Dorothy E. Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Africana Studies, Law, and Sociology & Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights.
“Love, race, and family in America have always been intertwined,” Roberts says. “Our most intimate relationships are shaped by racial boundaries—and can also defy them.”
Blending memoir, history, and social analysis, “The Mixed Marriage Project” arrives at a moment of renewed national debate over race, belonging, and the meaning of family in American life. The book intertwines Roberts’ lived experiences as the child of a mixed marriage with her parents’ broader study of interracial couples in Chicago spanning the 1880s through the Civil Rights era.
Growing up in a deeply segregated Chicago in the 1960s as the daughter of a white anthropologist father and a Black Jamaican immigrant mother, interracial marriage was rare. Yet, her father was committed to advancing the idea that mixed marriage had the power to promote social equality.
“For my entire life until that discovery, I saw my father’s research on interracial marriage—and the faith he had in its promise—as a reflection of his love for my mother,” Roberts explains. “Learning that he began interviewing Black-white couples more than a decade before he met her upended that family narrative and sent my mind racing with questions.”
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
