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School of Arts & Sciences
Penn Linguists Investigate Language Borrowing in the Field and the Lab
There’s this idea in linguistics called sociolinguistic borrowing, in which one group of people adopts a feature of another group’s dialect. Usually it results from a positive association with the group that originally used the feature. But Betsy Sneller, a fifth-year Ph.D.
Penn’s Timothy Powell: Forging Partnerships to Promote Native Languages, Culture
Timothy Powell’s ethnographic research has taken him to far reaches of the world to uncover what happens when the cultural stories that Native Americans told anthropologists hundreds of years ago are returned to indigenous communities today.
Penn Researchers Are Among the First to Grow a Versatile Two-dimensional Material
University of Pennsylvania researchers are now among the first to produce a single, three-atom-thick layer of a unique two-dimensional material called tungsten ditelluride. Their findings have been published in 2-D Materials.
Penn chemists work towards controlling heat energy on a molecular level
Chemists at the University of Pennsylvania are expanding a new model that could be the first step towards better harnessing heat energy to power nanoscale devices.
Penn Student Mentors High School Entrepreneurs in West Philadelphia
Three years ago, when, as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Winfred Rembert III promised himself that he’d make time to volunteer, he had no idea that promise would lead to him to marketing breakfast bars.
Penn’s Annual Physics Demonstration Show Engages High School Students in Science
On Jan. 10, about 250 Philadelphia area high school students filled a lecture hall to watch the 20th Annual Physics Demonstration Show at the University of Pennsylvania.
First-generation Penn Student David Thai Hones Leadership Skills
Junior David Thai, a first-generation student at the University of Pennsylvania, is used to working hard, taking responsibility and navigating disappointment and change.
Women will compete against self, not others, to improve performance
A woman is less likely to choose competition than a man, even when she performs equally well, unless competing with herself for a better outcome, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania, George Mason University and the German Institute for Economic Research or DIW.
Diabetes accounts for more U.S. deaths than previously thought
Diabetes accounts for 12 percent of deaths in the United States, a significantly higher percentage than previous research revealed, making it the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, according to findings from the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University published in
Invasive Sedge Protects Dunes Better Than Native Grass, Penn-led Study Finds
The invasive species Carex kobomugi, or Asiatic sand sedge, was first found along the East Coast of the United States at New Jersey’s Island Beach State Park in 1929. The species is aggressive, outcompeting native vegetation and reducing local biodiversity. In many places, land managers have made great efforts to remove it.
In the News
The Wall Street Journal
Suddenly there aren’t enough babies. The whole world is alarmed
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde of the School of Arts & Sciences estimates that global fertility last year fell to below global replacement for the first time in human history.
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Salon.com
The world’s oceans just broke an important climate change record
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the warming of the oceans is helping to destabilize ice shelves and fuel more powerful hurricanes and tropical cyclones.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia’s Tyshawn Sorey wins Pulitzer Prize in music
Tyshawn Sorey of the School of Arts & Sciences has won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in music for “Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith),” a concerto for saxophone and orchestra.
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The New York Times
Jerome Rothenberg, who expanded the sphere of poetry, dies at 92
Charles Bernstein of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the late Jerome Rothenberg was the ultimate hyphenated person: a poet-critic-anthologist-translator.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
He started college in prison. Now, he is Rutgers-Camden’s first Truman scholar
Tej Patel, a third-year in the Wharton School and College of Arts and Sciences from Billeria, Massachusetts, was one of 60 college students nationwide chosen to be a Truman Scholar.
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