Penn Ph.D. student Xinlan Emily Hu leads a group of budding engineers and social scientists who study communication across teams. The group has developed a new toolkit aimed at helping researchers analyze and measure teamwork.
Jen Wilcox has returned to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and to the School of Engineering and Applied Science following three years in at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she served in the Biden Administration as the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management.
(Image: Courtesy of Jen Wilcox)
A climate expert’s return to Penn
Jen Wilcox, an expert on direct-air capture, is the inaugural faculty appointment in the Kleinman Center and served for three years as principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy. She discusses her time away and her return to Penn.
Robyn Sanderson and Adrien Thob of the School of Arts & Sciences are part of a team of astronomers using NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to uncover the “fossil record” of the universe as they look to clues to unearth key insights into its formation.
(Image: Courtesy of NASA, Ralf Crawford (STScI))
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will investigate the history of galaxies
Robyn Sanderson and collaborators are unearthing the history of the universe’s formation by looking for clues that reveal its “galactic fossil record.”
“Understanding the human factors and ethical implications of autonomous systems is just as crucial as the technical components,” says Mangharam. “This holistic approach aims to produce well-rounded engineers capable of addressing the multifaceted challenges of autonomous vehicle technology. Our goal is to equip them with the tools and mindset to tackle the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.”
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Racing to the future
Rahul Mangharam’s scaled-down, self-driving race cars are revamping engineering education at Penn.
Hugo Ulloa and Daisuke Noto of the School of Arts & Sciences have unearthed findings that address long-standing mysteries in the mechanics of fluids in confined, tight spaces: how their boundaries affect heat as it emanates from one place and dissipates throughout the space. The image above is a lab-scale hydrothermal system modeled utilizing a Hele-Shaw cell of 10 cm tall, 20 cm long and 4 mm gap. The interior of the Hele-Shaw cell is filled with degassed, deionized water heated from the bottom and cooled from above. A green laser sheet crosses the middle plane of the cell to visualize the motions of micro-scale particles seeded on the water, allowing researchers to estimate the fluid velocity and temperature.
(Image: Courtesy of Daisuke Noto)
Does heat travel differently in tight spaces?
New research led by Penn scientists offers insights into fundamental problems in fluid mechanics, findings that pave the way for more efficient heat transfer in myriad systems.
Lipid nanoparticles present one of the most advanced drug delivery platforms to shuttle promising therapeutics such as mRNA but are limited by the time it takes to synthesize cationic lipids, a key component. Now, Michael Mitchell and his team at the School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a faster way to make cationic lipids that are also more versatile, able to carry different kinds of treatments to target specific organs.
(Image: iStock / Dr_Microbe)
Penn pioneers a ‘one-pot platform’ to promptly produce mRNA delivery particles
New lipid platform enables rapid synthesis of molecules that can shuttle therapeutics for a range of diseases with a high degree of organ specificity.
Who, What, Why: Lasya Sreepada on decoding Alzheimer’s disease
The doctoral candidate at the School of Engineering and Applied Science discusses her path to brain research and how it set her on a course to demystifying neurological diseases using data science approaches.
PIK Professor Duncan Watts and colleagues have developed the Media Bias Detector, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze news articles, examining factors like tone, partisan lean, and fact selection.
