An archaeologist has given $16 million to the University of Pennsylvania Museum — the largest individual contribution ever made to the Museum and one of the largest to any university museum.
The donor, Charles K. Williams II (Gr’78), was field director from 1966 to 1997 of excavations in Greece where many Penn students have done field work. This donation caps his prior gifts to the Museum, totaling more than $5.3 million.
His latest gift will air condition the historic buildings and update utilities as well as provide new exhibitions to attract more visitors to one of the preeminent museums of its kind in the world.
Williams’ donation launches a $55 million fundraising campaign, which he himself will chair, to support public programming, research, education and the collections.
At a reception Feb. 15 to announce the 21st Century Campaign, Williams said his commitment to the Museum grew out of his days as a Ph.D. student in archaeology at Penn: “This museum was more than a classroom, more than a great cultural center. It was my home.”
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
