The FDA and CDC endorsed boosters of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines just a month after the agencies did the same for a Pfizer/BioNTech booster. Here’s what’s known today about these shots.
Rather than causing a backlash, vaccination requirements will succeed at getting more people inoculated, according to research from PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín and colleagues at Penn.
The mural depicted in this photograph is “Decolonize And Chill/We Are Still Here.” It is by artist and community activist Jaque Fragua from the Pueblo of Jemez, one of the federally recognized tribes in New Mexico, as well as Ishi Glinsky and Shepard Fairey. It is art created out of an ongoing decolonizing space and project called Indian Alley, in Los Angeles. (Image: By wiredforlego, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)
Tackling the topic of decolonization
Deborah Thomas, who runs Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography, and Christopher Woods, director of the Penn Museum, discuss a conference on decolonization that starts today.
Annenberg’s Kyle Cassidy, with Pete Coyle, an art teacher at West Philadelphia High School. Together they came up with the idea for this exhibit, which Cassidy says can be adapted to almost any group and many kinds of spaces.
A pandemic year, in photos
‘Apart Together,’ a new photography exhibit at the Annenberg School, shows that despite not being physically in the same place the past 18 months, our shared experiences kept us connected.
Mark Alan Hughes is founding faculty director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and a professor of practice in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
Cities: ‘Where all the good stuff happens’
In his new book, Mark Alan Hughes of the Kleinman Center and Weitzman School of Design argues that cities don’t need to change to be livable. Rather, their unique qualities are the very origins of livability itself.
Second year Xiye Bastida, from San Pedro Tultepec, Mexico, has participated in Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for the Future movement. She and friends began the Re-Earth Initiative aimed at “reimaging the future, reconnecting with the planet, and redefining collaboration.” Despite six years of environmental activism under her belt, Bastida says she’s just getting started.
‘The climate girl’ at Penn
In a Q&A with Xiye Bastida, the second year describes how she’s bringing climate activism to her college experience, how her Indigenous background influences her path, and why storytelling and protecting Earth go hand in hand.
Rethinking resilience in the face of climate change
Hurricane Ida brought record-breaking rainfall and flooding, and stronger, more destructive storms will inevitably come. Being better prepared will require reconsidering how to protect people and their homes.
Image: Courtesy of Penn Medicine Service in Action
In hard-hit neighborhoods, Philly CEAL outreach aims to address COVID disparities
Through community engagement and improved information dissemination, researchers at Penn Nursing, Penn Medicine, and Annenberg, in conjunction with the City of Philadelphia, are working to increase vaccination and testing rates and decrease new COVID-19 infections.
Junior Gabriela Montes de Oca from Houston has a background working on public health issues and supporting marginalized populations as part of Penn’s United Minorities Council, as a member of the First-Generation, Low-Income Dean’s Advisory Board, and through her role as a Penn Civic Scholar. This summer, in addition to interning in the lab of Andy Tan, she worked on Covid-19 testing and vaccinations at Sayre Health Center.
Coding the emotions that anti-tobacco ads evoke
Sophomore Oulaya Louaddi and junior Gabriela Montes de Oca interned this summer with Annenberg’s Andy Tan, helping the research team design and test culturally appropriate anti-smoking campaigns for young women who identify as sexual minorities.
Fran Barg spent more than 30 years at Penn, conducting research that fell at the intersection of medicine and anthropology. Though she technically retired in June 2021, she plans to remain connected to Penn, to the mentoring and research that has enriched her career.
Medical anthropologist Fran Barg reflects on three decades at Penn
She spent her career studying the culture of medicine. Through collaborations with colleagues in medicine and anthropology, she’s pinpointed why it’s so crucial to see serious medical problems from both a scientific perspective and a patient one.
Junior Gabriela Montes de Oca from Houston has a background working on public health issues and supporting marginalized populations as part of Penn’s United Minorities Council, as a member of the First-Generation, Low-Income Dean’s Advisory Board, and through her role as a Penn Civic Scholar. This summer, in addition to interning in the lab of Andy Tan, she worked on Covid-19 testing and vaccinations at Sayre Health Center.
