School of Arts & Sciences

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

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.