The first installment of Penn Today’s 2025 President’s Prize winner roundup highlights a Penn graduate who is using his President’s Sustainability Prize of $100,000 to reduce fertilizer use on farms.
Penn fourth-year Yash Rajpal named 2026-27 Luce Scholar
Yash Rajpal, a University of Pennsylvania fourth-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering & Applied Science, is one of 16 recipients selected by the Henry Luce Foundation to be a 2026-27 Luce Scholar.
Penn experts propose a tobacco playbook for food policy
Drawing on public policies that have been successful with tobacco control, Penn’s Center for Food and Nutrition Policy outlines a stronger framework for regulating ultra-processed foods.
Where economic modeling meets real-world legislation
The Penn Wharton Budget Model is the only non-governmental group analyzing how public policy simultaneously affects the federal budget, macroeconomic growth, and human welfare.
Penn announces new partnership with Service to School to support veteran and military-affiliated applicants
The University joins a select group of schools that are committed to expanding access to higher education for veterans and service members and supporting their academic and professional aspirations.
Matthew Levendusky on civics, partisan politics, and teaching public opinion
Matthew Levendusky has been named a joint professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and in the Department of Political Science in the School of Arts & Sciences.
A look inside the political economy of early America
Penn economist Fernando Arteaga shares insights into the factors that led to the American Revolution and the later institutions that created the strong U.S. national economy.
Mapping the expanding cosmos: Dark Energy Survey unveils clearest picture yet
The Dark Energy Survey collaborative, including Penn researchers, recently released an analysis that gives the clearest picture yet of how dark energy is driving the universe’s expansion and how matter—including galaxies and groups of galaxies—has been organized over cosmic time.
Who, What, Why: Katelyn Candido on improving surgical procedures and keeping health care human-first
Second-year medical student Katelyn Candido shares insight into her research project on a promising tool for improving surgical precision and efficiency, and why she aims to drive equitable patient care through a career in neurosurgery.
The 2026 Albert M. Greenfield Memorial Lecture will feature a conversation between Lily Brown, an assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at Penn, and Jose A. Bauermeister, Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations. They will discuss this year’s theme, “Connection as Intervention: Digital Peer Mentorship in Suicide Prevention.” Free and open to the Penn community. Register to attend in-person or virtually.
AI Month at Penn is a month-long, University-wide initiative throughout April 2026 that will focus on human-centered AI. The month's events will highlight research, dialogues, and collaborations that focus on the link between humanity and technological innovation. Through panels, workshops, lectures, and community events, the initiative highlights work across AI in health, science, education, business, and public life. Register to attend individual events.
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.
Students test one way to combat extreme heat in Philadelphia
Third-year students Nafisa Bangura and Angelica Dadda expanded upon a multidisciplinary research endeavor to evaluate a reflective pavement coating as a tool to mitigate extreme heat. Their work may inform policy efforts to improve urban heat resilience.
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.
Fran McCaffery, TJ Power, and the Penn Quakers are now the coolest story in Philly hoops
“This was Fran McCaffery in the aftermath of Penn’s 88-84 overtime victory in the Ivy League tournament championship Sunday at Newman Arena in Ithaca, N.Y.: bespectacled and placid and content to be heading back to the NCAA Tournament for the 13th time with five programs. He was nothing like he often is on the sideline, where he can rage and yell and practically vibrate with intensity, and he was betraying little about what this game and its outcome had to mean to him.”
Penn announces new partnership to expand admissions access to military veterans and service members
“‘We understand that veterans not only bring unique perspectives to our undergraduate population, but also that they face unique challenges in navigating the college application process,’ said Penn admissions dean Whitney Soule, noting that they may have different perspectives if they went straight to the military from high school. ’We want them to hear loud and clear that Penn could be an option for them.’”
