Annabelle Jin, a University of Pennsylvania fourth-year student in the College of Arts and Sciences, is one of 16 recipients selected by the Henry Luce Foundation to be a 2025-26 Luce Scholar. During the 13-month fellowship in Asia, Scholars receive stipends, language training, and an individualized professional placement that aligns with their interests.
Established in 1974, the Luce Scholars Program is a competitive leadership-development fellowship that provides immersive professional experiences in Asia. Its goal is to strengthen relationships across borders by offering opportunities for the Scholars to “deepen their understanding of Asia’s countries, cultures, and people” and “expand their perspectives, strengthen their leadership, and build bridges across cultures.”
Jin, from Moorestown, New Jersey, is majoring in biology with a concentration in neurobiology and minoring in English and chemistry. As co-founder and education committee lead for the Penn Reproductive Justice student group, she is interested in educating students about menstrual health. Jin spearheaded the group’s Menstrual Health Education Program in West Philadelphia middle and high schools.
She co-founded Students Organizing for Access to Reproductive Health, a nonprofit funded by Davis Projects for Peace that trains high school students to become reproductive health leaders in their own communities. Jin also organized educational events about reproductive health at Penn and was lead organizer for Penn’s inaugural Reproductive Justice Conference, which explored themes from intersectionality and activism to entrepreneurship and health care.
Beyond reproductive health, Jin listens to patient stories while providing free blood pressure screenings at food kitchens and creates interactive play activities for pediatric cancer patients at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She conducts pulmonary development research at the David Frank Research Laboratory at CHOP, where she leads her independent project investigating the role of the epigenetic reader BRD4 in lung morphology, with implications for treatment of pulmonary fibrosis.
Jin is a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, a 2022 Penn Office of Social Equity & Community Fellow, a 2022 United Nations Millennium Fellow, and a 2023 Penn Institute for Urban Research Fellow. She plans to become an adolescent-medicine physician to combine her interests in reproductive justice and medicine.
Jin is the 19th Penn affiliate to be named a Luce Scholar. The Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships serves as Penn’s primary information hub and support office for students and alumni applying for major grants and fellowships.
