School of Arts & Sciences

By Patrick Ammerman What could be the downside to unemployment rates plummeting in recent years? One place to look is the road. Research has shown that when the economy improves, motor vehicle fatalities also increase.

Ferromagnetic materials, like compass needles, are useful because their magnetic polarization makes them rotate to align with magnetic fields. Ferroelectric materials behave in a similar way but with electric, rather than magnetic, fields.

College-age women who participate in sorority rush largely describe the process as negative but report a sense of belonging and support once they’re in the group, according to research from University of Pennsylvania psychologist Melissa Hunt and Penn alumna Colleen Kase.

The tragedy of the commons, a concept described by ecologist Garrett Hardin, paints a grim view of human nature. The theory goes that, if a resource is shared, individuals will act in their own self-interest, but against the interest of the group, by depleting that resource. 

Boyang Qin, a third-year Ph.D. student, stands on stage in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the University of Pennsylvania’s Houston Hall in front of 50 high school students and parents.

With the hopes that their children would receive a better education, the parents of University of Pennsylvania student Alisha Chowdhury left Bangladesh the year before she was born and settled in New Orleans. 

Through the generosity of alumni and others in the entertainment industry, seven University of Pennsylvania students in the Cinema and Media Studies program have the opportunity this summer to intern at film, television and digital media companies. 

Even before coming to the University of Pennsylvania, Hannah Fagin knew she wanted to study the humanities, but she knew she had found her major after her first history course at Penn, “History of the American South.” 

Politicians’ race-conscious speeches have broad, and sometimes unexpected, consequences, according to a new book from Daniel Gillion of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Would you rather eat an apple or a banana? Read Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities? Is a cup or a mug holding that coffee? How quickly the decision gets made matters. That’s because the longer someone takes to draw a conclusion, the more likely that person will disengage from the process altogether and simply never decide.