Penn Grad Talks 2025 Finalists

Professional Master's Presentations

Melissa Arjona, Behavioral and Decision Sciences

Vanishing Flavors: How Immigration Can Influence Culinary Traditions

Food is more than sustenance—it is memory, culture, and identity. Yet, across the U.S., a quiet erasure is happening. As Central American men migrate for work, many find themselves in restaurant kitchens, cooking food that is not their own. While they carry the culinary traditions of their homelands, social norms, economic pressures, and immigration policies prevent them from passing them on.

U.S. immigration policies often force rapid assimilation, separate families for years, and push migrants into labor-intensive, low-agency jobs. For many immigrant men, food knowledge exists in a liminal space—it is known but unspoken, held but not shared. Traditional recipes once shared in family kitchens are lost in the cycle of migration and survival. Unlike trained chefs who move with the goal of sharing their cuisine, these men are often working to send money home, not preserve a legacy.

This talk explores how migration reshapes food traditions, the behavioral barriers that prevent culinary transmission, and the risks posed by immigration policies that fragment communities. When the last keepers of a tradition have no one to share it with, what is lost? And how do we ensure that cultural heritage is not left at the border?

Leila Bateman, Organizational Dynamics

In Their Own Words: Neurodiverse Leaders

Neurodiversity is a natural part of human variation. Despite 15 to 20 percent of the population being neurodiverse, this group is nearly invisible in the leadership literature. Leaders are critical to the success of organizations, and failing to include neurodiverse leaders in the literature is a disservice to them, businesses, and society. The question therefore is simple, but the impacts may be great: How do neurodiverse leaders experience and navigate leadership?

To address this question, I conducted an exploratory research study. Seven neurodiverse leaders, with roles from managers to the C-suite to company owners, and with neurodiversity including ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, shared their stories through in-depth and often emotional interviews. This research revealed that neurodiverse leaders: 1) often present differently than neurotypical leaders, including engaging in ‘atypical’ leadership behaviors that receive scrutiny and bringing strengths such as creative thinking to solve problems; 2) carry the burden of masking their behaviors and identity at work; and 3) tend to have strengths in empathic leadership, drawn from their own experiences as ‘different.’ This research provides a voice to neurodiverse leaders and poses opportunities for future research to better understand, include, and learn from this significant portion of the leadership population.

Suzanne Johnson, Applied Positive Psychology

Revenge of the Bionic Beetroot: Conquering Shyness with Optimism

This talk explores the transformative power of optimism in addressing shyness and its accompanying social anxiety. It begins with a personal narrative about classroom humiliation and its lasting impact and considers both introverted and extroverted manifestations of shyness. I challenge traditional views of optimism as a fixed trait and introduce Martin Seligman’s concept of optimism as an explanatory style that can be learned. I will demonstrate how shifting from pessimistic to optimistic thinking patterns can significantly affect an individual’s experience of shyness.

A key insight is how the world acts as a mirror, reflecting back our own projected emotions and behaviors; a smile invites warmth, while averted eyes encourage distance. Leveraging research from positive psychology, including Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, I illustrate how these reflective interactions create either upward or downward spirals of well-being. In addition, I advocate for a balanced perspective that recognizes both the challenges and often-overlooked evolutionary advantages of shyness. This presentation emphasizes the importance of empowering shy individuals through learned optimism, allowing them to choose when and how to engage, and to navigate social situations with confidence rather than being controlled by their shyness.

Caroline Jones, Organizational Dynamics

Lead with Listening: Using a Coaching Mindset to Elevate Daily Conversations

Leadership coaching isn’t about knowing all the right answers; it’s not about giving advice at all. It’s about asking the right questions at the right time. It’s about fostering a safe space to create meaning in someone’s life and help someone discover their potential. In the Master of Science in Organizational Dynamic program, I’m thrilled to be part of the Leadership and Coaching Cohort. Through my work in this program, I’ve seen how coaching can impact organizations. But going deeper, I’ve experienced how coaching can transform individuals’ lives.

Many of us will never end up in a formal coaching role; however, in my talk I’ll share a four-step coaching methodology that can be applied not only to formal coaching roles, but also in daily conversations with others— colleagues, family members, partners or spouses, anyone who interacts with you. This methodology is called DICE: Deep Listening, Inquiry Questions, Challenge and Support, and Effective Action. Imagine a world in which more of us stepped into the mindset of a coach—helping each other tap into strengths we didn’t know we had—and had the power to make an impact in everyday conversations.

Shuyao Liu, International Public Administration

When AI Listens: Can It Truly “Serve” Humanity in Crises

How can public administration balance efficiency with empathy in times of crisis? This talk explores the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and servant leadership, questioning whether AI can truly and promptly “serve” society. Drawing from my four years of experience as a multilingual volunteer at Shanghai 12345 Public Service Hotline, I’ll discuss AI’s potential in strengthening public administration resilience—not only in resolving immediate crises but also in shaping broader systems and policies while ensuring technology remains human-centered and responsive. From FEMA’s AI-driven disaster modeling in the United States to smart city initiatives in China, we’ll examine how technology accelerates response times, promotes equitable resource allocation, and fosters public trust during crises. Ultimately, this talk challenges us to consider whether AI can go beyond optimizing prompt decision-making to fostering more compassionate and responsive human-centered public services.

Alternate

Srishti Jainapur, Environmental Studies

Unlocking Energy & Cost Savings in Research Labs through Ultra-Low Temperature Freezer Optimization

Humanities Presentations

Marina de Melo do Nascimento, East Asian Languages & Civilizations

Silent Dissent: How Girls’ Magazines in Wartime Japan Negotiated Empire and Expression

Girls’ magazines in wartime Japan occupied a complex space between entertainment, propaganda, and subtle resistance. While these publications adhered to state-imposed guidelines, they also served as covert sites of emotional expression and quiet defiance. This presentation examines how editors, writers, illustrators, and readers navigated the contradictions of engaging with media that simultaneously supported and subverted the Japanese imperial project.

Through two case studies, I explore this ambivalence. First, the case of Nakahara Jun’ichi, a renowned illustrator whose elegant fashion drawings were subject to censorship, reveals the tensions between aesthetic expression and wartime restrictions. Second, I examine the experience of Kisa Shinzato, a high school student from Okinawa who treasured one of Nakahara’s works and gifted it to her younger sister before being sent to the front lines as a nurse. These examples highlight how girls’ magazines functioned as both tools of ideological control and spaces of subtle resistance, complicating the binary of collaboration and opposition. By centering the experiences of creators and readers, this study underscores the agency of those who found ways to inscribe personal desires and anxieties within the constraints of a militarized media landscape.

Deion Dresser, Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies

Mother Has Arrived: Reclaiming Birth from Erasure

Ben Franklin quipped, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Western philosophy has long upheld death, control, and sovereignty as its primary concerns, while birth—the universal event that precedes all existence—remains conceptually marginalized. Equally absent is the maternal figure, whose body and labor enable this foundational event. My research and this presentation challenge this erasure by centering birth and the maternal body as sites of ethical, epistemic, and political transformation.

Drawing on Italian feminist philosophers, this talk reframes birth as a revolutionary moment, disrupting patriarchal hierarchies and fostering relationality and care. It critiques dominant biopolitical paradigms, which privilege death over generativity, and proposes an alternative political and ethical framework centered on the maternal. Through analyses of maternal genealogies, the maternal body as an epistemic force, and the overlooked political significance of birth, this talk illustrates how reclaiming the maternal can reshape contemporary debates on migration, environmental ethics, and governance.

By integrating philosophical critique with real-world applications, we’re encouraged to rethink fundamental assumptions about power, care, and subjectivity. We must recognize the mother not as a passive figure but as a central agent in constructing a more inclusive, equitable, and life-affirming future.

Asher Maria, Comparative Literature & Literary Theory

How I’ll Study My 12th Language (and Why Duolingo Isn’t It)

In less than five years I’ve learned how to read in 11 different languages, with conversational abilities or near fluency in six of them. Nearly everyone has studied a foreign language, but very few Americans ever attain confidence as language learners. This talk will make the polemical argument that most people are never properly taught how to learn languages, with both textbooks and educators failing students as they focus too much on the language’s content and not enough on the actual process of language learning. Moreover, despite users’ daily engagement, the vast majority of language learning apps like Duolingo are scamming you of your time and money. I will defend these claims by contrasting both classroom and popular app-based methods with my own. Specifically, I will provide a detailed overview of the 90-day plan I will follow for learning my next language, Norwegian. The methods I employ combine studying techniques I learned as a former pre-medical student with a catalog of various tricks I learned over the course of my language study. I will end the talk with a discussion of the continued importance, both professionally and socially, of language learning despite recent innovations in AI and translation tools.

Peter Satterthwaite, Ancient History

Crowdfunding in Ancient Greece

How did fundraising work in ancient Greece? Did it have anything in common with the mechanisms familiar to us today? Ancient Greek city-states (poleis) had many methods of gathering money from their citizens, but among the most important was the epidosis, or public subscription. These subscriptions occurred when cities needed funds for a specific project and raised the money by collecting small contributions from many individual donors, not unlike modern “crowdfunding.” The epidosis had twofold significance: Not only was it essential to the cities’ finances, but its collective character made it an opportunity to celebrate civic pride and democratic values. Contributors’ names were also inscribed on stone, making each subscription a permanent monument to the community’s cohesion.

This talk presents my research on these monumental lists, especially the revelation that seemingly innocuous variations in formatting (layout, numbering systems, sequencing) were actually crucial in shaping how subscriptions worked. Some lists promised to name the biggest donors first, encouraging people to compete in their generosity; others, however, avoided hierarchization and instead highlighted the egalitarian ethos of “crowdfunding” by suppressing financial details. Ultimately, using several examples from Penn’s campus, I demonstrate that ancient methods of commemorating donors remain relevant today.

Max Stainton, Philosophy and Law

What You Really Ought To Do: The Nature of Law and Other Moral Systems

Is law just because it is just, or is it just because lawmakers declare that is it so? The standard positivist picture of law rejects the premise. Positivists believe that there is no inherent link between law and justice or morality because law is an artificial normative system—artificial because it is made by mankind, normative because it instructs us on what we ought do, system because it is a collection of these artificial norms, like sports or fashion, which have rules (e.g., be on-sides, match colors), but there is no moral reason to obey them. They are made up, so their norms are not really binding. This talk rejects the standard positivist picture and the framework of artificial normative systems more broadly. Morality is a real phenomenon that exists in the natural world. Just as physics has immutable, eternal laws such as gravity, morality has laws that are true for all people in all places, like promoting life and human flourishing. Because morality is a natural normative system, it exists independent of mankind and is always binding, even on our “artificial” normative systems like sports or fashion or law. To understand law, one must engage in moral reasoning.

Social Sciences Presentations

Tayeba Batool, Anthropology

We Won’t Fail in the Practical: Narratives from an Urban Forest in Pakistan

This talk describes the after-life of an urban forest developed in Rawalpindi. Since 2020, the Government of Pakistan has been promoting and adapting the Japanese-inspired Miyawaki Urban Forests, an afforestation model to address climate change and rapid urbanization across its cities. I offer narratives from garden-workers who are tasked to cultivate, care for, and maintain these forests. The talk highlights that we have to look beyond the professional expertise of ecologists who develop the models, to the everyday experiences of gardeners and the practical ways they engage with the work of caring for and being with these urban forests. Their narratives emphasize that the forest is not only an ecological entity but also a social entity that brings its own world and practices. This talk is based off of my dissertation research on governance, expertise, and ecology of arboreal natures in urban Pakistan.

Michael Lachanski, Demography/Sociology

The Organizational Demography of the U.S. Public Sector, 2002 – 2022

Over two decades from 2002 to 2022, I compared how long people stay in their jobs across three sectors of the U.S. workforce: state and local government, federal government, and private sector. Using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and the Current Population Survey (CPS), I built “tenure table models” to measure job stability—the likelihood workers remain in the same job over time. The findings show that federal government employees enjoy a notable stability advantage compared to state and local government workers and those in the private sector. This difference emerges soon after hiring, as federal employees have lower rates of early separations.

To explore the role of involuntary job losses (“job displacements”), I employed multiple decrement tenure table models using the CPS Displaced Workers’ Supplement. Although these displacements affect job stability, they account for only a small portion of the overall public-private gap. Hence, the public sector’s job security advantage stems from fewer early separations, not fewer displacements. These results help policymakers, employers, and workers understand the factors behind stronger job security in the federal government. Public sector jobs may be more appealing for workers seeking long-term stability and security.

Lauren Palladino, Political Science

The Gender Gap in Political Tolerance: Explaining Women’s Attitudes Toward Free Expression

Gender differences in political tolerance and support for free expression have persisted since early studies of attitudes toward the civil liberties of controversial political groups in the mid-20th century. Today, women continue to report lower levels of political tolerance relative to men despite major changes in how political tolerance is measured, changes in women’s levels of education and participation in civil society, and shifts in the kinds of groups Americans find most threatening.

Although previous patterns of tolerance for liberals and conservatives and old people versus young people have changed dramatically, gender persists in predicting less tolerance, just as it has for many decades. Surprisingly, little is known about the source of this gap in support for this important democratic norm. In my dissertation, I leverage large samples of the American public to explore various explanations for why women remain less politically tolerant than men. Extant literature has only considered variables related to socialization, arguing that women’s limited exposure to controversial political viewpoints and dominance of the domestic sphere diminished tolerance. I argue that these theories are outdated and suggest that aversion to conflict, competition, and violence drive the gender gap we observe today.

Brigid Prial, History and Sociology of Science

Our Closest Cousins? Laboratory Chimpanzees in HIV/AIDS Research and Historicizing Compassion

In the early 1980s, infectious disease researchers confronted a new viral pandemic when the mystifying Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) emerged. As with many novel diseases and research problems, U.S. scientists looked to an animal model for answers—in this case, the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees had served as laboratory animals in the U.S. for decades previously, but the activist, media, and public attention garnered by the AIDS crisis highlighted chimpanzee lab research as a new kind of ethical dilemma. Public backlash against invasive lab research with a charismatic animal, alongside widely circulating, unsympathetic stereotypes of people with AIDS, created powerful opposition to lab experimentation with chimps. But mainstream focus on a single bioethical question—should chimpanzees be harmed for HIV/AIDS research—foreclosed a variety of broader ethical, environmental, and economic concerns regarding chimpanzee research. Through the controversy about chimps in HIV/AIDS research, this talk explores how the idea of a special relationship between humans and chimpanzees is not a natural, scientific fact, but rather a historical construction. I demonstrate how this concept has had important material ramifications for laboratory research practices, influenced notions of environmental responsibility, and even shaped our beliefs about which human and animal groups are deserving of compassion.

Alberto Ramirez de Aguilar, Economics

Debt, Inflation, and Government Reputation

What if the secret to controlling inflation lies not in complex equations, but in trust? In this talk, I’ll unravel how a government’s reputation—the public’s belief in its dedication to low inflation—shapes economic realities, particularly the interplay between public debt and inflation. Using a dynamic game with incomplete information, I explore how governments and wage setters engage in a strategic dance: Governments navigate debt and inflation policies, while wage setters interpret these actions to predict the future. Some governments play the long game, prioritizing credibility and low inflation; others chase short-term gains, risking reputational damage. The result? A simple yet profound insight: Stronger government reputation reduces inflation and weakens the effect of debt on inflation dynamics. Even with high debt, a trusted government can keep inflation under control. Calibrated with real-world data from Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, and Thailand, this framework explains why debt and inflation are sometimes tightly linked—and sometimes aren’t. Join me as we explore how trust in institutions isn’t just a moral ideal but a powerful economic force shaping the lives of millions.

Alternate

Djavaneh Bierwirth, Lauder Institute, International Studies

When a ‘Total’ Becomes an ‘LVMH’: Exploring How Saudi Arabia and the UAE Are Using Glamour and Prestige to Build Perennial Global Power

How does a nation transition from resource dependency to becoming a global icon of culture, luxury, and influence? Saudi Arabia and the UAE are rewriting the playbook for economic transformation by investing heavily in luxury tourism and cultural infrastructure. Through world-class airports, five-star hotels, and high-profile partnerships—like the Louvre Abu Dhabi and Formula 1—they are crafting a narrative of exclusivity and modernity designed to captivate global audiences.

Unlike traditional growth models reliant on manufacturing, this strategy capitalizes on the low barriers to entry in tourism and the universal appeal of luxury to create a powerful economic multiplier. By attracting wealthy and influential individuals, these nations aim not only to boost tourism revenues but also to catalyze foreign direct investment, foster the creation of expertise and trade networks, and long-term economic ripple effects. Such investments enable a transition from finite commodity-based economies to enduring global “conglomerates,” defined by their unique product-market fit and internationally recognized brands.

This talk proposes to examine the conditions under which this luxury-consumption development model succeeds, the risks of over-reliance on tourism, and the critical role of branding in a highly competitive global market. Ultimately, it offers a new lens for understanding rapid economic development, blending rigorous analysis with the timeless allure of cultural prestige.

Natural Sciences Presentations

May Pik Yu Chan, Linguistics

When High Notes Challenge Speech: What Opera Singers Teach Us About Language

Why are tone languages, like Mandarin, so difficult to learn? And why can’t we just use a wider pitch range to make tone differences easier to perceive? For decades, scientists have built theories of speech based on low-pitched voices, neatly explaining how vowels and pitch work as isolated properties of the voice. But when it comes to higher pitches, these theories start to fall apart. High-pitched speech isn’t rare; it plays a vital role in communication, from parents talking to children, to actors projecting their voices on stage. Unfortunately, higher-pitched speech also presents significant challenges for technologies like speech recognition.

Opera singers might hold the key to understanding why. Using ultrasound imaging, I discovered that singers adjust their tongue positions—a major factor in vowel production—depending on pitch. Surprisingly, some untrained singers intuitively do the same. These tongue adjustments blur vowel distinctions at high pitches. In other words, language may have evolved to stay at lower pitch ranges because our voices can’t keep vowels distinct at higher pitches. By exploring the limits of human vocal production, my research underscores the need to study a diverse range of speech contexts and its implications for language science and technology

Jaydee Edwards, Earth and Environmental Science

What Happens After Rubber Meets the Road?

When we think of vehicle pollution, our focus is often on fossil fuels. However, vehicles produce more than just exhaust emissions. Vehicle parts like brakes and tires generate micro-sized particles collectively known as non-exhaust emissions. While vehicle exhaust emissions have been increasingly regulated, non-exhaust emissions remain underexplored, and thus unregulated. My research focuses on tire-wear particle emissions—particles generated as the outermost part of the tire, the tread, wears down due to friction forces. These very small tire pieces accumulate on roads and are often encrusted with other road dust materials. So, what happens after the tire rubber meets the road?

For the past three years, I have analyzed Philadelphia’s road dust and stormwater to answer this question. This work has led to the development of new methods for single particle characterization, deeper insights into road dust and tire particles composition, and quantification of harmful toxicants entering the environment. As research on vehicle emissions progresses, this study aims to bring tire wear emissions into the spotlight to promote meaningful and holistic changes in vehicle-related policies and driving practices to protect our environment.

Leonardo Ferreira Guilhoto, Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences

How To Know What You Don’t Know

In an era where machine learning models are driving breakthroughs in science, engineering, and even everyday life, one question remains critically important: How do we trust what these models tell us? While these systems often excel at making predictions, they usually fail to answer more fundamental questions: How certain are we about these predictions? What are the different types of uncertainty affecting these predictions? Can we reduce uncertainty by just collecting more data, or is it something intrinsic to the world?

This is where Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) comes in—a powerful framework that helps us measure confidence in our models and identify what we don’t know. UQ is not just about numbers; it’s about trust, safety, and better decision-making in the real world. Whether we’re designing a semiconductor chip, forecasting climate change, or making medical diagnoses, understanding uncertainty can mean the difference between success and failure. In this talk, I’ll show why uncertainty matters, and how it can transform machine learning from a black-box tool into a reliable partner. As it turns out, embracing that there are things we just don’t know might be the most scientific thing we can do.

Rachael Keneipp, Physics and Astronomy

“Blue” Energy: How Water Can Power the Planet

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2023 Annual Energy Outlook, the consumption of energy in the United States is projected to increase by as much as 15 percent by 2050. One creative and environmentally conscious solution to this energy problem is already a part of our daily lives: water. Osmotic or “blue” energy is derived from the motion ions in water when freshwater and saltwater mix. In this talk, I will introduce the science behind blue energy and dive into the platform that the Drndić lab is pursuing to harness this energy: nanoporous two-dimensional membranes. I will introduce two-dimensional (2D) materials that are just one- to a few atoms thick, and discuss how these materials can be used in osmotic power generation. Furthermore, I will discuss how we engineer 2D materials through the introduction of nanopores—nanoscale holes often just a few atoms wide—to create the ion-selective membranes necessary for blue energy; the major challenges facing the implementation of blue energy; and how work being pursued in the Drndić Lab is addressing those challenges.

Marlie Tandoc, Psychology

Are You Even Listening? How Kids’ Lack of Attention Helps Them Learn

In a world increasingly filled with distractions, children’s lack of focus is usually thought of as a bad thing. However, recent psychological research—including studies I and others have published—suggests that poor selective attention may actually help children learn better in certain contexts. By bringing adults and children into the lab and comparing how they learn and pay attention in different ways, we were able to shed light on the distinct cognitive profiles of children and adults. Our findings show that kids’ poor selective attention allows them to take in more information and learn more broadly from their environments, noticing things that adults might miss. In contrast, adults are really good at focusing on one thing or task, but at the expense of ignoring a whole lot of the rest. In this talk, I draw from the latest research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience and discuss how understanding developmental differences can change the way we approach learning and education across the lifespan. I will also make the case that children’s “bad attention” is adaptive, helping them absorb information—like a sponge—at a time in life when they have the difficult task of learning how the world works.