2014
Josef Wegner and Team Unearth Forgotten Egyptian Pharaoh
A team of Penn archaeologists led by Josef Wegner, Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Associate Curator in the Penn Museum’s Egyptian Section, has found the tomb of an unknown king in the city of Abydos. After excavating a series of chambers constructed of mud-brick—usually a sign of a common person’s tomb—they encountered a burial chamber lined with limestone.
Thomas Sugrue Elected President of Social Science History Association
Thomas J. Sugrue, David Boies Professor of History and Director of the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum, has been elected president of the Social Science History Association. It is the leading international association in the field. He will deliver his presidential address at the 2014 SSHA conference in Toronto on the theme “Inequalities: Politics, Policy, and the Past.”
Congratulations to Penn Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholars
The School of Arts and Sciences has named 20 students from the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Graduate Division as 2014 Dean’s Scholars. This honor is presented annually to SAS students who exhibit exceptional academic performance and intellectual promise. The 2014 Dean’s Scholars will be formally recognized as part of the Levin Family Dean’s Forum on February 6.
Two Members of Penn Arts and Sciences Community Nominated for Grammys
Two members of the Penn Arts and Sciences community were nominated for Grammy awards this year.Tony Peebles, C'03, plays saxophone in the 19-piece band Pacific Mambo Orchestra. Their album, PMO, won the award for Best Tropical Latin Album. Peebles was also Performance Coordinator for the Department of Music before moving to Oakland, California.
Penn Researchers Develop New Type of Liquid Crystal
Liquid crystals combine the optical properties of crystalline solids with the flow properties of liquids—characteristics that come together to enable the displays found in most computer monitors, televisions, and smartphones.
Penn Senior Wins Churchill Scholarship
Sarah Foster, C’14, has been awarded a Winston Churchill Scholarship, a merit-based prize for American college students who are outstanding in engineering, mathematics, and physical and biological sciences. The scholarship will support her studies at the University of Cambridge. Foster is one of 14 U.S. students awarded Churchill Scholarships this year.
Three From Penn Arts and Sciences Named 2014 Penn Fellows
Penn Provost Vincent Price and Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen are pleased to announce the appointment of the sixth cohort of Penn Fellows.The Penn Fellows program, begun in 2009, provides leadership development to select mid-career faculty members at Penn. It includes opportunities to build cross-campus alliances, meet distinguished academic leaders, think strategically about universities and university governance, and consult with Penn’s senior administrators.
Interdisciplinary Team Creates Way to Capture RNA From Living Cells
A multidisciplinary team from Penn has published in Nature Methods a first-of-its-kind way to isolate RNA from live cells in their natural tissue microenvironment without damaging nearby cells. This allows the researchers to analyze how cell-to-cell chemical connections influence individual cell function and overall protein production.
Penn Biologists Develop New Method for Studying RNA
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have teamed up to offer a new method for elucidating RNA regulation. Since RNA is now believed to play a major role in determining whether and how DNA is turned into a protein product, the scientists have provided a means of efficiently obtaining an entire “footprint” of interactions between RNA and the proteins that bind to RNA molecules.
2013
Team Led By Randall Kamien Advances Nanotechnology Through Liquid Crystal Construction
A team of material scientists, chemical engineers, and physicists from the University of Pennsylvania has made another advance in its effort to use liquid crystals as a medium for assembling structures.
Penn Team Makes Inroads Into Reducing Toxicity Associated With Lou Gehrig’s Disease
In a new study published in Nature Genetics, University of Pennsylvania researchers and colleagues have made inroads into the mechanism by which amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, acts. Working with a powerful fruit fly model of the disease, they found a way of reducing disease toxicity that slows the dysfunction of neurons, while showing that a parallel mechanism can reduce toxicity in mammalian cells.
Etienne Benson Writes History of American Urban Squirrel
Though many people believe squirrels have existed in urban landscapes since Europeans arrived in the U.S., their presence is actually the result of intentional introductions. In his paper, “The Urbanization of the Eastern Gray Squirrel in the United States,” Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science Etienne Benson examines how the now-ubiquitous squirrel found a home American cities, and how its presence there altered people’s conceptions of nature and community.
Chemistry’s Fakhraai Wins NSF CAREER Award
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Zahra Fakhraai has received the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award.
Team Led by Wei Guo Identifies New Mechanism of Cancer Spread
A new study by Penn scientists has identified key steps that trigger the disintegration of cellular regulation that causes cancer. Their discovery—that a protein called Exo70 has a split personality, with one form keeping cells under tight control and another that promotes cell movement, contributing to the ability of tumors to invade distant parts of the body—points to new possibilities for diagnosing cancer metastasis.
Michael Kahana Leads Team That Finds Memories Are ‘Geotagged’
A team of neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and Freiburg University has used a video game to discover that particular brain cells encode spatial information to form “geotags” for specific memories. The geotags are activated immediately before those memories are recalled, demonstrating the way in which spatial information is incorporated into memories. It is the first direct neural evidence of the phenomenon.
Faculty Opinion: Filibuster Reform's Impact
The changes the U.S. Senate made to the filibuster rules on November 21, 2013 are the types of parliamentary tactics that make legislative scholars excited to go to work each day. The term “filibuster” refers to the various tools available to legislators to prevent bills from being considered by the legislature. While many Americans associate the filibuster with the 24-hour speech of Jimmy Stewart’s character Jefferson Smith in the film Mr.
Penn Researchers Show Bitter Taste Sensitivity Was an Evolutionary Advantage
Sarah Tishkoff, Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor in the Department of Biology and Penn Medicine’s Department of Genetics, is senior author of a new study that provides evidence of the significance of bitter taste perception. The study suggests that a genetic mutation making certain people sensitive to bitter compounds appears to have been advantageous, in terms of immune response and metabolism, for certain human populations in Africa.
Biologist Rea Honored by AAAS
Biologist Philip A. Rea has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his fundamental discoveries on the membrane transport and detoxification of xenobiotics and his distinguished accomplishments and creativity in science education.
John Tresch Wins Top Book Award from HSS
Associate Professor of the History and Sociology of Science John Tresch has received the 2013 Pfizer Prize for Best Scholarly Book from the History of Science Society (HSS) for The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon. The Pfizer Prize recognizes an outstanding book in the history of science and is the highest honor awarded by the HSS for a single work of scholarship.
Penn Researchers Develop a New Tool for Controlling Liquid Crystals
Penn researchers have developed a new way to control liquid crystals, which may lead to new types of antennas, sensors, or displays.
John Diiulio to Oversee Multi-state Research on Affordable Care Act Implementation
The Rockefeller Institute of the State University of New York and the Fels Institute of Government of the University of Pennsylvania are co-sponsoring a new national network of researchers in 29 states to study the implementation and evolution of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Thomas L.
Leading the Way in Energy Research
With a gift of $15 million, University of Pennsylvania trustee emeritus P. Roy Vagelos, C’50, Hon’99, and his wife, Diana, parents ’90, are continuing to ensure Penn’s leadership in energy research by endowing two professorships dedicated to this critically important field.
Penn Scientists Demonstrate New Design for Solar Cell Construction
Researchers at Penn have experimentally demonstrated a new paradigm for solar cell construction that may ultimately make solar panels less expensive, easier to manufacture, and more efficient at harvesting energy from the sun.
Penn Physicists Overcome Obstacle to Faster DNA Sequencing
The instructions for building all of the body’s proteins are contained in a person’s DNA, a string of chemicals that, if unwound, would form a sentence 3 billion letters long. Each person’s sentence is unique, so learning how to read gene sequences as quickly and inexpensively as possible could pave the way to countless personalized medical applications.
Evolution Can Select for Evolvability, Penn Biologists Find
Evolution does not operate with a goal in mind; it does not have foresight. But organisms that have a greater capacity to evolve may fare better in rapidly changing environments. This raises the question: Does evolution favor characteristics that increase a species’ ability to evolve?
Charles Kane is the Class of 1965 Term Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Charles Kane has been appointed the Class of 1965 Term Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Sociology’s Bosk Elected to Institute of Medicine
Professor of Sociology Charles L. Bosk has been elected a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the nation's highest honors in biomedicine. He is one of very few of the IOM’s 1,753 members to hold a primary appointment in a school of arts and sciences.
White House Official Cites Fox Leadership Program's Work Fighting Hunger
"The City of Brotherly Love puts its motto into practice," says Melissa Rogers, Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, in a blog post on the USDA web site. She goes on to cite Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion, and Civil Society John DiIulio and Penn's Fox Leadership Program:
Robert Aronowitz Sees Continuity in Prostate Cancer Screening's Ethically Fraught History
An ethically dubious medical research study from the 1950s and '60s, known as the “Bowery series,” foreshadowed and shared commonalities with prostate cancer screening and treatment measures as they are carried out today, argues University of Pennsylvania physician and historian Robert Aronowitz in two new publications.
Lawrence R. Klein, Economist and Nobel Prize Winner, Passes Away
Lawrence R. Klein, Benjamin Franklin Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Pennsylvania and recipient of the Nobel Prize, died October 20, 2013.
Penn Chemists Win National Awards
Two Penn chemists have received awards from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.
Grant to McDaniel Will Help Make Thai Manuscripts Available Online
Justin McDaniel, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, has received a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to help fund the The Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts project.
Three Arts and Sciences Professors Named Institute for Advanced Study Fellows
Fellowships from the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton are enabling two Penn Arts and Sciences professors to pursue their research full-time this year.
Eknath Ghate, C'91, Awarded the 2013 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
Trailblazing mathematician and School of Arts and Sciences alumnus Eknath Ghate has been awarded the 2013 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Mathematical Sciences, the most prestigious award in India of its kind. Ghate graduated from Penn summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in mathematics in 1991. His research at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai focuses on number theory.
Penn Researchers Receive $8.6 Million Grant for Anesthesia Research
A research team led by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania will receive $8.6 million over the next five years through a renewed grant from the National Institutes of Health. The multidisciplinary, multi-institution project is working to unravel the mysteries of anesthesia. The team is comprised of top medicine, chemistry, and biology researchers at Penn Arts and Sciences, the Perelman School of Medicine, and others across the Philadelphia region and in Pittsburgh.
A.T. Charlie Johnson's Graphene Frontiers Awarded National Science Foundation Grant
Graphene Frontiers, a company developed through the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Technology Transfer, has been awarded a $744,600 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop roll-to-roll production of graphene, the “miracle material” at the heart of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Angela Duckworth Receives Prestigious "Genius Grant"
Angela Duckworth, Associate Professor of Psychology, is one of 24 people named to the 2013 class of MacArthur Fellows. These prestigious “genius grants” are awarded to individuals who show “exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.”
Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology Opens
The University of Pennsylvania officially opened the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology on October 4. It is the region’s premier facility for advanced research, education, and innovative public/private partnerships in this emerging field. Nanotechnology research has implications for everything from regenerative medicine and targeted drug delivery systems to innovations in electricity storage and creation, and much more.
Wendy Steiner's "Biennale: A Comic Opera" Playing at the Barnes Foundation
Richard L. Fisher Professor Emerita of English Wendy Steiner’s new comic opera, Biennale: A Comic Opera, written with composer Paul Richards, is now at the Barnes Foundation.
Psychology's Coren Apicella Finds 'Endowment Effect’ Not Present in All Societies
The fields of psychology and behavioral economics have experimentally identified common biases that cause people to act against their own apparent interests. One of these biases—the mere fact of possessing something raises its value to its owner—is known as the “endowment effect.” A new interdisciplinary study from the University of Pennsylvania has delved into whether this bias is truly universal, and whether it might have been present in humanity’s evolutionary past.
Penn International Relations Lecturer Receives International Prize
Thomas Cavanna, a lecturer in Penn’s International Relations Program, has received the Jean-Baptiste Duroselle Prize for his dissertation “American Foreign Policy Towards India and Pakistan in the 1970s.” Named after a French diplomatic historian, the Duroselle Prize is granted in France each year by a jury of academics to a dissertation on the history of international relations.
Japan-RAMS Scholars Make Early Manuscript Reading Hallmark of Penn Program
Scholars at the University of Pennsylvania are on their way to making the skill of reading manuscript text a hallmark of the Japanese studies program at Penn.
Chemist Marisa Kozlowski Named Fellow of American Chemical Society
Penn Arts and Sciences Professor of Chemistry Marisa Kozlowski was inducted as a fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) at its 246th National Meeting in Indianapolis September 9. Her citation noted the important advances she has made in chemical reaction methods and her development of new computational methods for the design and evaluation of ligands for reactions.
History Professor Receives Fellowship in Berlin
Associate Professor of History Cheikh Anta Babou is a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study) in Berlin for the 2013-2014 academic year. The Kolleg was founded in 1981 to offer scholars and scientists the opportunity to spend a year concentrating on projects of their own choice.
The Syrian Crisis: A Political Science Roundtable
On Wednesday, September 18, Penn Arts and Sciences is offering a special Knowledge by the Slice, cosponsored by the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society.
Penn Chemist Wins Nichols Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Research
In recognition of his outstanding achievement in chemical research, Amos B. Smith III of Penn Arts and Sciences has been named the recipient of the 2014 William H. Nichols Medal by the New York Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). To date, 16 recipients of the Nichols Medal have also received the Nobel Prize.
Physics and Astronomy Team Begins Digital Sky-Mapping to Survey Dark Energy
Penn astronomers are playing an integral role in the Dark Energy Survey, a global project that will map one-eighth of the sky in unprecedented detail using the world’s most powerful digital camera. The Dark Energy Camera is able to see light from more than 100,000 galaxies up to eight billion light years away in each snapshot.
Penn Biologists Reveal That Generosity Is Linked to Evolutionary Success
Associate professor Joshua Plotkin and postdoctoral researcher Alexander Stewart, both of the Department of Biology, examined the outcome of the classic game theory match-up known as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” as played repeatedly by a large, evolving population of players.
Penn Arts and Sciences Welcomes New Faculty
Penn Arts and Sciences has appointed 20 new members to its standing faculty for the 2013-2014 academic year. The School is pleased to welcome:Erol Akçay, Assistant Professor of Biology (as of January 1, 2014): Emergence of cooperation in ecological and social systems; game theory and stochastic modeling applied problems in evolutionary ecology, psychology, linguistics, and economics. Ph.D. from Stanford.
Camille Charles Named a Fellow by Straus Institute
Camille Z. Charles, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences, has been selected as a 2013-14 fellow by The Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice at New York University. Each year, the Straus Institute brings fellows from around the world to facilitate high level research and scholarship on topics falling within a broad definition of law and justice.