Penn Arts & Sciences

08/12/2023

Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science, is quoted in AP and says five-sixths of the recent warming is from human burning of fossil fuels, with about one-sixth due to a strong El Nino.

"The fact that the world is coming out of a three-year La Nina, which suppressed global temperatures a bit, and going into a strong El Nino, which adds to them, makes the effect bigger, he said."

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania - Department of Earth & Environmental Science

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer’s record-shattering heat.

08/12/2023

Through her Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring summer internship, Mia McElhatton, C’26, explores how efforts to save the planet may disproportionately burden women.

Through her PURM experience, McElhatton is learning from a leading philosophical scholar, Prof. Kok-Chor Tan of Philosophy, who has encouraged her to develop her own research questions about how environmentalism can better align with human interests and social justice.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, Penn Philosophy

Through her Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring summer internship, Mia McElhatton, C’26, explores how efforts to save the planet may disproportionately burden women.

08/11/2023

Ángel Alvarado, Senior Fellow in the Department of Economics, is quoted in the The Wall Street Journal on the importance of remittances for people living in Venezuela -- a country where the economy has contracted 75% over the past decade under President Nicolás Maduro.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Remittances to the developing world hit a record $647 billion, aiding the poor but raising questions about the money’s impact from Nicaragua to Tajikistan.

08/11/2023

Michael Kahana, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Psychology, is featured in NPR for co-leading a new study that has successfully tested a potential treatment to help reduce memory deficits in patients suffering moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

"By electrically stimulating only at moments when you were predicted to fail, we were able to move the brain from a poor state into a better state," Kahana says.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

A severe traumatic brain injury can make it hard to remember recent events or conversations. But a form of brain stimulation appears to ease this memory deficit.

08/10/2023

A recent paper argues that the universe may be around 26.7 billion years old, almost twice what was thought. Vijay Balasubramanian and Mark Devlin talk about how to estimate the age of a universe, why this figure is different, and the excitement of getting new data.
University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences Penn Physics & Astronomy

Penn Professors Vijay Balasubramanian and Mark Devlin offer a broader understanding of a recent paper’s claim that the universe could be 26.7 billion years old.

08/10/2023

Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Professor of History and Africana Studies, discusses Donald Trump's third arraignment in historical context and how it compares to previous presidential scandals on CBS News.

"The major issue for me as a historian is not so much what happens to Trump, it's what happens to the country," says Berry.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania History Department, Africana Studies at Penn

Thursday saw the historic federal arraignment of a former U.S. president. Historian and University of Pennsylvania professor Mary Frances Berry joined CBS News to put Donald Trump's third arraignment in historical context and discuss how it compares to previous presidential scandals.

08/09/2023

Prof. Nikhil Anand of Anthropology writes in the Hindustan Times on Mumbai's sea as an example of an 'Anthroposea' which is "made up not just of water, tides, and non-human biota, but also of the matter and metabolic waste of its more than 15 million human (and non-human) residents."

"For Mumbai to thrive, residents, planners and the government need to care for the sea, not least because the very possibility of living in Mumbai will depend on cultivating good relations with it," says Anand.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, The Anthropology Department at the University of Pennsylvania

Human impact on the planet must be confronted head-on. Let’s start with Mumbai's seas which pose a significant predicament for the city’s futures

08/09/2023

Thomas Sharrock, C'26, created his own research summer research project about perceptions of opera. He conducted his survey at seven different operas performed at the Royal Opera House in London.

“I wanted to do something that was worthwhile, and something that was important to me. This is very much a passion project,” Sharrock says.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences

Rising second-year Thomas Sharrock attended seven operas this summer at the Royal Opera House in London, studying audience perceptions of opera in the United Kingdom.

08/08/2023

While in Belfast as a Frederick Douglass Global Fellow, Florence Onyiuke, C'26, attended the unveiling of a statue of the antislavery activist. She described Douglass's as a "story of hope ... This idea that you can take whatever circumstance that you are born into and make it better, not only for yourself but for the next person after you."
University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences BBC

Life-size bronze statue celebrates the anti-slavery activist who visited the city during the 1840s.

08/08/2023

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann is quoted in People about a deadly flash flood in Pennsylvania. "We can still prevent truly catastrophic consequences, but that window of opportunity is undoubtedly shrinking," he says. Scholars like Mann are working to advance Penn Arts & Sciences' commitment to collaborative research and education on energy and sustainability.

University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences University of Pennsylvania - Department of Earth & Environmental Science Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media

One day after texting his mother a new article about a deadly flash flood near their home in Bucks County, Penn., Zack DePiero learned both his parents were among the five adults and two children who drowned in the sudden storm

08/07/2023

A Chicago Sun-Times op-ed quotes Prof. Dorothy E. Roberts of the departments of Sociology and Africana Studies on the practice of race-based medicine. “Race is not a biological category that naturally produces these health disparities because of genetic difference,” Roberts says. “Race is a social category that has staggering biological consequences because of the impact of social inequality on people’s health.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Race is not a biological construct. Health disparities are the result of social conditions, not genetics.

08/07/2023

In a Q&A with Penn Today, Prof. Beth Linker of the Department of History and Sociology of Science discusses the history of disability in the U.S., the importance of this growing field of study, and lessons she learned from her grandma.

“Disability studies brings up compelling and important policy issues,” Linker says. “Fundamentally, it forces us to consider how society defines and determines human worth.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

In a Q&A, history and sociology of science professor Beth Linker discusses the history of disability in America.

08/06/2023

On WHYY, Prof. David Barnes of History and Sociology of Science talks about his new book, Lazaretto, which explores the history of the first quarantine hospital in America that was built at the early 1800s to serve patients in Philadelphia [starts at 39:50].

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

What's driving the rise in cosmetic surgery? Also, the Biden Administration's new student loan repayment plan and Philadelphia's 18th C. quarantine hospital, Lazaretto.

08/06/2023

Did Barbie read Homer's Odyssey? According to Forbes, Prof. Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of The Odyssey gives us a few lines that conjure present-day Barbiemania.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Barbiecore has permeated nearly every crevice of consumerism, with art and auction world heavyweights promoting pink products that have sudden mass market appeal.

08/05/2023

In keeping with its motto of ‘bringing the world to Penn and Penn to the world,’ Penn Global hosted a naturalization ceremony on campus for 37 new citizens that was presided over by Judge Joshua D. Wolson, C'96.

“Penn is a draw to people from all over, from all different backgrounds, with different histories from different parts of the world,” he said. “That’s the story of Penn, but it’s also a parallel story for our country.” said Wolson.

Read more in Penn Today: https://bit.ly/3DWp3xz

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, Penn Alumni, University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences

08/04/2023

Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science, shares his insight on rising temperatures' effects on the cracks and melting of Greenland's ice sheet in Inside Climate News.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania - Department of Earth & Environmental Science

At the current level of human-caused global warming, extreme rainfall from atmospheric rivers, as well as an extensive network of previously undetected micro-cracks, could degrade large parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet faster than expected and accelerate melting toward worst-case projections for ice...

08/04/2023

Penn Summer abroad students traveled to the Cannes Film Festival to watch screenings of dozens of films during the international film festival in France, including sought-after premieres.

The Penn in Cannes program "is one of its kind in the country” and Penn students have one-of-a-kind access, says Nicola Gentili, associate director of Cinema & Media Studies at Penn.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

The 30 students who attended the Cannes Film Festival through a Penn Summer Abroad course were able to watch screenings of at least three to four films a day. For the most sought-after American film premieres they waited in “last-minute” lines for hours.

08/03/2023

Lisa Niver, C’89, a journalist and founder of the travel website We Said Go, interviewed Peter Decherney of Cinema and Media Studies for a podcast episode and blog post on Jews in Africa.

University of Pennsylvania

Listen to our discussion about the Jews in Africa: the Abayudaya in Uganda and Beta Israel in Ethiopia. Both Peter and Judith have spent years in Africa filming, photographing and helping.

08/03/2023

Emily Hannum, Professor of Sociology and Education, spoke with Allegheny Front about a study on the personal impacts of climate change, particularly on children. “In the United States and elsewhere, building up knowledge about how environmental hazards, along with economic shocks, affect children is a timely and important task. This work adds a significant empirical case,” she said.

University of Pennsylvania Allegheny Front

Central Pennsylvania communities have seen a number of severe floods over the past few years, and climate change is making these events more likely.

08/02/2023

Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication, is quoted in USA TODAY and says that the backlash President Biden could get for speaking out against draconian state immigration policies might not be worth the political risk.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania

Some Democrats and advocacy groups are still waiting for President Joe Biden to personally denounce Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s aggressive border tactics.

08/01/2023

Rising junior Hannah Lee was interviewed by NBC News about a mobilization in Washington, DC, that will push for a formal end to the Korean War.
University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, hundreds of advocates are mobilizing in Washington to push for an official effective end of the conflict.

08/01/2023

After an illness caused her to rethink her life's goals, the online BAAS degree from Penn LPS and a Bread Upon the Waters scholarship jump-started Gabrielle Solair's work to help underserved communities in Nashville.
University of Pennsylvania Penn Alumni

The College of Liberal & Professional Studies and a Bread Upon the Waters scholarship jump-started Dean’s Scholar Gabrielle Solair’s goal of helping others.

07/31/2023

Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium and a professor in the Dept. of Linguistics, reflects on the history and varied meanings of the word “battery,” which span from inflicting violence to a tool that powers a device.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

…or maybe we should call it a "semantic jump"? It's a pun that illustrates how word meanings can evolve along sensible paths that become obscure as time passes and culture changes. Which is one of the reasons that the reconstruction of linguistic history gets harder as time depth increases.

07/31/2023

What’s actually come to pass in the year since the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion? Professors Marci Hamilton, CourtneyBoen, and Paula Fomby offer four takeaways.

“This uneven distribution of women’s basic health needs and rights to control their bodies is corrosive to civil liberties generally,” Hamilton says. “It has empowered and motivated the patriarchal strains in the culture that endanger women, children, and the vulnerable.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Four takeaways from Penn Arts & Sciences researchers in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision.

07/30/2023

Benjamin Lira Luttges, Ph.D. student in psychology, spoke with Higher Ed Dive about the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence in the admissions process.

“Part of the reason admissions is complicated is because it is not clear that as a society we know exactly what we want to maximize for when we’re making admissions decisions,” Lira said via email. “If we are not careful, we might build AI systems that maximize something that doesn’t match what we as a society want to maximize.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Companies are eager to help colleges use AI to streamline admissions, but the practice raises ethical concerns. 

07/30/2023

Prof. Andrew Rappe of Chemistry and collaborators explore high-quality thin films to propel power into the future. “This dramatic shift enables a range of potential applications, from high-speed battery charging to energy-efficient computing and more,” says Rappe

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Chemistry Department

Penn’s Andrew Rappe and collaborators explore high-quality thin films to propel power into the future.

07/29/2023

The Wages for Housework movement is a precursor to the Child Tax Credit and guaranteed income, says sociologist Pilar Gonalons-Pons. A community center in Germantown houses their 50-year archive and carries on the work.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

The Wages for Housework movement is a precursor to the Child Tax Credit and guaranteed income, says sociologist Pilar Gonalons-Pons. A community center in Germantown houses their 50-year archive and carries on the work.

07/29/2023

Faryn Pearl, C’14, discusses co-directing the DreamWorks Animation film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken and how internships she obtained through Penn Arts & Sciences shaped her career path.

"Junior year, I got an internship at Nickelodeon Animation Studios through RealArts@Penn and worked on a long-running series called The Fairly OddParents. While there, I saw what the storyboard artists were doing, and it hit me: This is it. Immediately, I went from being incredibly unsure about my goals to incredibly specific about wanting to be a storyboard artist," says Pearl.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, Penn Alumni

Faryn Pearl, C’14, discusses co-directing the DreamWorks Animation film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, and how internships she obtained through Penn Arts & Sciences shaped her career path.

07/28/2023

Feride Hatiboglu, who coordinates the Turkish Language Program, has been elected president of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. She discusses the value of learning languages beyond Spanish, French, German, and Italian with Penn Today.

"If you want to become really good in an area which is not commonly studied, the opportunities are endless,” Hatiboglu says. “This can be Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, or any other less commonly taught language."

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Recently elected president of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, Turkish Language Program coordinator Feride Hatiboglu discusses the value of learning languages beyond Spanish, French, German, and Italian.

07/28/2023

Our OMNIA Magazine "Last Look" is of a glacial valley in Greenland where biogeochemist Jon Hawkings and colleagues spent a month in 2018 conducting fieldwork in an effort to better grasp what he calls the cycling of elements through the Earth system.

"The sediment-rich river is the Isortoq River, which is fed by a catchment of the Greenland Ice Sheet called Isunnguata Sermia,” says Hawkings, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science. “We camped near this river, taking samples for geochemical analyses.”

Read more from our Spring/Summer issue of OMNIA Magazine: https://bit.ly/3J0PWTB

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania - Department of Earth & Environmental Science

The glacial valley in Greenland looks idyllic—peaks loom in the background and a picturesque river winds into the distance, its ultimate endpoint left to the imagination.

07/27/2023

Assistant Professor of History Ava Maria Kuskowski has a new book that explores the origins of customary law.

University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania History Department

A new book by historian Ada Maria Kuskowski of the School of Arts & Sciences traces the formation of customary law as a field of knowledge in medieval Europe.

07/27/2023

P*K Professor Michael Platt of Psychology was part of a team testing a way to improve team cohesion and productivity virtually.

University of Pennsylvania Wharton School

Working with Matriarca, an Argentinian sustainable goods distributor, scientists from the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative leveraged an exercise known as ‘Fast Friends’ to improve online collaboration within the organization.

07/26/2023

Rich Lizardo, Ph.D. candidate in History, discusses his work which traces the evolution of the ideas, institutions, and images of poverty in early modern Spain and highlights how much of the current debates on poverty echo those of the past.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania History Department

The history Ph.D. candidate’s work traces the evolution of the ideas, institutions, and images of poverty in early modern Spain and highlights how much of the current debates on poverty echo those of the past.

07/25/2023

Poet and author Airea Matthews, C'94, writes about Barbie in Harper's Bazaar: "She reminds me of the imaginative intensity that children take on to push past time and space, or, perhaps, refine the ways in which they understand even their own capabilities."

Read our OMNIA Q&A with Airea Matthews: https://bit.ly/3O9qSvp

University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences Penn Alumni

“Barbie reminds me of the imaginative intensity that children take on to push past time and space,” writes Airea D. Matthews. “A child with a doll may seem disarming, but a child with an imagination is not.”

07/25/2023

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vagelos Life Sciences and Management student Shivani Nellore, C’23, W’23, took a job as a pharmacy tech, learning a a lot about medications and humans.

"The main thing I learned was how to comfort someone when there’s so much distance between you."
University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management The Wharton School

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shivani Nellore, C’23, W’23, took a job as a pharmacy tech, learning a great deal about medications and humans in the process.

07/24/2023

Cultures of the Book, taught by professor Whitney Trettien in the Department of English, takes students through a range of texts to grasp the history of how humans have recorded and shared knowledge.

“We start with cuneiform and the invention of writing, and we end with digital technology,” Trettien says. “Along the way I try to give students a sense for how the materials that are being used to store, record, and transmit human knowledge are shaping what can be stored, recorded, and transmitted.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

In the Cultures of the Book course taught by Whitney Trettien, assistant professor of English, students “adopt a book” they select from the Penn Libraries collection, and their research projects are published on an academic website.

07/24/2023

Professors Bhuvnesh Jain, Mark Trodden, and Gary Bernstein of the Department of Physics & Astronomy discuss the potential—and actual launch—of the ESA - European Space Agency’s Euclid Space Telescope.

Jain and students attended the liftoff in Florida in early July. “I was thrilled that we were able to bring several Penn students for this awe-inspiring moment,” Jain says. “Watching a space launch in person versus on a television screen is a whole different experience, and I’m sure it’s one that will stick with us for years to come.”

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Professors of physics and astronomy Bhuvnesh Jain, Mark Trodden, and Gary Bernstein discuss the coming research findings from the European Space Agency’s Euclid Space Telescope.

07/23/2023

Prof. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet of History is quoted in TIME about the implications of the morality police’s return to the streets in Iran.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania History Department

Here's what to know about the decision to resume patrols, which comes almost a year after they stopped.

07/23/2023

An analysis of Social Security Administration data conducted by Prof. Samuel Preston of Sociology is cited in the Washington Post in reference to the age factor of President Biden and former President Trump as candidates in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania

Data and experts suggest Biden and Trump would likely retain the ability to perform as president, but many Americans are still concerned about how old they are.

07/22/2023

The online brochure, "Research at Penn," showcases groundbreaking research from each of Penn’s 12 schools and includes work by Penn Arts & Sciences faculty and graduate students including the discovery of a new comet, predicting lead toxicity in Philadelphia, and underwater archaeological surveys of the Aegean Sea.

Tags: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania - Department of Earth & Environmental Science, Penn Physics & Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania History of Art Department

The online brochure showcases groundbreaking research from each of Penn’s 12 schools.