A gift for disruption: Visionary Roderick Wong gives back to PennHealthX
Penn President Amy Gutmann and Roderick Wong at the signing ceremony for Wong’s gift to fund PennHealthX.
Roderick Wong came to the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) with a vision for a broader type of education and impact than the traditional physician route.
“Penn was the only place that really understood what I wanted to do,” he says.
Going on to supplement his medical degree with an MBA, Wong today is the founder and managing partner of RTW Investments, where he advocates for the next generation of life science entrepreneurs. This year, he made headlines when he gave a $6 million gift to endow the Roderick T. Wong PennHealthX Program, one of the largest single gifts to support medical education at PSOM.
“This generous gift, along with Dr. Wong’s mentorship and personal support of our students’ endeavors, impacts our students and our educational environment in exceptional ways,” adds Senior Vice Dean for Medical EducationSuzi Rose. “We are very grateful to Dr. Wong for his commitment to Penn and to the Perelman School of Medicine.”
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
From framework to actions: Provost John L. Jackson Jr. talks Penn Forward
In a Q&A, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. explains the relationship between the strategic framework In Principle and Practice and Penn Forward—a new University-wide process and action plan that will advance Penn forward for the next decade and beyond.
