Six from Penn elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022
Faculty from the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Arts & Sciences, Graduate School of Education, and Law School join more 260 honorees recognized for contributions to academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research.
They join more than 260 new members honored in 2022, recognized for their “accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research.”
Yale Goldman is a professor of physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. (Image: Courtesy of Penn Engineering)
Goldman’s research focuses on better understanding the structural changes that the body’s biologic machines undergo. He and his lab have developed novel biophysical techniques to observe this, ranging from nanometer tracking of fluorescent molecules to infrared optical traps, known as laser tweezers. The goal is to make discoveries that, in the long term, lead to better outcomes for those with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and cardiac myopathies.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Goldman has also served as president of the Biophysical Society and as an editorial board member of the Journal of Physiology and the Biophysical Journal.
Katalin Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech and an adjunct professor of neurosurgery in the Perelman School of Medicine. (Image: Peggy Peterson/Courtesy of Penn Medicine)
Katalin Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech and an adjunct professor of neurosurgery in the Perelman School of Medicine. She joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and began collaborating with Drew Weissman in 1997. Together, they invented the modified mRNA technology used in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection.
For decades, Karikó’s research as a biochemist has focused on RNA-mediated mechanisms, with the goal of developing in vitro–transcribed mRNA for protein therapy. She investigated RNA-mediated immune activation and co-discovered with Weissman that nucleoside modifications suppress the immunogenicity of RNA. This led to the development of the two most effective vaccines for COVID-19.
Karikó has been honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Princess of Asturias Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Excellence in Biotechnology. She continues to work on new therapeutic applications of mRNA therapy.
Diana Slaughter Kotzin, professor emerita in the Graduate School of Education, was the inaugural Constance E. Clayton Professor in Urban Education from 1998 to 2011. (Image: Courtesy of the Graduate School of Education)
Diana Slaughter Kotzin, professor emerita in the Graduate School of Education, was the inaugural Constance E. Clayton Professor in Urban Education from 1998 to 2011. Her research interests included culture, primary education, and home-school relations facilitating in-school academic achievement.
Before joining Penn, she taught at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy for 20 years. Previously she was on the faculties of Howard University, Yale University, and the University of Chicago, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in human development and a Ph.D. in human development and clinical psychology. Among her many awards and accolades, in 2019 she was designated a “pioneer woman of color among the first to break into psychology’s ranks” by the American Psychological Association.
Dorothy E. Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights.
(Image: Sameer A. Khan)
Dorothy E. Robertsis the George A. Weiss Professor of Law & Sociology, the Raymond Pace & Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and professor of Africana studies. She is also the founding director of the Program on Race, Science, and Society. With appointments in the Law School and the School of Arts & Sciences, Roberts works at the intersection of law, social justice, science, and health, focusing on urgent social justice issues in policing, family regulation, science, medicine, and bioethics.
Nicholas Sambanis is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and director of the Penn Identity & Conflict Lab in the School of Arts & Sciences. (Image: Courtesy Nicholas Sambanis)
Nicholas Sambanisis a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and director of the Penn Identity & Conflict Lab (PIC Lab). He writes on conflict processes with a focus on civil wars and other forms of intergroup conflict.
Sambanis’ interdisciplinary PIC Lab works on a broad range of topics related to intergroup conflict in the world, including the effects of external intervention on peace-building after ethnic war, the analysis of violent escalation of separatist movements, conflict between native and immigrant populations, and strategies to mitigate bias and discrimination against minority groups. His focus is the connection between identity politics and conflict processes drawing on social psychology, behavioral economics, and the comparative politics and international relations literatures in political science.
Drew Weissman is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the Perelman School of Medicine. (Image: Peggy Peterson/Courtesy of Penn Medicine)
Drew Weissman is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the Perelman School of Medicine and an internationally recognized scientist whose foundational research with scientific collaborator Katalin Karikó gave way to mRNA vaccines and a highly effective method of curbing the spread of COVID-19.
For decades, Weissman has studied immunology and the ways mRNA might trigger protective immune responses, first at the National Institutes of Health focused on HIV and then at Penn, where he turned his attention to developing mRNA vaccines for other diseases and conditions. One goal is to create a pan-coronavirus vaccine, which could prevent all types of coronaviruses, including COVID-19. He has also worked with researchers globally to help them develop mRNA COVID vaccines and to increase access to such vaccines in remote and under-resourced areas.
Weissman has received many awards, including the Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Princess of Asturias Award, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
When the Schuylkill swallowed the city: Lessons from Hurricane Ida’s historic flood
New Penn research shows that Hurricane Ida wasn’t a once-in-a-century anomaly but a preview of how climate change, urbanization, and aging infrastructure are rewriting flood risk.
The Fed explained: What it does and why it matters
Former Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker and financial historian Peter Conti-Brown, both Wharton professors, unpack the central bank’s origins, its unusual structure, and the quiet ways it shapes the economy
How population changes are impacting primary education worldwide
Research from Penn sociologist Emily Hannum and colleagues reveals regional trends in whether school-age populations are increasing, plateauing, or decreasing—and shows how different countries are responding.
A bioengineered bean gum from the lab of Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell is found to reduce the levels of three microbes associated with head and neck squamous cell cancer to almost zero, without affecting the beneficial bacteria normally found in the mouth.
Fighting oral cancer with bioengineered chewing gum
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell shows that antiviral and antibacterial chewing gums reduce the levels of three microbes linked to worse outcomes in oral cancers, paving the way for more effective and affordable therapies.
