Artificial Intelligence

Soaking up the sun

A roundup of stories from Penn Today on solar innovation and protection.

2 min. read

TIME100 Creators 2026

Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School is listed as a TIME100 Creator 2026 for his work teaching people interested in learning more about AI.

Virtual patients, real-world training

Researchers from Penn’s Linguistic Data Consortium have received a two-year, $4 million grant to collaborate on STELLAR (Steering-Vector Enhanced LLM Agents for Realistic Digital Twins in Mental Health), an AI-driven simulation of virtual patients that allows trainees to practice clinical interviews.

Teachers save time with AI. Their students may pay the price

Alp Sungu of the Wharton School led a study finding that AI in the classroom can undermine teaching, saying, “students use AI as an answer machine, not as a tool for learning, and therefore it harms learning.”

A crash course in AI

Early this summer, some 75 faculty members across several Penn Schools attended a two-day program led by Bhuvnesh Jain, co-director of the Data Driven Discovery Initiative and Co-Chair of the University’s AI Council.

Rohit Jena in front of computer monitors.

Speed and precision for medical imaging

A new open-source algorithm dubbed “FireANTS” can be applied not just in medical research, but clinical practice as well.

2 min. read

Data centers proposed on top of largest underground water reservoir in US

“Building data centers in these geographic locations is not inherently good or bad for water use. What matters most is the type of data center and the cooling technology that is used,” says Benjamin Lee of the School for Engineering and Applied Science.

AI framework aids target discovery for CAR T cell therapy

Researchers at Penn Medicine have created a generalizable strategy to identify new targets for CAR T cell therapy.

2 min. read

People under 30 are most concerned about the environmental impact of data centers

Sanya Carley of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy writes about a poll showing that 54% of adults under 30 believe data centers will have negative impacts on the environment.

A study of 26,000 students shows the AI learning trap

Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School says that AI “hurts learning if it undermines mental effort.”

Filters

Soaking up the sun

TIME100 Creators 2026

Virtual patients, real-world training

Teachers save time with AI. Their students may pay the price

A crash course in AI

Speed and precision for medical imaging

Data centers proposed on top of largest underground water reservoir in US

AI framework aids target discovery for CAR T cell therapy

People under 30 are most concerned about the environmental impact of data centers

A study of 26,000 students shows the AI learning trap