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Exploring what it means to be curious
Book cover of Curious Minds: The Power of Connection by Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett along side image of the two scholars

Exploring what it means to be curious

In a new book “Curious Minds: The Power of Connection,” Penn’s Dani S. Bassett and twin sibling Perry Zurn weave together history, linguistics, network science, neuroscience, and philosophy to unpack the concept of curiosity.

Katherine Unger Baillie

President and Provost welcome the Class of 2026
First-year students and families gather on the lawn on College Green to hear remarks from Penn President Liz Magill.

President and Provost welcome the Class of 2026

Speaking to the Class of 2026 filling a sunny College Green, President Liz Magill and Interim Provost Beth Winkelstein assured first-years and their families that Penn will provide the support they need.

Louisa Shepard

Singing, speech production, and the brain
A person standing up adjusting a headset over a person sitting in a soundproof room. Barely visible in front of the sitting person is a computer screen and keyboard. A fire alarm sits above a window behind both people.

Eiffert situates a headset on participant Maggie Compton. The metal contraption holds an ultrasound probe in place under Compton’s chin, to capture images of her tongue placement in the mouth.

Singing, speech production, and the brain

This summer, rising second-years Audrey Keener and Nicholas Eiffert worked in the lab of Penn linguist Jianjing Kuang studying vowel articulation in song, running an in-person experiment and built a corpus of classical recordings by famous singers.

Michele W. Berger

Deploying microrobotics for dental treatments and diagnostics
A dental model of teeth.

nocred

Deploying microrobotics for dental treatments and diagnostics

Penn Dental Medicine and its Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry show that microrobots can access the difficult to reach surfaces of the root canal with controlled precision.

From Penn Dental Medicine

A fish harvest that’s more sustainable—and tastier, too
Wharton graduate Saif Khawaja

Saif Khawaja, a graduate of Wharton, is one of the winners of the inaugural Penn President’s Sustainability Prizes.

A fish harvest that’s more sustainable—and tastier, too

December graduate Saif Khawaja’s President’s Sustainability Prize is helping him build Shinkei Systems, a company that has developed a robotics-based system for minimizing waste in the fishing industry.

Katherine Unger Baillie

TV news top driver of political echo chambers in U.S.
An illustration of an old television with a person in sunglasses on it. On top sits a laptop computer with an arm reaching out past the screen, holding a rolled up newspaper. Another newspaper lays flat on top of the screen.

TV news top driver of political echo chambers in U.S.

Duncan Watts and colleagues found that 17% of Americans consume television news from partisan left- or right-leaning sources compared to just 4% online. For TV news viewers, this audience segregation tends to last month over month.

Michele W. Berger

Mentorship strategies to boost diversity in paleontology
Scientists Erynn Johnson and Aja Carter use a 3D printer to make shell shapes

Erynn Johnson and Aja Carter both earned their doctoral degrees in paleontology from Penn, employing pioneering techniques, such as 3D printing to replicate the forms of ancient creatures. In a new publication, they share advice for attracting and retaining students and trainees from underrepresented groups to paleontology. 

  • Q&A

    • Mentorship strategies to boost diversity in paleontology

    Drawing on research as well as their experiences as women of color in paleontology, Aja Carter and Erynn Johnson, who earned doctoral degrees from Penn, coauthored a paper offering advice for making the field more inclusive.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Inspired by the human heart, Penn Engineers design tear-resistant soft material
    Glass fibers embedded in stretchy silicone.

    Using a 3D printer, Penn Engineering researchers are able to precisely control the alignment of glass fibers embedded within this stretchy silicone. The stripes represent regions with different fiber alignment patterns, and thus different levels of resistance to the tear making its way across the sample. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

    Inspired by the human heart, Penn Engineers design tear-resistant soft material

    Engineers have designed a soft material for robotics, medical devices, and wearable technologies that are both tear-resistant and able to resist deformation.

    From Penn Engineering Today

    PIK Professor Kevin Johnson: Informatics evangelist
    kevin johnson at biology pond

    PIK Professor Kevin Johnson: Informatics evangelist

    The Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with appointments in Penn Engineering and the Perelman School of Medicine on forging his own path in the fields of health care and computer science.

    From Penn Engineering Today