School of Arts & Sciences

by Patrick AmmermanCoastal dunes can pile up large amounts of sand, like a sandcastle. But, while a sandcastle can be completely washed away when it rains or blown away by a strong wind, dunes are much more tenacious. That’s because natural dunes have plants as supports to hold stabilize them in place, reducing erosion from wind and rain.

The University of Pennsylvania will host Maria Bamford, Nathaniel Mackey and Lydia Davis as Kelly Writers House fellows during the spring 2017 semester. 

As the inaugural Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, alumna Stephanie Herrmann has already had access to

Current conversations about urban sustainability are too narrowly focused, ignoring regional and global impacts and leaving out key grassroots groups with social justice agendas.

The University of Pennsylvania’s María F. Paredes Fernández has been named 2016 Teacher of the Year at the University Level by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. 

Blending interdisciplinary work with community engagement, two professors from the University of Pennsylvania are working with grade school teachers to address misconceptions and fears about Islam, as well as issues impacting students from Muslim communities. 

“The Great Recession is the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. If you can’t make an argument that inequality matters for the severity of this downturn, then it’s unlikely to matter much for smaller recessions, or for normal times.”

As higher education institutions wrestle with the future of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, the University of Pennsylvania will host the third annual conference focused on online learning, Oct. 6-7. 

By Niharika Gupta and Katherine Unger Baillie NASA's long search for life on Mars came to a thrilling turning point with the recent discovery of liquid water on the planet. One undergraduate researcher at Penn aims to understand how microbial life could thrive in such extreme, even extraterrestrial environments. 

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Groningen have discovered a piece in the puzzle of how sleep deprivation negatively affects memory.