Many of the young artists in the Fine Arts program at Penn dream of being able to sustain themselves through their art. It’s a seductive fantasy, says painter Jane Irish, and one that she was able to live for more than a decade after getting her graduate degree from CUNY’s Queens College.

Judy Hill December 7, 2006

As a former international student himself, Rodolfo Altamirano says he understands the anxieties foreign students face when coming to study in the United States. But Altamirano also knows the world is a very different place today than it was when he left the Philippines, 23 years ago, to pursue a doctorate at Michigan State University.

Tim Hyland November 16, 2006

As vice dean of external affairs for the School of Arts and Sciences, Jean-Marie Kneeley raises money for a living. This fall, her fundraising skills were tapped for a cause that’s even closer to her heart than Penn. On Oct. 8 she completed the Breast Cancer 3-Day, a 60-mile walk in and around Philadelphia.

Judy Hill November 2, 2006

With all the hoopla around nanotechnology, you’d think it was a brand new science. Not so, says David Luzzi, a professor of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Judy Hill October 19, 2006

When Tara Betterbid decided to move to Philadelphia two years ago, she knew little about the city and didn’t know what she was going to do to make ends meet. All she knew was her rent here would be $300 less than it was in New York City—and that the local music scene, with a wealth of soulful R&B singers, seemed the perfect fit for her.

Tim Hyland October 19, 2006

In the mid-1980s, physician Fred Kaplan met a little girl with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP). Watching the disease progress in the girl “was like watching a molecular terrorist attack her body,” he says. In this and other FOP patients, soft tissues and muscles metamorphize into bone, essentially forming a second skeleton and rendering movement impossible.

Heather A. Davis ・October 5, 2006

Stacey Peeples pauses before opening the door to her office.

Judy Hill October 5, 2006

STAFF Q&A/Twenty years after leaving college to start a family, Isabel Boston took a job at Penn—and soon started the long journey of finishing her degree. “I thought I’d be a fool not to do it.”

Tim Hyland May 11, 2006