A glance at the University of Pennsylvania reveals a world-renowned teaching and research institution, a vibrant, diverse campus that nurtures a collaborative spirit, a community committed to fostering growth and connection, and a collection of schools and centers committed to solving pressing problems with ingenuity and innovation. The stories featured in Penn Today throughout 2024 also highlight milestones, anniversaries, and Penn’s place in global events. The University has also made significant impacts in arts and culture, and dusts off ancient treasures using state-of-the art technology.
Around the region and world, the Penn community cheered on athletes in the Olympics and in the Penn Relays at Franklin Field, and in the spirit of advancing sporting greatness, a new indoor track center, The Ott Center, opened.
Quakers make history at 128th running of Penn Relays
In April, Penn athletes had several noteworthy performances on the track and in the field at the Relays at Franklin Field.
Honoring a life scientist’s lifesaving science
Also in April, Carl June accepted the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his groundbreaking work developing CAR T cell immunotherapy at a Los Angeles ceremony, making him the sixth recipient from Penn.
The Wharton School establishes Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative
An example of Penn’s commitment to the forefront of emerging technology like artificial intelligence, the Wharton School announced the first business school collaboration with OpenAI. The interdisciplinary endeavor encompasses curricular enhancements, investments to advance new research, collaboration between industry and academia, and open-source resources to help shape the direction of generative AI.
Penn traditions and milestones included Commencement, and Move-In welcomed students back into the fold. In April, a much-anticipated solar eclipse was a time for the Penn community to gather together to experience, but a rare earthquake in the region nearly eclipsed the eclipse coverage. The University marked anniversaries like 25 years of Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” sculpture and Umoja, Penn’s organization for Black student life on campus. In the fall semester, Penn came together for Family Weekend, Climate Week, and flexed its civic muscle for voter turnout on Election Day.
Penn Today reflected on the vibrant arts and culture on campus, highlighting several artistic works as part of the Art Matters series, and featuring faculty, students, and staff.
Picturing artistic pursuits
Penn Today photographer Eric Sucar captured students engaged in moments of creativity during fine arts courses throughout the year, from painting and drawing, ceramics and sculpture, to printmaking and animation, photography, and videography.
A ‘celebrity translator’ takes center stage
Emily Wilson, professor of classical studies in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, experienced modern-day fame with her English translations of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poems, ‘The Odyssey’ and the ‘The Iliad.’
Penn Today also featured conversations with Interim President J. Larry Jameson, Board Chair Ramanan Raghavendran, Provost John L. Jackson Jr., and Deputy Provost Beth Winkelstein, as well as an introduction to the Title VI office, and announcements about two new appointments: Michael Mann as vice provost for climate science, policy, and action, and Timothy Rommen as vice provost for the arts.
In 2024, writers mined the Archives, Libraries, and Penn Museum for inspiration, including a historic football film and a curious crystal ball.
Reporting on the novel research and scientific breakthroughs in numerous schools, Penn Today featured a post-Nobel roundup of mRNA research in the year after Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó received Nobel Prize recognition for mRNA vaccines.
Aligned with In Principle and Practice, the University's strategic framework, Penn experts are taking on some of the greatest challenges of our time. Faculty are tackling everything from gun violence to climate solutions, with an ambitious new roadmap for climate and sustainability action, and the University’s solar power project at the Great Cove I and II facilities, the largest solar power project in Pennsylvania.
Bioengineers on the brink of breaching blood-brain barrier
A team of researchers in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences devised a method to deliver mRNA into the brain using lipid nanoparticles, potentially advancing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and seizures.
Once a spy satellite, now a telescope with an eye on the cosmos
Researchers from Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences are part of a collaboration to develop Hubble’s wide-eyed cousin, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, for a 2027 launch.
Finding a new behavioral adaptation in fruit flies
Penn researchers discovered “wing spreading” in Drosophila santomea, research that hints at a rare, novel finding and offers insights into an underrepresented area in sexual reproduction research: female-initiated behaviors.
Duncan Watts and CSSLab’s New Media Bias Detector
Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Duncan Watts and colleagues developed the Media Bias Detector, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze news articles, examining factors like tone, partisan lean, and fact selection.
Testing a novel, community-driven response to heat islands in Philadelphia
In response to record high global temperatures, researchers from three University of Pennsylvania schools collaborated with a Hunting Park nonprofit to design, build, and test a prototype of a cooling shelter to place at a bus stop.
Across Pennsylvania, Penn students practice ‘political empathy’ to connect across divides
Throughout a politically heated election season, seven undergraduates and political scientist Lia Howard traveled all over the commonwealth in the summer, listening to residents talk about their lives and the issues that matter to them.
Graduate students incorporated global engagement in their research labs and seminars, including a design studio exploring the possibilities for a green economy in a former mining town in Greenland, and an odyssey through Georgia as part of the Lauder Institute’s Lauder Intercultural Ventures program.
Penn celebrated the launch of the Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy, which brings together six schools, and two new buildings, Amy Gutmann Hall and the Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology. Amy Gutmann Hall will serve as the new center for data science and artificial intelligence, and the Vagelos Lab is designed for interdisciplinary research and will be run jointly by the School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
An empty outdoor space is transformed into a social garden
A 2023 Project for Progress initiative, the Breathing Room at Sayre High School was unveiled this spring, a collaborative initiative aimed at transforming the space into a vibrant outdoor wellness area for students.
