School of Engineering & Applied Science

The transistor is the most fundamental building block of electronics, used to build circuits capable of amplifying electrical signals or switching them between the 0s and 1s at the heart of digital computation. Transistor fabrication is a highly complex process, however, requiring high-temperature, high-vacuum equipment. 

The Fels Policy Research Initiative in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania has announced five inaugural collaborative grants for as much as $15,000 each, designed to further interdisciplinary partnerships. 

Splitting water into its hydrogen and oxygen parts may sound like science fiction, but it’s the end goal of chemists and chemical engineers like Christopher Murray of the University of Pennsylvania and

In an event that signals the global outreach of the University of Pennsylvania, five delegates from Cuba visited Penn’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology to meet with University leaders and explore the translation of research to the marketplace. 

When doctors diagnose a torn ligament, it’s usually because they can see ruptures in the ligament’s collagen fibers, visible on a variety of different scans. However, they also often treat patients with many of the symptoms of a tear, but whose ligaments don’t show this kind of damage.   

In April, one enterprising senior or team of graduates-to-be at the University of Pennsylvania will be named the inaugural President’s Innovation Prize winners. The award comes with $100,000 in seed money and a $50,000 living stipend per team member. And that is just the start.

Oil and water famously don't mix, but finely dispersing one in the other produces a liquid mixture with many useful properties. An emulsion consisting of tiny droplets of one of those liquids immersed in the other is the most common form, found in everything from salad dressings, to cosmetics to industrial lubricants.

It’s not easy to make confusing mathematics topics understandable, let alone interesting, to non-mathematicians, but University of Pennsylvania professor Robert Ghrist has figured out the formula.

The transformative power of computer software is everywhere, from the smartphone apps that connect the world to the laptop programs that simplify daily tasks at work and home to the software hidden inside physical objects like automobiles and pacemakers that is crucial for their safe operation.

Senior David Shields is an aspiring engineer who focuses on making a difference locally by volunteering with the University of Pennsylvania chapter of Engineers Without Borders.