Wu is among55second-year and third-year students selected from 406 candidates nominated by 192colleges and universities nationwide. Scholars are recognized for leadership, public service, and commitment to issues related to the environment or to Native American nations. Each scholar will be awarded as much as $7,000.
A Taiwanese-American undergraduate scientist from Woodbury, Minnesota, Wu is the founder and international director of Waterroots, a nonprofit environmental education project that uses climate storytelling to combat water insecurity in more than 20 countries. Wu is a researcher in Penn Engineering’s McBride Lab, where he works as a plant specialist for a project that promotes environmental stability and sustainable agriculture. He is the deputy director of research for the nonprofit Climate Cardinals, a member of Penn’s Student Advisory Group for the Environment, and the North America representative for the Tunza Eco-Generation Ambassador program. Wu is a Clinton Global Initiative Scholar, a Duke Interfaith Climate Fellow, an IEEE Bio-X Scholar, a 2023 Millennium Fellow, and a 2024 UN ECOSOC Youth Delegate. In addition, he is a resident advisor in Penn’s Stouffer College House, as well as a Penn Engineering and a VIPER student ambassador.
Wu is the 10th student from Penn to be named a Udall Scholar since Congress established the foundation in 1992 to honor Morris and Stewart Udall for their impact on the nation’s environment, public lands, and natural resources and for their support of the rights and self-governance of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Penn engineers and collaborators have developed a transparent, micro-engineered device that houses a living, vascularized model of human lung cancer—a “tumor on a chip”—and show that the diabetes drug vildagliptin helps more CAR T cells break through the tumor’s defenses and attack it effectively.
Tumor-on-a-chip offers insight into cancer-fighting cells in immunotherapy
Penn engineers and collaborators have built a living tumor on a chip to expose how cancers block immune attacks, and how one existing drug could make immunotherapy like CAR T more effective against solid tumors.
Professor of city and regional planning Erick Guerra recently published a book exploring the economic and societal impacts of American highways. He explains some of the pitfalls associated with an ever-expansive highway system, arguing that spending more on highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues.
Penn urban planner Erick Guerra’s new book, “Overbuilt,” argues that additional spending on building more highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues. In a Q&A, Guerra shares his insights.
Xin Sun prepares samples collected from the Eastern Tropical North Pacific aboard a research vessel. By adding stable isotope tracers to these vials, Sun and her team can track how different microbial groups convert nitrogen compounds into nitrous oxide, revealing how subtle shifts in oxygen and organic matter change the ocean’s chemistry.
Can tiny ocean organisms offer the key to better climate modeling?
In the shadowy layers of the Pacific, microbes decide how much nitrous oxide—a potent greenhouse gas—rises skyward. New research from Penn’s Xin Sun offers an improved understanding of microbial ecology and geochemistry—key to forecasting global emissions in response to natural and man-made climate change.
Two X-ray plates from Arthur Goodspeed, believed to have created the world’s first X-ray image, were donated by his family to Penn’s University Archives.
