School of Arts & Sciences

From interning in a kitchen breaking down hundreds of lobsters to hunting truffles in Italy to hosting random four course dinner parties, Amanda Shulman lives to cook. The University of Pennsylvania senior has completed the first level of basic cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and is as likely to fall asleep reading a cookbook as she is reading a textbook studying for class.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded Grant Frame, University of Pennsylvania associate professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations, a two-year $250,000 grant for his Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period Project. The award brings to nearly $950,000 the total NEH grants Frame has received for the RINAP Project since 2008.

Waking up and seeing a two-ton elephant nearby sounds like it could be a scene from a movie, but that’s exactly what University of Pennsylvania student Hannah Watene experienced while studying abroad in Tanzania.

By Julie McWilliams

Oil-based liquid crystals are ubiquitous; a deep understanding of their properties is behind the displays found in most computer monitors, televisions and smartphones. Water-based liquid crystals are less well understood, though their biocompatibility makes them a potential candidate for a variety of biological and medical applications. 

By Sarah Welsh Ever since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, airport security has been at the forefront of national concern. The United States has since taken numerous measures to tighten security in airports, hoping to prevent similar attacks.

President Amy Gutmann today announced the selection of five undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania as the inaugural President’s Engagement Prize recipients. Awarded annually to Penn students to design and undertake fully-funded local, national or global engagement projects during the first year after they graduate, the President’s Engagement Prizes underscore the high priority that Penn places on educating students to put their knowledge to work for the betterment of humankind. 

By Sarah Welsh Cancer starts with a single cell going haywire. What is it about that one cell that makes it different from the rest, setting it on a path of destruction? A new program at the University of Pennsylvania may help find an answer to that and many other questions.

WHAT:           University of Pennsylvania Program on Race, Science & Society, “How Do We Study Racial Disparities in Health and What Have We Learned?” Public Lecture

WHO:       Megan Kassabaum                Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology