The University has appointed eight faculty to the inaugural class of Penn Fellows, a new development program that gives esteemed mid-career faculty the opportunity to make valuable new connections and play a greater leadership role on campus.

The fellowship program, launched this year, is a project of Penn’s Office of the Provost.

Penn Fellows will have the chance to build networks across the University, meet with academic leaders and participate in monthly dinners with prominent speakers from the campus community and elsewhere.
“The Penn Fellows Program is a major initiative to develop the next generation of academic leaders at Penn,” says Vincent Price, associate provost for faculty affairs. “It helps them build a supportive network of peers across the University, learn from experienced mentors, and develop strategies in important areas of university governance.

“It is a key component of our efforts to ensure that Penn’s most outstanding and promising mid-career faculty members have the resources and support they need to thrive in their careers here.”

The 2009 Penn Fellows are:

Sarah Tishkoff: Tishkoff is a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and the David and Lyn Silfen University Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and School of Arts and Sciences. Tishkoff has assembled the most extensive African DNA database in the world. She was named one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” American scientists. For more on Tishkoff’s genetic research, see story here.

Eric Bradlow: Bradlow, the K.P. Chao Professor and professor of marketing and statistics in the Wharton School, specializes in applying statistical models to both high-level mathematical problems and real-world topics. He is editor-in-chief of Marketing Science, co-director and co-founder of the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative and winner of more than 20 Wharton teaching awards.

Charles Branas: Branas is associate professor of epidemiology in the School of Medicine, where he specializes in researching and advocating for improvements to public health, especially reducing gun violence and improving emergency and trauma care. Branas was trained as an EMS provider with the Philadelphia and Baltimore fire departments and worked for the U.S. Public Health Service.

Robert Carpick: Carpick is associate professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Carpick specializes in the study of friction at the atomic scale. He is Penn director of the Nanotechnology Institute, a multi-institutional entity that advances commercial applications of nanotechnology through industry-university partnerships.

Marybeth Gasman: Gasman is associate professor of education in the Graduate School of Education. She is a historian of education, specializing in issues of leadership, fundraising and philanthropy at historically African-American colleges.

John Jackson Jr.: Jackson, an anthropologist and filmmaker, is the Richard Perry University Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and School of Arts and Sciences and a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor.

Joshua Metlay: Metlay is an associate professor of medicine in the School of Medicine, with research interests in respiratory-tract infections and treatments. His work has explored resistance to antibiotics, risk factors for the spread of drug-resistant respiratory infections and optimal practices to improve the use of antibiotics. He was the 2008 winner of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, Penn’s highest teaching honor.

Sharon Thompson-Schill: A professor of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences, Thompson-Schill studies the neurological basis of memory and language, including both normal cognition and cognition in those suffering from stroke, degenerative diseases and congenital blindness. She was the 2006 winner of the Lindback Award.

Originally published Feb. 19, 2009