School of Engineering & Applied Science

Penn Scientists Receive $24 Million from National Science Foundation to Establish Mechanobiology Center

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the University of Pennsylvania a $24 Million, five-year grant to establish a Science and Technology Center (STC) focused on engineering mechanobiology, or the way cells exert and are influenced by the physical forces in their environment. This award is part of an overall $94 million from NSF to support four new STCs.

Karen Kreeger, Evan Lerner

Witnessing Geology’s Impact Firsthand With Penn in the Alps

Just as summer was winding down, around the time when many students were wrapping up internships and checking packing lists for a return to campus, 13 University of Pennsylvania undergraduates flew across an ocean and began acclimating to the thin air of the Swiss and Italian Alps.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn’s Perry World House Announces Inaugural Undergraduate Fellows

Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania has named 25 undergraduates as the inaugural cohort of World House Student Fellows.  The group of sophomores, juniors and seniors will participate each week in seminars, research projects, leadership opportunities and activities focused on pressing global issues. 

Jill DiSanto

Penn Research Identifies Brain Network that Controls Spread of Seizures

A flurry of coordinated activity in a brain-spanning network of neurons may sound like the formation of a brilliant new idea, but it is actually the description of a seizure. Understanding why and how this synchronization spreads would be a critical tool in treating severe epilepsy.

Evan Lerner

Penn Researchers Develop Placenta-on-a-chip

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the first placenta-on-a-chip that can fully model the transport of nutrients across the placental barrier.

Evan Lerner



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

Comcast’s Sports Complex plan for South Philly would make our city less livable

In an Op-Ed, Vukan R. Vuchic of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that Philadelphia should make transit more accessible rather than striving to accommodate more cars.

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Big Think

Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?

Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that auto-regressive generation can make it difficult for language learning models to perform fact-based or symbolic reasoning.

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CNET

How the solar eclipse will affect solar panels and the grid

Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the electrical grid will have to figure out how to match supply and demand during brief windows where the energy source goes away.

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The New York Times

Can your personal medical devices be recycled?

A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.

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CNBC

Students can soon major in AI at this Ivy League university—it’ll prepare them for ‘jobs that don’t yet exist’

The Raj and Neera Singh Program in Artificial Intelligence at Penn will be the first AI undergraduate engineering major at an Ivy League school, led by George Pappas of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

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