School of Arts & Sciences

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

The Final round and announcement of the winner of the 4th Annual National Invitational Public Policy Challenge, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Fels Institute of Government, will be held March 22 at the National Constitution Center.

By Julie McWilliams University of Pennsylvania senior Tess Michaels has found herself in an enviable situation not unlike game show contestants who must pick Door No. 1, Door No. 2 or Door No. 3.

WHO:            Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova, Russian conceptual artists and founding members of the art collective Pussy RiotWHAT:          “A Conversation With Pussy Riot” 

The field of metamaterials is all about making structures that have physical properties that aren’t found in nature. Predicting what kinds of structures would have those traits is one challenge; physically fabricating them is quite another, as they often require precise arrangement of constituent materials on the smallest scales.

By Madeleine Stone  @themadstoneRivers drive the evolution of Earth’s surface by eroding and depositing sediment. But for nearly a century, geologists have puzzled over why theoretical models, which use principles of physics to predict patterns of sediment transport in rivers, have rarely matched observations from nature.

Beginning in her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, Dandi Zhu figured that being successful could only be helped by being around other women who wanted, as she did, to be leaders.That’s what drew her to Ware College House’s Women in Leadership residential program.

University of Pennsylvania junior Roderick Cook believes that it’s important for those in positions of privilege and power to redistribute resources to help marginalized communities in Philadelphia and beyond.