From ancient tombs and tiny robots to personalized gene editing and AI weather models, Penn’s 2025 research portfolio showed how curiosity paired with collaboration moves knowledge into impact and stretches across disciplines and continents.
Penn biophysicist Arnold Mathijssen uncovers how and why E. coli manage to swim upstream causing infections in challenging places such as the urinary tract, respiratory system, and catheters, pointing to new strategies for designing safer, more effective biomedical tools and treatments.
In modern society, boredom is largely considered a bad thing. Stephen M. Gorn Family Assistant Professor of English Lilith Todd thinks people can reframe how to think about being idle.
Wharton’s Katy Milkman has led a megastudy on 2 million U.S. bank customers, showing that regular reminders to save encouraged people to put money aside.
Ahead of the main event on July 4, 2026, marking the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Penn students, faculty, and staff will have multiple early opportunities to engage with America’s 250th anniversary.
Electronic medical records help save lives of HIV patients
Management and socioeconomic development expert Leandro ‘Leo’ Pongeluppe and colleagues found that switching from paper to electronic medical records at HIV clinics in Malawi led to an estimated 28% reduction in deaths after five years, with the greatest impact on children.
Centering joy in AI development and implementation
PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton—of Annenberg and SP2—and collaborators introduce a joy-informed framework designed to initiate conversations among engineers, designers, and researchers.
The world’s smallest programmable, autonomous robots
Engineers at Penn Engineering have created robots barely visible to the naked eye that operate without tethers, magnetic fields or joystick-like controls.
Penn historian Jared Farmer recently launched a website about Philadelphia’s fossil fuel economy to help students and residents learn about the local past in larger context.
Organized by the Environmental Law Project and the Weitzman School of Design, this symposium will focus on environmental justice in Philadelphia. Attendees will explore how environmental law, landscape architecture, and city and regional planning can address issues of environmental justice in Philadelphia’s urban landscapes. Free and open to the public. Register to attend.
A person cycles past the skyline in Philadelphia shrouded in haze, Thursday, June 8, 2023. Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a dystopian haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.
Nursing the Revolution: Care Work in Revolutionary America
This symposium will unite scholars of 18th-century nursing; early American healers; Indigenous, African, and European care practices; and Revolutionary War era military medicine and battlefield care, including related areas of focus, to discuss how the Revolutionary War—as a major health crisis—shaped healthcare labor in the early national United States. Free and open to the Penn community. Register to attend.
Penn’s guiding principles are the University’s enduring values and distinctive strengths: anchored, inventive, interwoven, and engaged. The practices support and strengthen Penn’s core educational mission.
At Penn Today, we focus on some of the ways the University is putting this framework into action. From student, faculty, and staff profiles to research updates and event coverage, Penn Today highlights the latest examples of the University’s principled approach to excellence.
Penn Forward’s Access, Affordability, and Value co-chairs on creating opportunity
As co-chairs of Penn Forward’s Access, Affordability, and Value working group, Sara Bachman, dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice, and Patrick Harker, a professor and dean emeritus of the Wharton School, discuss breaking down barriers and opening pathways.
A conversation with Penn Forward’s Global Opportunity and New Markets co-chairs
In a Q&A with Ezekiel Emanuel and Megan Ryerson, co-chairs of the Global Opportunity and New Markets working group for Penn Forward, the duo discuss the charge of their group, where they are in the process, and leaning into global engagement.
Through Penn First Plus, students unlock potential and purpose
Providing first-generation and limited-income students with a comprehensive array of support, Penn First Plus equips undergraduates for success during and after their time at Penn.
The eighth annual Penn Local Business Exchange brought together entrepreneurs, city officials, and University buyers to swap insights and build relationships.
Scientists create robots smaller than a grain of sand
Researchers at Penn and the University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest, fully programmable, autonomous robots, packing significant capacities into a device smaller than a grain of salt.
How effective is the flu shot this year? New report shows promising results
Scott Hensley of the Perelman School of Medicine points out that, even though this year’s flu vaccine is not a perfect match for a strain that is making the rounds, it nonetheless proves some protection.
