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. She has also recently co-edited a volume of essays entitled Muslims Against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan with Cambridge University Press and a special issue for the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society entitled “Urban Emotions in South Asia.” Her next book project will focus on youth in public life in South Asia in the late colonial and early independence period.

Julie and Martin Franklin are both ardent supporters of Penn who established this chair in 2008 to recognize and retain eminent scholars and professors who demonstrate outstanding performance in their field. Martin Franklin, C'86, is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Jarden Corporation and has served on the boards of Promotora de Informaciones S.A., Kenneth Cole Productions, and GLG Inc. Julie Franklin, C'87, currently serves on Penn's Social Policy and Practice Overseers Board and the Trustees' Council of Penn Women.

Arts & Sciences News

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Marisa C. Kozlowski Named Next Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences

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One Fourth Year, One Alum Receive 2025 Hertz Fellowship

Eric Tao, C’25, Gr’25 (left), and Suraj Chandran, C’23, were awarded the honor, part of a group of 19 fellows selected this year. Each one receives five years of funding toward a doctoral program.

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Benjamin Nathans Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction

Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, won for his book “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.”

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Mark Devlin Elected to National Academy of Sciences

He joins three others from Penn to receive the honor this year, all recognized for “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

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Michael Jones-Correa and Sophia Rosenfeld Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They join three others from the University of Pennsylvania, selected as part of the Academy’s mission to convene leaders from “every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together.”

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