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Postdocs

Social conformity in pandemics: How our behaviors spread faster than the virus itself
Subway train passengers with protective masks crowding to get on and off subway station platform on Metro station.

Subway train passengers with protective masks on a station platform in Sofia, Bulgaria in June 2020.

(Image: iStock/JordanSimenov)

Social conformity in pandemics: How our behaviors spread faster than the virus itself

Researchers led by former postdoc Bryce Morsky and Erol Akçay of the School of Arts & Sciences have produced a model for disease transmission that factors in the effects of social dynamics, specifically, how masking and social distancing are affected by social norms.
Beyond the pipette and the stethoscope, students explore biology’s societal impacts
lecture attendees pay attention to a speaker in an auditorium

Health equity was the focus of Stanford’s talk in the Levin building.

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Beyond the pipette and the stethoscope, students explore biology’s societal impacts

The new Biology and Society course, supported by SNF Paideia, gave biology majors the chance to explore how scientists must contend with subjects such as health equity and vaccine hesitancy.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Scholarship beyond the written word
Juan Castrillon speaking in a classroom

Homepage image: This semester, Castrillón is co-teaching Critical Qualitative Research and Intentional Torts with Regina Austin of Penn Carey Law and Alissa M. Jordan, director of Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography.

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Scholarship beyond the written word

Ethnomusicologist Juan Castrillón, the inaugural Gilbert Seldes Multimodal Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, is on a quest to get other academics to see multimedia work as he does: on par with scholarly text.

Michele W. Berger, Julie Sloane

From a small town in Lebanon to cancer research
A banner hanging outside in a small town in Lebanon.

Image: Courtesy of Penn Medicine News

From a small town in Lebanon to cancer research

When Mayassa Bou-Dargham, a postdoctoral fellow in Penn’s Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute received a pilot project grant, a banner was hung in her Lebanese hometown. Getting there took years of determination, self-confidence and, in small part, fate.

From Penn Medicine News

From glacier ice, a wealth of scientific data
Two scientists walk on glacier ice near a river and mountains

Jade Hatton and Anna Polášková of the CryoEco Group at Prague’s Charles University, collaborators of the BiCycles Lab, work in Greenland’s Upernavik region.

(Image: Jack Murphy)

From glacier ice, a wealth of scientific data

Biogeochemist Jon Hawkings of the School of Arts & Sciences and his lab study glaciers to understand the cycling of elements through Earth’s waters, soils, and air in its coldest regions, with implications for climate change, ecosystem health, and more.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The future of health research in Malawi
Four peple standing, posing for the camera. Three are students at  Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. The fourth is a professor there, Adamson Muula.

Adamson Muula (second from left), a professor of public health & epidemiology at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, and students.

(Image: Courtesy of Young Researchers Forum Malawi and KUHeS Research Support Center)

The future of health research in Malawi

A workshop convened by Penn, University College Dublin, and the Young Researchers Forum in Malawi brought together stakeholders to discuss the African nation’s use of technology in health care and the double burden of non-communicable and infectious diseases.

Michele W. Berger

How species partnerships evolve
colorful coral reef with sun shining through the water

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How species partnerships evolve

Biologists from the School of Arts & Sciences explored how symbiotic relationships between species evolve to become specific or general, cooperative, or antagonistic.

Katherine Unger Baillie

At a southern Iraq site, unearthing the archaeological passing of time
lagash trenches visible

Homepage image: A drone photo of the trenches excavated in Fall 2022, the most recent fieldwork season. The closest trench shows the tavern with a type of clay refrigerator called a “zeer,” an oven, and benches. (Image: Courtesy of Lagash Archaeological Project)

At a southern Iraq site, unearthing the archaeological passing of time

When Holly Pittman and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Pisa returned to Lagash in the fall of 2022 for a fourth season, they knew they’d find more than ceramic fragments and another kiln.

Michele W. Berger

Stable, faster computer memory storage
Silicon wafer reflecting different colors

Stable, faster computer memory storage

Researchers in the School of Arts & Sciences offer a new explanation for how certain materials can be grown on silicon and offer stable information storage at the nanometer scale for smaller, faster, more multifunctional processors.