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Four academic journeys explored
Vijay Balasubramanian writes equations on a whiteboard with a graduate student

Younger scientists often ask him about exploring multiple fields, Balasubramanian says. The advice he offers is to “have a central line where you have credibility, where you’ve established that you’re really, really good at what you do, and you can be trusted.”

(Image: Eric Sucar)

Four academic journeys explored

Vijay Balasubramanian and Tukufu Zuberi in the School of Arts & Sciences, Amy Hillier in the School of Social Policy & Practice, and Brittany Watson in the School of Veterinary Medicine share their academic paths toward interdisciplinary work.

Kristina Linnea García

Hurricane changed ‘rules of the game’ in monkey society
A group of rhesus macaques sits amidst the bare, leafless trees of their hurricane-impacted habitat.

For more than 17 years, PIK Professor Michael Platt and his collaborators have followed a free-ranging colony of rhesus macaques in the Puerto Rican Island of Cayo Santiago who, in 2017, experienced the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The team showed that the macaques who invested in relationships had higher survival rates, findings that can provide insights into human social behavior and health in the face of environmental change.

(Image: Courtesy of Lauren J. Brent) 

Hurricane changed ‘rules of the game’ in monkey society

PIK Professor Michael Platt and collaborators from the University of Exeter find Hurricane Maria transformed a monkey society by changing the pros and cons of their interpersonal relations.
Making virtual worlds
Lorraine Ruppert wears virtual reality headset.

Lorraine Ruppert wore a virtual reality headset and zoomed in and out of her virtual world, which shows sites of historical memory and resistance in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

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Making virtual worlds

In a class this spring, Jeffrey Vadala of the Penn Brain Science Center taught students to analyze virtual reality landscapes and create their own.
Fruitful insights on the brain
Photograph of researcher, China Byrns, in front of monitor showing microscopy images of fly brain

China Byrns used high-magnification confocal microscopy to visualize senescent glia (red) in Drosophila brains as part of a multidisciplinary approach to define the origin and effects of senescent cells in brain aging.

(Image: Courtesy of Riya Anand)

Fruitful insights on the brain

Research led by China Byrns of the lab of Nancy M. Bonini in the School of Arts & Sciences have uncovered new details about the role of zombie-like cells in brain aging, using the fruit fly as a model.
More than two hearts beat as one
A person in a suit and button-down shirt sitting on a stairwell landing, smiling. The intricate white stairwell and a brick wall behind it are to the person's right.

Penn Integrates Knowledge professor Michael Platt holds appointments in the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine, and the Marketing Department in the Wharton School.

More than two hearts beat as one

PIK Professor Michael Platt and collaborators studied how physiologic measures like cardiac synchrony can guide decision making in groups. Their study found that heart rate synchrony was a much better predictor than standard questionnaire-based surveys.