School of Arts & Sciences

Penn Physicists Observe “Campfire Effect” in Blinking Nanorod Semiconductors

PHILADELPHIA — When semiconductor nanorods are exposed to light, they blink in a seemingly random pattern. By clustering nanorods together, physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that their combined “on” time is increased dramatically providing new insight into this mysterious blinking behavior.

Evan Lerner

Secrets of Patient Safety Program Unraveled in Penn Collaborative Study

PHILADELPHIA – A team of social scientists and medical and nursing researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom has pinpointed how a program, which ran in more than 100 hospital intensive care units in Michigan, dramatically reduced the rates of potentially deadly central line bloodstream infections to become one of the world’s most successful patient-safety programs.

Jacquie Posey

Penn Researchers Show New Evidence of Genetic “Arms Race” Against Malaria

PHILADELPHIA — For tens of thousands of years, the genomes of malaria parasites and humans have been at war with one another. Now, University of Pennsylvania geneticists, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, have developed a new picture of one way that the human genome has fought back. 

Evan Lerner

Penn Research Overturns Theory on How Children Learn Their First Words

PHILADELPHIA — New research by a team of University of Pennsylvania psychologists is helping to overturn the dominant theory of how children learn their first words, suggesting that it occurs more in moments of insight than gradually through repeated exposure.

Evan Lerner



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

He started college in prison. Now, he is Rutgers-Camden’s first Truman scholar

Tej Patel, a third-year in the Wharton School and College of Arts and Sciences from Billeria, Massachusetts, was one of 60 college students nationwide chosen to be a Truman Scholar.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

A collector donated 75,000 comic books to Penn Libraries, valued at more than $500,000

Alumnus Gary Prebula and his wife, Dawn, have donated a $500,000 collection of more than 75,000 comic books and graphic novels to Penn Libraries, featuring remarks from Sean Quimly of the Kislak Center and Jean-Christophe Cloutier of the School of Arts & Sciences.

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KQED Radio (San Francisco)

Violence escalates in Sudan as civil war enters second year

Ali Ali-Dinar of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses the forces driving the civil war in Sudan and how the global community is responding.

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BBC

From Ancient Egypt to Roman Britain, brewers are reviving beers from the past

Patrick McGovern of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Museum oversaw the first hi-tech molecular analysis of residues found in bronze drinking vessels during a 1950s excavation of an ancient Turkish tomb.

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The Washington Post

Forecast group predicts busiest hurricane season on record with 33 storms

A research team led by Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña.

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