Faculty

Faculty and doctoral students at Penn Nursing are at the forefront of advancing human milk feeding through a series of research studies, featured in the current issue of The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing. The issue, edited by Penn Nursing’s Diane L. Spatz, the Helen M. Shearer Professor of Nutrition and Professor of Perinatal Nursing in the Department of Family and Community Health, highlights articles showcasing critical strategies to enhance lactation care and improve outcomes for families.

Thomas Parsons, Marie A. Moore Endowed Chair and director of Penn Vet’s Swine Teaching and Research Center, has pioneered a more efficient, humane way to feed mother pigs. Daniel Foy is the co-founder and CEO of the tech firm AgriGates, a Philadelphia firm that is turning technology into a next-generation tool for raising and managing livestock. The two are among the first recipients of Pennsylvania’s new Agricultural Innovation Grants, among 88 innovators from 45 counties that put forth cutting-edge solutions and technologies to move Pennsylvania agriculture into the future.

A new edited collection from Annenberg School for Communication professor Juan Llamas-Rodriguez titled “Media Travels: Toward an Atlas of Global Media” brings readers on a tour of media beyond the typical U.S. canon.

The James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize, awarded annually to the best first book by a new author published in the previous calendar year and dealing with any aspect of the history of the early American republic, went to Sarah L. H. Gronningsater, associate professor of history at Penn’s School of Arts &N Sciences, for “The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National Freedom.”

Penn materials scientist Shoji Hall and colleagues have found that manipulating the surface of water can allow scientists to sustainably convert greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to higher energy fuel sources like ethylene.

Modupe O. Coker from the School of Dental Medicine and a collaborative team of researchers identified changes over time in the oral microbiome of children living with HIV, offering insights into how early immune challenges shape not only oral health but also systemic health.

Penn engineers have found a way to redesign mRNA vaccines that sidestep the the most common side effects.

Philosophy professor Jennifer Morton’s experiences growing up in Peru during the politically turbulent 1980s and ’90s and as a first-generation college student shaped her research interests.

New research from Penn Medicine shows the negative, yet reversible, impact of spending time in isolated, confined, extreme environments—such as an Antarctic research station.

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt's book, “Yuan: Chinese Architecture in a Mongol Empire,” has won the Booklaunch award for Best Architectural History Book of 2024. Shatzman Steinhart is a professor of East Asian art at the School of Arts & Sciences. Her book is the first comprehensive English-language study of Chinese architecture during the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty.