Method. She is Co-Founding Editor of the journal Theory and Event and on the executive board of the journal Political Theory.
Dark Energy Survey Offers New View of Dark Matter Halos
Dark matter, a mysterious form of matter that makes up about 80 percent of the mass of the universe, has evaded detection for decades. Although it doesn’t interact with light, scientists believe it’s there because of its influence on galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Peter Decherney Receives Penn Alumni Faculty Award of Merit
Peter Decherney, a professor of English and cinema studies in Penn Arts and Sciences, has received the 2017 Penn Alumni Faculty Award of Merit. This award recognizes a faculty member who has made outstanding contributions to alumni education and engagement by sharing his or her unique scholarship.
New Method of Stabilizing Peptides Opens the Door to Better Therapeutic and Imaging Techniques
For many people with advanced Type 2 diabetes, taking insulin is a regular part of their routine, helping them control their blood sugar by signaling the metabolism of glucose. But recently, researchers have been investigating GLP-1, a peptide that gets activated when people eat, triggering insulin through a more natural pathway.
Seeing Isn’t Believing: Biologists Show How to Shut Off Hunger ‘Alarm System’
With a new study, researchers have explained the biological mechanism behind hunger-driven highs and lows. While the mere sight or smell of food can temporarily turn off neurons responsible for the drive to eat, they showed that the neurons only stay off if the brain receives a signal from the stomach that calories have been ingested.
Physicists Shed Light on How Wetness Affects a Phenomenon in Foams
Whether drinking beer, eating ice cream, or washing the dishes, it’s fair to say that many people come across foam on a day-to-day basis. It’s in everything from detergents to beverages to cosmetics. Outside of everyday life, it has applications in areas such as firefighting, isolating toxic materials and distributing chemicals. But there’s still a lot to be learned about this ubiquitous material.
Mitchell and Margo Blutt Endow Professorships at Three Penn Schools
Mitchell J. Blutt, C’78, M’82, WG’87, and Margo Krody Blutt have made a gift of $4.5 million, including matching funds, to endow three Presidential Professorships across the University of Pennsylvania. The Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Professorships will be held by faculty members in the School of Arts and Sciences, the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, and the Wharton School.
Center for Ancient Studies Holds Lunchtime Seminar on the Appropriation of Antiquity
As part of their 2017–2018 Lunchtime Seminar Series, the Center for Ancient Studies (CAS) presented “The Usage of Antiquity in Modern Times: The Manipulation of the Past,” a lecture by Joseph Farrell, M. Mark and Esther K. Watkins Professor in the Humanities. The talk, held in November, focused on the alt-right’s appropriation of the values of Greek and Roman antiquity—a controversial representation that has been met with shock and anger.
Peter Struck Awarded the Society for Classical Studies' Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit
Peter Struck, Professor and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies, has been awarded, for a second time, the Society for Classical Studies' Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit.
New Interdisciplinary Center to Promote the Study of Human Intelligence and Behavior
A new center at Penn Arts and Sciences has been established to unite researchers, programs, and initiatives involving human intelligence and behavior across the University. Known as MindCORE (Center for Outreach, Research, and Education), the center will promote multidisciplinary research aimed at fundamental questions of human cognition, intelligence, and behavior.
Researchers Establish Universal Signature Fundamental to How Glassy Materials Fail
Dropping a smartphone on its glass screen, which is made of atoms jammed together with no discernible order, could result in it shattering. Unlike metals and other crystalline material, glass and many other disordered solids cannot be deformed significantly before failing and, because of their lack of crystalline order, it is difficult to predict which atoms would change during failure.
Penn Junior Jack Stack Is Pursuing His Paleontological Dream
Some paleontologists travel far and wide to seek new fossils — to the desert Southwest of the United States, remote regions of China or the farthest tip of Argentina. University of Pennslyvania student Jack Stack, on the other hand, made his first paleontological discoveries much closer to home.At home, in fact.
Michael Kahana and Team Analyze the Formation of Memories
A team of neuroscientists has constructed the first whole-brain map of electrical connectivity in the brain based on data from nearly 300 neurosurgical patients with electrodes implanted directly on the brain. The researchers found that low-frequency rhythms of brain activity, when brain waves move up and down slowly, primarily drive communication between the frontal, temporal and medial temporal lobes, key brain regions that engage during memory processing.
Daniel José Mindiola Among Penn Professors Elected to the 2017 Class of AAAS Fellows
Daniel José Mindiola has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon members of AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society, by their peers.Mindiola is among 396 members awarded the honor this year because of scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.
Two College Seniors Named Rhodes Scholars
Two University of Pennsylvania seniors have been awarded Rhodes Scholarships for graduate study at the University of Oxford. Christopher D’Urso, of Colts Neck, N.J., has been awarded an American Rhodes and Adnan Zikri Jaafar, of Malaysia, has been awarded a Malaysian Rhodes.
Peter Holquist Named Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History
Peter Holquist, Associate Professor of History, has been appointed Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History. Holquist is a leading scholar of Russian and European History. He served as founder and editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History from 1999 to 2010, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Modern History.
A Russian Revolution in Opera, Created by a Penn Composer
Rasputin, an opera composed by Jay Reise, was performed in Moscow last weekend, part of a celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.The production also marked the opera’s 10th anniversary in repertory at Moscow’s Helikon Opera Company, directed by Dmitry Bertman. The performances, November 11 and 12, were in the new Stravinsky Hall and conducted by Alexander Briger, founder and chief conductor of the Australian World Orchestra.
Apply for the 2018 Grad Ben Talks
Grad Ben Talks returns for a second year after a successful inaugural event in 2017!Who is eligible to enter?Currently enrolled students in any of Penn Arts and Sciences’ graduate groups or professional master’s programs.What is it?
For Penn Undergrads, New Digital-Humanities Minor Offers Unique Perspectives on Conventional Ideas
Whitney Trettien has a unique perspective on books. The work of this assistant professor of English sits at the intersection of digital humanities and Renaissance literature.
Michael Leja Named James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art
Michael Leja, Professor of History of Art, has been named James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art. Leja is the author of two highly acclaimed books, Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s and Looking Askance: Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp, which won the Modernist Studies Association Book Prize.
Saint-Amour Named Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities
Paul Saint-Amour, Professor of English, has been appointed Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities. A leading scholar of Victorian and modernist literature, Saint-Amour has been a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, the Center for the Humanities at Cornell, and the National Humanities Center.
Goulian Named Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor in the Natural Sciences
Mark Goulian, Professor of Biology and Physics and Astronomy, has been appointed Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor in the Natural Sciences. Goulian is a highly influential scholar of microbiology. His research, which focuses primarily on Escherichia coli (E. coli), explores the fundamental mechanisms of signal transduction and gene expression in bacteria.
What Can Twitter Reveal About People With ADHD? Penn Researchers Provide Answers
What can Twitter reveal about people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD? Quite a bit about what life is like for someone with the condition, according to findings published by Sharath Chandra Guntuku and Lyle Ungar in the Journal of Attention Disorders. Twitter data might also provide clues to help facilitate more effective treatments.
Researchers Working to Mimic Giant Clams to Enhance the Production of Biofuel
Alison Sweeney has been studying giant clams since she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. These large mollusks, which anchor themselves to coral reefs in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, can grow to up to three-feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds.
Biologists Show How Chromosomes ‘Cheat’ for the Chance to Get Into an Egg
Each of your cells contains two copies of 23 chromosomes, one inherited from your father and one from your mother. Theoretically, when you create a gamete — a sperm or an egg — each copy has a 50-50 shot at being passed on. But the reality isn’t so clearcut.
Writer-in-Residence is a National Book Award Finalist
Since January, Carmen Maria Machado has been a writer-in-residence at Penn. Her first book, “Her Body and Other Parties,” is a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. The short story collection is a literary sensation and winner of a lengthening list of prizes. The book is appearing on various “Best of 2017” lists, including just-announced Publisher’s Weekly.
Luck Plays a Role in How Language Evolves
Read a few lines of Chaucer or Shakespeare and you’ll get a sense of how the English language has changed during the past millennium. Linguists catalogue these changes and work to discern why they happened. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have been doing something similar with living things, exploring how and why certain genes have changed over generations.
Restoring Active Memory Project Adds Task and Patient Data to Publicly Available Human Brain Dataset
The Restoring Active Memory project run by the University of Pennsylvania has just released human intracranial brain recording and stimulation data for 102 new patients and a new spatial-navigation task developed by researchers at Columbia University. The total RAM dataset now includes such recordings from 251 patients and more than 1,100 experimental sessions, making it the largest publicly available dataset of its kind.
Researchers Demonstrate How to Control Liquid Crystal Patterns
When Lisa Tran set out to investigate patterns in liquid crystals, she didn’t know what to expect. When she first looked through the microscope, she saw dancing iridescent spheres with fingerprint-like patterns etched into them that spiraled and flattened as the solution they were floated in changed.
Geometry Plays an Important Role in How Cells Behave, Penn Researchers Report
Inspired by how geometry influences physical systems such as soft matter, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have revealed surprising insights into how the physics of molecules within a cell affect how the cell behaves.
Karen Goldberg Is First Vagelos Professor in Energy Research
Dean Steven J. Fluharty is pleased to announce that Karen Goldberg has joined Penn as the Vagelos Professor in Energy Research. She also serves as the inaugural Director of the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology.
Ileana Pérez-Rodríguez Joins Penn Arts and Sciences Faculty as Elliman Faculty Fellow
Steven J. Fluharty, Dean of Penn Arts and Sciences, is pleased to announce that Ileana Pérez-Rodríguez has joined Penn as Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and Elliman Faculty Fellow.
Megan Robb Named Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Megan Robb, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, has been named Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. Robb is an accomplished scholar of South Asian Islam, with a particular focus is on the history of interpretative communities and literary publics. Her first monograph, Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life, 1900-1950, is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Andrea Mitchell a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania
Andrea Mitchell, CW'67, was recently selected as a 2017 Daughter of Pennsylvania. She and the other 2017 honorees were recognized at ceremony hosted by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and First Lady Frances Wolf.
The Water Center at Penn to Explore Systemic Issues
Howard Neukrug, Professor of Practice in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, is establishing The Water Center at Penn, which will be dedicated to advancing water policy research and urban water innovation by combining the expertise of academics, industry experts, and community representatives. The goal is to find real-world solutions to shared water problems, including issues such as toxins in drinking water, extreme storm events, and rising tides.
Penn Arts and Sciences Names Eugene Mele Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Physics
Eugene Mele, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been appointed the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Physics. Mele joined the faculty in 1981, and has spent most of his academic career at Penn. A condensed matter theorist whose pioneering research has resulted in predicting the existence of materials with non-trivial topological order, Mele’s research findings have influenced the course of quantum electronic phenomena research in solids.
Daniel Q. Gillion Named Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt Presidential Associate Professor of Political Science
Daniel Q. Gillion, Associate Professor of Political Science, has been appointed Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt Presidential Associate Professor of Political Science. Gillion studies racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public policy, and the American presidency.
Physicists Help Spot Explosive Counterpart of LIGO Discovery
Masao Sako, a member of the Dark Energy Survey and an associate professor of physics and astronomy, was on vacation with his family when he got the news that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, had made a fifth detection of gravitational waves, which expand and contract space time.
Dorothy Roberts Among Penn Faculty Elected to National Academy of Medicine
Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and Professor of Africana Studies, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the nation’s highest honors in biomedicine. Roberts, a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, is one of seven Penn faculty inductees.
Researchers Discover Which Brain Region Motivates Behavior Change
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Columbia University, and Duke University now better understand what motivates behavior change. The research points to a region in the brain called the posterior cingulate cortex. Neurons in this central location ramp up firing rates, peaking just before a divergent behavior occurs. The team published their findings in the journal Neuron.
Study Identifies Genes Responsible for Diversity of Human Skin Colors
Human populations feature a broad palette of skin tones. But until now, few genes have been shown to contribute to normal variation in skin color, and these had primarily been discovered through studies of European populations. Now, a study of diverse African groups has identified new genetic variants associated with skin pigmentation.
Benson, Teele Are Named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professors
Etienne Benson, Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science, and Dawn Teele, Assistant Professor of Political Science, have been named Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professors in the Social Sciences.
Penn Arts and Sciences Names Lauren Sallan the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies
Lauren Sallan, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, has been named the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies. Sallan is a scholar of paleobiology and paleontology. Her research, which uses the fossil record of fishes as a database to investigate macroevolutionary trends, aims to understand the long-term effects of global events including mass extinction, ecological dynamics, and environmental change.
Marci Hamilton Appointed Penn Arts and Sciences’ Third Professor of Practice
Marci Hamilton, one of the country’s leading church-state scholars, has been appointed a Penn Arts and Sciences’ Professor of Practice in the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program. Practice professorships bring accomplished leaders from business, government, or the arts into Penn Arts and Sciences’ classrooms to complement the expertise of the School’s standing faculty. Hamilton also serves as a Fox Family Pavilion Senior Fellow in Residence in the Robert A.
Earth’s Tectonic Plates Are Weaker Than Once Thought
David Goldsby, teaming with Christopher A. Thom, a doctoral student at Penn, as well as researchers from Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Delaware, has resolved a long-standing question in the area of plate tectonics.
Earth’s Tectonic Plates Are Weaker Than Once Thought
No one can travel inside the earth to study what happens there. So scientists must do their best to replicate real-world conditions inside the lab.
Penn Arts and Sciences Names Marc Flandreau the Howard Marks Professor of Economic History
Dean Steven J. Fluharty is pleased to announce that Marc Flandreau has joined Penn Arts and Sciences as the Howard Marks Professor of Economic History. Previously, Flandreau was professor of international history at the Graduate Institute of International Studies and Development in Geneva.