Undergraduate Students

a building with two 5-floor wings connected by a 13-floor tower

A Q&A with Trina Sokoloski, house director of New College House West

As New College House West prepares to welcome its inaugural residents this fall, House Director Trina Sokoloski talks with Penn Today about what to expect and what it means to build a new community

Celebrating women of color ‘At the table’

The annual Women of Color award ceremony celebrated its 34th year in an online event led by the Women of Color at Penn Planning Committee and the African American Resource Center.

Husnaa Haajarah Hashim sees poetry as transformative

As poetry is in the national spotlight following the Biden inauguration, junior Husnaa Haajarah Hashim, a Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate, reflects on her writing and scholarship.

These Penn students have helped send more than 13,000 letters to front-line workers

Undergraduate students Rupa Palanki and Preethi Kumaran worked with peers to found an initiative to send letters of appreciation to front-line workers during the pandemic.

Niko Simpkins sitting with arms folded, smiling

Niko Simpkins: At the nexus of engineering and music

For Niko Simpkins, a musician who performs, produces, and engineers his own tracks, the most exciting processes combine structure and flexibility, creativity, and rigor. As a third-year student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, he sees his mechanical engineering education as a framework for problem solving that might serve him across a broad set of endeavors, and for now, he’s more interested in learning than narrowing to any one particular career path.

aerial view of Philadelphia skyline from vantage point of Penn's campus

New Projects for Progress prize designed to promote equity and inclusion

Applications are now open for a new University initiative, Projects for Progress, which will award prizes of as much as $100,000 to support proposals by teams of students, faculty, and staff designed to promote equity and inclusion and make a direct impact in Philadelphia.

Woman with folded hands stands near Locust Walk

Mamta Motwani Accapadi ‘uplifts the student experience’

As vice provost for university life, Mamta Motwani Accapadi is dedicated to giving students the support they need to thrive.

College student’s simple invention helps nurses work and patients rest

Anthony Scarpone-Lambert, a senior in the School of Nursing, collaborated with a nurse to invent a wearable LED that nurses can use to illuminate their work without waking sleeping patients. “I would say it’s been through COVID that this kind of innovation came to life,” he said. “It highlights the really important message that frontline health care workers and patients really deserve more support now more than ever.”

Bringing the humanities into climate education

Senior Tsemone Ogbemi is sharing the important role of the arts in comprehending climate through her work at the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities and in an environmental conference she is presenting at this week.

Student filmmaker puts pencil to paper for heartwarming sci-fi fantasies

Senior Dennis Sungmin Kim finds success with his hand-drawn, animated short films.

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