School of Arts & Sciences

Penn Physicists Shed Light on How Wetness Affects a Phenomenon in Foams

Whether drinking beer, eating ice cream or washing the dishes, it’s fair to say that many people come across foam on a day-to-day basis. It’s in everything from detergents to beverages to cosmetics. Outside of everyday life, it has applications in areas such as firefighting, isolating toxic materials and distributing chemicals.

Ali Sundermier

Penn Junior Jack Stack Is Pursuing His Paleontological Dream

Some paleontologists travel far and wide to seek new fossils — to the desert Southwest of the United States, remote regions of China or the farthest tip of Argentina. University of Pennslyvania student Jack Stack, on the other hand, made his first paleontological discoveries much closer to home.At home, in fact.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn Researchers Establish Universal Signature Fundamental to How Glassy Materials Fail

Dropping a smartphone on its glass screen, which is made of atoms jammed together with no discernible order, could result in it shattering. Unlike metals and other crystalline materials, glass and many other disordered solids cannot be deformed significantly before failing and, because of their lack of crystalline order, it is difficult to predict which atoms would change during failure.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier

Four Penn Professors Among 2017 Class of AAAS Fellows

Four members of the University of Pennsylvania faculty have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon members of AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society, by their peers.

Katherine Unger Baillie, Greg Richter, Ali Sundermier

Opioid Epidemic

Opioid drug misuse and addiction are epidemic in the United States. Every day, 90 people lose their lives to opioid overdose and the economic burden of the crisis has climbed to an estimated $80 billion a year. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are spearheading multi-faceted solutions to address the problem.

‘Brazil Nut Effect’ Helps Explain How Rivers Resist Erosion, Penn Team Finds

Pop the top off a can of mixed nuts and, chances are, Brazil nuts will be at the top. This phenomenon, of large particles tending to rise to the top of mixtures while small particles tend to sink down, is popularly known as the “Brazil nut effect” and more technically as granular segregation.

Katherine Unger Baillie



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

He started college in prison. Now, he is Rutgers-Camden’s first Truman scholar

Tej Patel, a third-year in the Wharton School and College of Arts and Sciences from Billeria, Massachusetts, was one of 60 college students nationwide chosen to be a Truman Scholar.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

A collector donated 75,000 comic books to Penn Libraries, valued at more than $500,000

Alumnus Gary Prebula and his wife, Dawn, have donated a $500,000 collection of more than 75,000 comic books and graphic novels to Penn Libraries, featuring remarks from Sean Quimly of the Kislak Center and Jean-Christophe Cloutier of the School of Arts & Sciences.

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KQED Radio (San Francisco)

Violence escalates in Sudan as civil war enters second year

Ali Ali-Dinar of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses the forces driving the civil war in Sudan and how the global community is responding.

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BBC

From Ancient Egypt to Roman Britain, brewers are reviving beers from the past

Patrick McGovern of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Museum oversaw the first hi-tech molecular analysis of residues found in bronze drinking vessels during a 1950s excavation of an ancient Turkish tomb.

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The Washington Post

Forecast group predicts busiest hurricane season on record with 33 storms

A research team led by Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña.

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