School of Arts & Sciences

A brown brick building in the background with gravestones and bushes in the foreground.

State Department awards Penn $2 million to preserve cultural heritage in northern Iraq

The two-phase, three-year project aims to revitalize the city and its culture.

Presentation ceremony with background image of Kane and Mele

Electric bond

Behind the discovery of a new class of electronic materials is a 20-year collaboration between two Penn physicists, winners of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

A prehistoric city with homes, earthen mounds, and pathways

Marking the winter solstice, from Neolithic times to today

For millennia, people have marked the winter solstice with rituals and celebrations—and they continue to do so today. Penn Museum anthropologists Lucy Fowler Williams and Megan Kassabaum discuss both ancient and contemporary customs associated with attending to the shortest day of the year.

Deborah Burnham sits in Kelly Writers House, surrounded by wooden chairs

Healing with words, through writing workshops for cancer patients

Writing a Life, organized by the Abramson Cancer Center and held at Kelly Writers House each month, provides such patients the opportunity to creatively examine and express their experiences.

a stack of books in front of a chalkboard with math equations

Celebrating science

Eight Penn faculty share their favorite general interest books about science.

Televion wall displaying many different channels simutaneously

TV marathon

With many taking time off over the holidays, Rahul Mukherjee of cinema studies shares his thoughts on binge-watching television.

‘A Home for the Holidays’

On Dec. 31, Kyle Oden, a junior at Penn from Inglewood, Calif., and his family will be featured as part of a nationally televised holiday special: “A Home for the Holidays—the 20th Anniversary” celebrating families whose lives have been changed by adoptions.

A black man and a white woman shaking hands

In negotiations, one strategy leads to better economic gains, but worse relationships

Behavioral scientist Nazli Bhatia found that aggressive but retracted offers known as ‘phantom anchors’ can improve outcomes—but only when employed with finesse.

Wide view of art gallery showing many paintings on the walls and about ten people looking at them

Engaging citizen curators

An innovative exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery features 50 works from Penn’s art collection chosen by the public in a crowdsourced exhibition. More than 600 people voted for their favorite to be included in “Citizen Salon,” on display through March 24.

Gloved hand taking scissors to a strand of DNA.

Thoughts from a medical ethicist on gene editing babies

In a Q&A, PIK Professor Jonathan Moreno discusses using CRISPR technology on humans and the future of the field.

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