News from

Research

Reset All Filters
1459 Results
Why students leave community college
Estefanie Aguilar Padilla conducting fieldwork at a community college.

Penn GSE doctoral student Estefanie Aguilar Padilla conducting fieldwork at a community college. 

(Image: Courtesy of Penn GSE)

Why students leave community college

At Penn’s Graduate School for Education, doctoral student Estefanie Aguilar Padilla’s work with associate professor Rachel Baker reveals why students walk away—and how colleges can help them stay.

From Penn GSE

Rewriting the rules of lung repair
Andy vaughan in his lab.

Associate professor of biomedical sciences Andy Vaughan.

nocred

Rewriting the rules of lung repair

Penn Vet’s Andrew Vaughan works to uncover why some lungs rebound and others have lasting damage, and how to change that.

Martin Hackett

Raindrop-formed ‘sandballs’ that erode hillsides tenfold
High-speed images of raindrops rolling on a sandy slope, forming peanut-shaped sandballs (top) and donut-shaped sandballs with hollow centers (bottom).

High-speed laboratory images capture two distinct “sandball” shapes formed when raindrops strike dry, sloped sand and roll downhill. (Top) Peanut-shaped sandballs, where grains coat the surface of a liquid core. (Bottom) Donut-shaped sandballs, which densify into rigid, wheel-like structures with a hollow center, enabling far more efficient sediment transport than splash erosion alone.

(Image: Daisuke Noto)

Raindrop-formed ‘sandballs’ that erode hillsides tenfold

Penn geophysicists and colleagues have uncovered Earth-sculpting processes that result from the formation of snowball-like aggregates they call “sandballs.” Their findings provide fundamental insights into erosion and will broaden scientific understandings of landscape change, soil loss, and agriculture.
Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality
A person in bed taking earplugs out of a case.

Image: lisanna881 via Getty Images

Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

Penn Medicine researchers find that earplugs work better in protecting sleep from traffic noise, challenging the widespread use of ambient sound machines and apps marketed as sleep aids.

Eric Horvath

How to incentivize problem solving in groups
Artist rendering of several people conected with string stretch their connections to the limit, testing the strength of unity.

Image: Flavio Coelho via Getty Images

How to incentivize problem solving in groups

Why do some groups get smarter together while others collapse into groupthink? New research from theoretical biologist Joshua Plotkin and collaborators show that collective intelligence doesn’t emerge by rewarding the most accurate individuals but by rewarding those who improve the group’s prediction as a whole.

3 min. read

Awards and accolades for Penn faculty
An archway on Penn’s campus in the snow.

nocred

Awards and accolades for Penn faculty

A roundup of the latest appointments and awards for various faculty members in the Graduate School of Education, the School of Arts & Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Penn Today Staff

2 min. read

Moving closer to ‘true’ equine IVF for clinical use
Katrin Hinrichs and Matheus Felix in a lab.

Katrin Hinrichs, chair of the Department of Clinical Studies–New Bolton Center and head of the Penn Equine Assisted Reproduction Laboratory (PEARL) and Matheus Felix, PEARL’s chief embryologist, work together in the lab. Felix is also an author in the 2025 study report on IVF with frozen-thawed stallion sperm.

(Image: Courtesy of Penn Vet)

Moving closer to ‘true’ equine IVF for clinical use

Researchers at Penn Vet are exploring different processes for using frozen-thawed semen to accomplish so-called true IVF.

From Penn Vet

2 min. read

The best way to onboard a manager

The best way to onboard a manager

New research from Wharton management professor Henning Piezunka reveals a common mistake that businesses make when hiring a new manager into an established leadership team.

New model could help police departments reduce excessive force incidents

New model could help police departments reduce excessive force incidents

Criminology professor Greg Ridgeway has developed a model that estimates an officer’s likelihood of using a higher level of force than peers in similar situations—an improvement on existing early-intervention systems that don’t account for differences in time and location.

3 min. read