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Paving the way for new light-powered devices
scientific rendering of a light-powered device.

Ring microlasers are eyed as potential light sources for photonic applications, but they first must be made more powerful. Combining multiple microlasers into an array solves only half of the problem, as this adds noisy “modes” to the resulting laser light. Penn Engineers have achieved single-mode lasing from such an array. By calculating the necessary properties for “superpartners” placed around the primary array, they can cancel out the unwanted extra modes. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

Paving the way for new light-powered devices

By combining cutting-edge concepts from theoretical physics, researchers from Penn Engineering developed “sypersymmetric microlaser arrays” that are both stable and have high power density.

Evan Lerner

Looking towards the future through an interdisciplinary lens
a portrait of Yasmina Al Ghadban

Looking towards the future through an interdisciplinary lens

Senior Yasmina Al Ghadban was able to connect her undergraduate education in bioengineering and psychology with her passion for public health through teaching, research, and extracurricular activities.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Six from Penn elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Headshots of six people, in a grid, two rows of three.

Six faculty from Penn were elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The honorees include (clockwise from top left) Cristina Bicchieri, Michael Hanchard, Vijay Kumar, Kenneth Zaret, Sarah Tishkoff, and Stanley Plotkin. They join more than 250 honorees for 2021, recognized for their efforts to help solve some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Six from Penn elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Faculty from the School of Arts & Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the Perelman School of Medicine are honored for their efforts to help solve some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Michele W. Berger

Beyond topological insulators
liang wu lab

Graduate student Xingyue Han works in the lab of Liang Wu on terahertz signals, submillimeter waves not visible to the naked eye, and uses magnetic topological materials to study interactions between matter and light. (Pre-pandemic image)

Beyond topological insulators

Charlie Kane and Eugene Mele’s groundbreaking theories on the existence of a new class of materials continues to inspire an upcoming generation of physics researchers.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Communicating change in a ‘land of extremes’
fog rolling in over mongolia water

Communicating change in a ‘land of extremes’

In Aurora MacRae-Crerar’s Penn Global Seminar, students are grappling with the impacts of a shifting and unpredictable climate in Mongolia.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Toward a better understanding of ‘fake news’
a person with their back to the camera looking at a drawing of a television with two people debating

PIK professor Duncan Watts has published a new framework for studying media bias and misinformation, detailing an ambitious and comprehensive research agenda for understanding the origins, nature, and prevalence of misinformation and its impact on democracy

Toward a better understanding of ‘fake news’

PIK Professor Duncan Watts publishes a framework for developing a comprehensive research agenda to study the origins, nature, and consequences of misinformation on democracy.

Even without a brain, metal-eating robots can search for food
Film still of a small wheeled robot traveling a path between yellow tape.

The “metal-eating” robot can follow a metal path without using a computer or needing a battery. By wiring the power-supplying units to the wheels on the opposite side, the robot autonomously navigates away from the tape and towards aluminum surfaces. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

Even without a brain, metal-eating robots can search for food

SEAS engineers are developing robot-powered technology with energy sources that are harvested in the robot’s environment.

Evan Lerner

Computational insights towards future personalized cancer treatments
A computer model of a mutated anaplastic lymphoma kinase.

A computer model of a mutated anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), a known oncogenic driver in pediatric neuroblastoma. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

Computational insights towards future personalized cancer treatments

Researchers from Penn Engineering, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Yale University use molecular simulations to uncover how mutations in a class of enzymes known as kinases lead to cancer progression.

Evan Lerner

The Philadelphia Orchestra is playing safe
philly orchestra on stage at kimmel

Results of the experiments so far, along with insights from Penn Medicine’s P.J. Brennan, have helped inform the arrangement of members of The Philadelphia Orchestra as they have resumed performances that are captured and later streamed on their new “Digital Stage.” (Image: The Philadelphia Orchestra)

The Philadelphia Orchestra is playing safe

Penn experts are working with The Philadelphia Orchestra to study the aerosol droplets that wind and brass musicians produce when playing. Their findings, aimed at reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission, could help the Orchestra once again play together.

Katherine Unger Baillie