Eric Sucar

One year in, Penn Museum Director Christopher Woods has  continued to lead the massive transformation of the 135-year-old institution’s building while reevaluating the collection, expanding the staff, strengthening community engagement, and addressing sensitive issues through new policies.

(Homepage image) Participants in the Penn Global Seminar to the Galápagos Islands traveled over winter break to see first-hand the ecology, evolution, and natural history of Galápagos, along with the growing impact of humans on this fragile place. (Image: Courtesy of Penn Abroad)

Bill Cullina, director of the Morris Arboretum, poses inside the Arboretum's Victorian fernery in March 2022. 

The water tank for the Olua I community is now installed and fully operational, with 10 filling stations where community members can obtain clean water. In the coming weeks, Maji aims to finish fencing the area around the water tank and installing additional irrigation equipment. (Images: Martin Leet)

In Asian American studies classrooms, “you get students from every single major, you get them from every single field, you get every class background, and you get every political background,” says David Eng. “What’s happened in the field of ethnic studies in general, is that you’ve had to create these horizontal communities among these generations of students.”

In a controlled field experiment on Penn’s campus, biologists tracked fruit fly evolution over the course of four months, documenting some of the fastest rates of adaptation ever in animals. (Image: Seth Rudman)

(Homepage image) “What we needed to do for our physical health—quarantining, staying away from other people and social situations—even when that kind of avoidance is the right thing to do, it makes people more anxious,” says Elizabeth Turk-Karan of the Center for the Study and Treatment of Anxiety. What remains to be seen is how these emotions and many others will play out as the pandemic recedes.