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School of Arts & Sciences
Inside man
Nick Miller, a senior inside linebacker on the Penn football team and a unanimous First-Team All-Ivy selection, chats about his incredible Quaker career.
Up, up, and away
Mark Devlin and his team behind BLAST are about to embark on another scientific adventure in Antarctica, this time measuring how stars form in our galaxy.
Cells and cinema
As a biology major, senior Andrew Ravaschiere spends much of his time in a laboratory conducting cellular research. But as a cinema and media studies minor, he got out of the lab and into the world of filmmaking during the summer, working as an intern for a documentary filmmaker.
How do individual decisions affect group decisions?
Postdoctoral fellow Colin Twomey looks to fish behavior to explore the dynamic between individual and group decision-making.
Where do comets originate?
A new technique developed by team of Penn astronomers may allow the scientists to measure radiation from celestial bodies that are only theorized to exist.
Bigger brains are smarter, but not by much
Using a large dataset and controlling for a variety of factors, including sex, age, height, socioeconomic status, and genetic ancestry, Gideon Nave of the Wharton School and Philipp Koellinger of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam found that people with larger brains rated higher on measures of intelligence, but only accounts for two percent of the variation in smarts.
Students take gold in Japanese language contest
In a Japanese-language speaking competition hosted at George Washington University, two Penn students won among university-level competitors from across the country.
Two from Penn named to new class of AAAS Fellows
Noted for their contributions to dental and biological sciences, respectively, Hyun (Michel) Koo of the School of Dental Medicine and Joshua Plotkin of the School of Arts and Sciences are part of the newest cohort of fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Undergraduate leads NGO to change Chicago’s gun violence
Sophomore Eva Maria Lewis is tackling the root causes of Chicago’s gun violence crisis and working to create equitable communities.
New fellowship offers undergrads unfiltered, frank access to city leaders
Through the program, offered by the Penn Institute for Urban Research, 14 students will meet with a former Philadelphia mayor, Philly’s current director of planning and development, and more.
In the News
NBC News
What the T.M. Landry Prep scandal reveals about race, stereotypes and inequality in American education
The School of Arts and Sciences’ Camille Zubrinksy Charles offered commentary on the Landry Prep scandal, saying that the administrators’ “slick sales pitch” relied on racial stereotypes to win over parents and the media.
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The Washington Post
Parenthood lost: How incarcerated parents are losing their children forever
PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts said the child-welfare system is biased against poor parents, especially incarcerated women of color. “Instead of actually responding to the struggles of poor families …. we’ve decided that it’s simpler to take their children away,” said Roberts.
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CNN
Why would police ever destroy a rape kit belonging to a child or teenager?
Marci Hamilton of the School of Arts and Sciences co-authored an op-ed about the lack of protocol for the preservation of rape kits of child and teenage victims.
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Scientific American
Four days of intensive therapy can reverse OCD for years
Martin Franklin of Penn Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences commented on a new method for treating OCD. While Franklin was “very impressed” with the results, he noted that the researchers’ analysis lacked a control group.
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CNN
Fighting IBS with behavioral therapy
The School of Arts and Sciences’ Melissa Hunt was highlighted for her specialty treating IBS and other chronic gastrointestinal disorders with cognitive behavioral therapy.
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