School of Arts & Sciences

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Professor Emily Wilson named 2020 Guggenheim Fellow

The School of Arts and Sciences professor has received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in the humanities category for her translations of ancient Greek and Roman literature and philosophy.

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Kok-Chor Tan on how external factors inform individual responses to COVID-19

The professor of philosophy says the ways in which individuals are affected by the pandemic are a result of a complex tapestry of economic, social, and cultural factors.

Bike food delivery courier wearing a protective face mask while riding through NYC empty streets

Is the U.S. winning the war against COVID-19?

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives, gave a sobering update on how the United States is doing in the fight against COVID-19, saying the country needs to be prepared to battle the new coronavirus for about 18 months.

Professor stands on one side of a table filled with Native American objects while talking to seven other people across from and beside her i

Naskapi connections: Restorative research in the Penn Museum collection

A blog post about a child’s hunting jacket made of caribou hide caught the attention of a high school students in the Naskapi Nation in Quebec. A group visited the Penn Museum to view artifacts made by their ancestors.

Drying medical masks hanging due to a scarcity of PPE in hospitals

How can hospitals address scarce resources during COVID-19?

Most hospitals have general contingency plans for resource allocation in times of medical scarcity, but not detailed guidelines for the process of actually making those allocation decisions. School of Arts and Sciences political scientist and LDI Senior Fellow Julia Lynch has created those guidelines.

The push for 2020 Census participation, amid a pandemic and data privacy fears

Groups across Penn are working to ensure that college students and hard-to-reach demographics get counted in the once-a-decade tally.

David Roos taking a selfie while teaching a class online, with scientific materials on the screen behind him

A quick pivot turns an infectious disease class into timely education

Students in David Roos’ upper-level biology course had been studying pandemics. Now they get to learn in real time how public health scientists attempt to understand COVID-19.

Person with glasses smiles in front of blurry trees and a red brick building.

Rethinking microeconomics

Economics professor Rakesh Vohra has spent the last five years reimagining the design of the intermediate microeconomics course, resulting in a new book and a new course structure. The approach is unique, and this academic year every full-time student taking intermediate microeconomics is taking Vohra’s innovative version.

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Walter Licht’s legacy of civic engagement

For more than 40 years at Penn, Walter Licht has crafted a career of equal parts renowned historian, teacher, and community activist, including creating the Penn Civic Scholars Program. Licht recently announced he is stepping down from his positions at Civic House.

Person praying in front of a crowd in China with mask down around their chin, people wearing masks walk around them, outside a temple.

Human rights during the coronavirus pandemic

During a virtual event at Perry World House, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, spoke to PWH interim director Michael Horowitz about the importance of centering human rights and about holding governments accountable in a time of pandemic.

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