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Immersed in poetry at the Library of Congress
Student standing in lobby of marble building wearing an Identification badge.

Joyce Hida, a rising junior, is a summer intern at the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Immersed in poetry at the Library of Congress

Rising junior Joyce Hida is making the most of her RealArts summer internship, working at the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Louisa Shepard

Relieving water scarcity, one home at a time
Four smiling students posing by a blue container with a level on top of it

Members of the Penn chapter of nonprofit organization Isla Urbana, including (from left) Samira Mehta, Wanqi Fang, Pallavi Menon, and Imañia Powers, helped to install rainwater harvesting and filtration systems in Mexico City this summer. (Photo: Lucia Palmarini)

Relieving water scarcity, one home at a time

Due to a rapidly depleting underground aquifer, many residents of Mexico City are left with little-to-no easily accessible clean water for hours or days at a time. This summer, members of the Penn chapter of Isla Urbana helped install rainwater harvesting and filtration systems to provide residents of the Mexican capital with clean water year-round.

Gina Vitale

Kelly Writers House chairs are more than just a place to sit
Top of the back of a wooden chair with newspaper articles and photos pasted on.

The Kelly Writers House has crowdsourced its chairs from the community. Some chairs are decorated based on a theme, including one that features photos and articles about benefactor Paul Kelly. 

Kelly Writers House chairs are more than just a place to sit

Even the chairs at Kelly Writers House have stories to tell. The mismatched wooden seats came from the community, intentionally given to become part of Writers House everyday history.

Louisa Shepard

A two-minute totality, an opportunity of a lifetime
the sun covered by the moon during an eclipse, set against a darkening dusky sky with a black flat horizon in the foreground

A two-minute totality, an opportunity of a lifetime

Graduate student David Sliski observed the July 2 eclipse at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile as a member of a scientific team tasked with imaging the sun’s corona.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Social solutions to antibiotic resistance
Julia Szymczak with a river in the background

Julia Szymczak (Photo: Ashley E. Smith/Wide Eyed Studios)

Social solutions to antibiotic resistance

Research by sociologist Julia Szymczak of the Perelman School of Medicine is aimed at understanding, and eventually changing, behaviors that lead to the overprescribing of antibiotics.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Unraveling the brain’s reward circuits
Purple and pink illustration of a neuron synapse

The investigation explored the "reward neurons" in the brain. (Image: Amber Alhadeff)

Unraveling the brain’s reward circuits

Food, alcohol, and certain drugs all act to reduce the activity of hunger neurons and to release reward signals in the brain, but alcohol and drugs rely on a different pathway than does food.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The chemistry behind fireworks
a massive blue an orange firework exploding over the Philadelphia skyline
  • Q&A

    • The chemistry behind fireworks

    A Q&A with inorganic chemist Eric Schelter about the chemical reactions that create explosive displays and how different metals are used to create bright and brilliant colors.

    Erica K. Brockmeier

    From soldiers to students
    Students in a classroom seated in a circle respond with interest to a peer

    Through a week of intensive seminars and workshops taught by university faculty, 15 veterans participated in this year’s Warrior-Scholar Project academic bootcamp at the University of Pennsylvania.

    From soldiers to students

    Penn hosted a week of academic bootcamps organized by the Warrior-Scholar Project, a nonprofit that supports enlisted veterans in their transition to college.

    Gina Vitale

    Mary Frances Berry on the 55th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
    Mary Frances Berry

    Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and a professor of history and Africana studies. (Image: Jim Abbott)

  • Q&A

    • Mary Frances Berry on the 55th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Africana Studies professor Mary Frances Berry discusses the history of civil rights legislation, and where the 1964 bill fits in.

    Penn Today Staff