School of Engineering & Applied Science

The field of metamaterials is all about making structures that have physical properties that aren’t found in nature. Predicting what kinds of structures would have those traits is one challenge; physically fabricating them is quite another, as they often require precise arrangement of constituent materials on the smallest scales.

Vijay Kumar has been named dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science, effective July 1.

The design development for the new Pennovation Center has received approval from the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees. This 58,000-square-foot, three-story facility is located in the heart of the Pennovation Works, Penn’s 23-acre site along the southern bank of the Schuylkill River and adjacent to the University campus.

Three University of Pennsylvania faculty members are among this year’s Sloan Research Fellowship recipients.

The ability to amass, store, manipulate and analyze information from millions of people at once has opened a vast frontier of new research methods. But, whether these methods are used in the service of new business models or new scientific findings, they also raise questions for the individuals whose information comprises these “big data” sets.

By Madeleine Stone  @themadstone Collaboration across scientific disciplines can lead to groundbreaking innovation. But, just as it takes a special type of scholar to cross academic boundaries, it takes a special type of building to make interdisciplinary alliances possible.

Graphene, a single-atom-thick lattice of carbon atoms, is often touted as a replacement for silicon in electronic devices due to its extremely high conductivity and unbeatable thinness. But graphene is not the only two-dimensional material that could play such a role.

Three University of Pennsylvania-affiliated people have won Gates Cambridge Scholarships to pursue graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. They are Cassi Henderson and Jocelyn Perry, 2013 Penn graduates, and Nicolette Taku, a student at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Three University of Pennsylvania students have received Thouron Awards to pursue graduate studies in the United Kingdom. The scholarship recipients are:

Fifteen years ago, the name “Aiden” was hardly on the radar of Americans with new babies. It ranked a lowly 324th on the Social Security Administration’s list of popular baby names. But less than a decade later, the name became a favorite, soaring into the top 20 for five years and counting.