Dan Shortridge’s beats in the School of Arts & Sciences (SAS) include Political Science; History, International Relations; East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures; Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies; Russian and East European Studies; and Economics, as well as the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, The Lauder Institute (Wharton/SAS), Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES), McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Penn Institute for Economic Research, the Center for Study of Contemporary China, Center for East Asian Studies, Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics, Fels Institute of Government, and Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, & Immigration. In addition, he covers Penn Carey Law, the SNF Paideia Program, and for Penn Global he covers the China Research and Engagement Fund, Penn Washington, and Perry World House.
Dr. Paul Cobb, center, looks on as students and library staff examine rare versions of “One Thousand and One Nights” in the Lea Library.
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Exploring ‘One Thousand and One Nights’
A seminar from Middle Eastern medievalist Paul Cobb gets students talking and thinking about the “disorienting” storytelling in “One Thousand and One Nights.”
Penn named top producer of 2025-26 Fulbright students
With 19 students and alumni offered an award, the flagship international education exchange program again recognized Penn as a top producing institution of Fulbright Scholars.
Penn’s Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award recipient and award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee spoke with professor Heather A. Williams, about the Civil Rights Movement, filmmaking, and more.
Iran is functioning under an Internet communications blackout, which has strained economic and family ties, says Penn’s Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet.
(Image: Vahid Salemi via AP Images)
Iran at a crossroads
In a Q&A, Penn historian Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, an expert on Iran and the modern Middle East, speaks about the Iranian opposition movement, current protests, the Islamic Republic’s crackdown, and daily life in the country.
Philadelphia Gas Works in an 1890 illustration. It sat on the east side of the Schuylkill River, between Market and Filbert streets.
(Image: David J. Kennedy. Courtesy of Historical Society of Philadelphia, via petrodelphia.org.)
Exploring Philadelphia’s petrochemical past
Penn historian Jared Farmer recently launched a website about Philadelphia’s fossil fuel economy to help students and residents learn about the local past in larger context.
Fourth-year Mia McElhatton is studying the intersection of climate change and migration with an undergraduate research grant from the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy.
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How climate change affects migration
Fourth-year philosophy major Mia McElhatton is investigating the effects of climate change on how people move from place to place.
From left, Adelaide Lyall and Norah Rami are Penn's 2026 Marshall Scholars.
(Images: Courtesy of Adelaide Lyall and Norah Rami)
Two Penn students chosen as 2026 Marshall Scholars
Adelaide Lyall, a graduate student in the School of Social Policy & Practice, and Norah Rami, a fourth-year in the College of Arts & Sciences, will receive funding for as much as three years of graduate study in the United Kingdom.
Penn students relax in the PAACH space recently. Alumni and students say PAACH is a "home away from home" for many from the Asian Pacific Islander community.
(Image: Courtesy of PAACH)
A quarter-century of supporting Asian Pacific Islander students
The Pan-Asian American Community House is marking 25 years of fostering community, inspiring leaders, and providing a home away from home.
As part of the Side Gigs for Good series, Penn Today highlights staff who spend time outside their work hours giving back to Philadelphia organizations.
