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Law faculty perspectives on passage of the First Step Act
Silverman Hall building facade

Law faculty perspectives on passage of the First Step Act

Penn Law faculty weigh in on the passage of the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that modifies sentencing laws, expands job training, and takes additional steps intended to reduce recidivism and create a fairer and less costly criminal justice system.

Penn Today Staff

State Department awards Penn $2 million to preserve cultural heritage in northern Iraq
A brown brick building in the background with gravestones and bushes in the foreground.

The cemetery of the Church of St. Thomas (above) in Mosul, Iraq, was badly damaged by Islamic State militants. The new grant awarded to the University of Pennsylvania will go toward stabilization and conservation of such culturally important sites.

State Department awards Penn $2 million to preserve cultural heritage in northern Iraq

The two-phase, three-year project aims to revitalize the city and its culture.
Electric bond
Presentation ceremony with background image of Kane and Mele

During the gala ceremony held on Nov. 4 at NASA’s Hangar 1 in Mountain View, Calif., Charles Kane and Eugene Mele were presented the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics award by writer and science educator Lucy Hawking (the daughter of Stephen Hawking) and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Electric bond

Behind the discovery of a new class of electronic materials is a 20-year collaboration between two Penn physicists, winners of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

Angelo Fichera

The road to more hand transplants
Stock image of holding hands

The road to more hand transplants

Over the past 20 years, more than 85 amputees around the world have received a hand or bilateral hand transplant—including two adults and one child at Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Penn Today Staff

Marking the winter solstice, from Neolithic times to today
A prehistoric city with homes, earthen mounds, and pathways

Archaeological evidence for solstice celebrations abounds in the ancient North American city of Cahokia, located in what is now Illinois. (Illustration: Steven Patricia/Art Institute of Chicago)

Marking the winter solstice, from Neolithic times to today

For millennia, people have marked the winter solstice with rituals and celebrations—and they continue to do so today. Penn Museum anthropologists Lucy Fowler Williams and Megan Kassabaum discuss both ancient and contemporary customs associated with attending to the shortest day of the year.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Healing with words, through writing workshops for cancer patients
Deborah Burnham sits in Kelly Writers House, surrounded by wooden chairs

Deborah Burnham of the English department leads each Writing a Life workshop held at the Kelly Writers House. 

Healing with words, through writing workshops for cancer patients

Writing a Life, organized by the Abramson Cancer Center and held at Kelly Writers House each month, provides such patients the opportunity to creatively examine and express their experiences.

Jacob Williamson-Rea

Boots on the ground for the opioid task force
pill sorting at pharmacy

Boots on the ground for the opioid task force

Opioid addiction is a “public health emergency,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Overdose deaths involving opioids—both prescription and illegal—have increased fivefold between 1999 and 2016.

Penn Today Staff