WHO SHE IS: Administrative Assistant, Principal Gifts and Planned Giving, Wharton External Affairs
YEARS AT PENN: About a year.
WHAT SHE DOES: Mastnjak supports the director and several major gifts officers in Wharton’s External Affairs department. She schedules meetings, makes travel arrangements, gathers information, helps plan events and also contributes to a department newsletter.
WHY PENN?: When she and her husband moved to Philadelphia, Mastnjak—who had previously worked a variety of jobs, from Banana Republic clerk to coffeehouse barista—specifically targeted jobs at Penn because of the education benefits provided. “I knew it would be a place where I could get my Master’s degree for free,” she said. “I purposely tried to get a job here.”
THE PLAN: Mastnjak has taken a couple courses, and though she hasn’t yet enrolled in a program, she does know she would like to pursue a degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. “I like getting to know people from different cultures,” she said. “I just think it’s really interesting.”
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
