News Archives

Search for Sabloff successor under way

Jeremy A. Sabloff C’64, Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has announced that he will be stepping down from the directorship on June 30, 2004. Sabloff will have completed 10 years of service as head of one of the world’s great archaeology and anthropology museums. Deputy Provost and Andrea Mitchell Professor of English Peter Conn chairs the search committee. Sabloff, who discovered archaeology as an undergraduate at Penn and has a Ph.D. from Harvard, is an internationally recognized expert on the ancient Maya.

Veteran journalist to run Annenberg voter survey

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is poised to begin their second National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES), a rolling-cross sectional survey of the American electorate, on November 1. In the groundbreaking 2000 NAES, the most comprehensive academic survey to date on American political attitudes and behavior, researchers conducted more than 100,000 interviews, asking Americans about their political knowledge, media use and opinions about the candidates and issues.

Nominations now being accepted

Since the search committee evaluating candidates to succeed Judith Rodin as President is taking suggestions, we thought we would help them out by asking people who they thought should be Penn’s next president. We were surprised, to put it mildly, at how reluctant people were to recommend anyone. It’s not like the job is all that difficult—you just have to manage an institution with a $3.5-billion-a-year budget. Those of you who did go so far as to offer an actual candidate, though, had some serious suggestions.

Michael Carman

What Brown did for them

News briefs

Line of defense Penn’s School of Medicine recently joined the Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence (RCE) for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases, a research consortium dedicated to biodefense research.

A do-it-yourself music scene

It can be difficult for a band to score a gig on a Saturday night, even for well-established groups. Bands with few fans, then, may totally be left out in the cold. Since the fall of 2001, some students have known where to turn. Aspiring musicians, stand-up comedians and actors have gained experience and built up a fan base through “Up On Stage,” the Penn Collective’s free Saturday night open mike. Now, the open mike’s promoters are trying to get faculty and staff in on the act.

Bioinformatics Alliance promotes life sciences

A new alliance headed by a Penn computer scientist seeks to promote life science research in greater Philadelphia by spreading knowledge of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is the use of computing technology to analyze the massive amounts of data generated by today’s biological experiments. The Bioinformatics Alliance, comprised of Penn and 10 other area non-profit education and research institutions, has been set up to train current and future life scientists in its techniques.

HR programs offer help and ideas

Focus on your career and your well-being with help from the folks at Human Resources. Take advantage of these upcoming Learning and Education (L&E) programs and Quality of Worklife (QOWL) workshops. For course locations and more information on Learning and Education programs, call 215-898-3400 or visit www.hr.upenn.edu/learning. Registration required for most programs.

Aggregation of Cloned Mouse Embryos Helps Overcome Developmental Deficiencies, Improving Survival Rate

PHILADELPHIA -- Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have found a novel way to boost the paltry survival rate of cloned mammals: When two genetically identical cloned mouse embryos are combined, the aggregate embryo is considerably more likely to survive to birth.A team from Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine reports the results in the Oct. 1 issue of the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal.