Campus & Community

Stacey Peeples pauses before opening the door to her office.

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.”

Q&A/The Director of Penn’s Master of Science Program in Criminology talks about working with former Attorney General Janet Reno and what drew her to criminology in the first place. “It was hard and stressful in many ways, but it was kind of a golden time.”

STAFF Q&A/Being a College House dean is a full-time job, and then some, but Nathan Smith wouldn’t have it any other way. “You're at work the minute you step outside your apartment door.”

Q&A/The mysteries of the universe—where it came from, what it’s made of—have intrigued Licia Verde since she was a young girl. Fortunately for her, she’s part of a research project that aims to answer just those kind of fundamental questions, and offer humankind a greater understanding of our vast, confounding universe.

STAFF Q&A/Anne Stamer has helped turn Weiss Tech House into Penn’s ‘hub’ for technology. “Our mission is to help excite and invigorate students around technology.”

Andrew Zitcer’s charge as Penn’s Cultural Asset Manager is to look after the real estate in Penn’s portfolio that don’t fall under the traditional headings of commercial, residential or retail spaces.

The debate over the future of New Orleans can’t begin and end with the levees. If Hurricane Katrina taught us anything, says Anuradha Mathur, it’s that we need to change the way we look at our landscapes—especially those prone to flooding. “What if you started to rethink the rebuilding of New Orleans as if there were no levees?”

Americans aren’t getting any less religious, says Sarah Barringer Gordon. And so, just as it has for all of U.S. history, religion will continue to shape American politics, law and culture. “An open skeptic like Thomas Jefferson ... might have had a hard time in 2000.”

STAFF Q&A/Bob Gutowski shares his love of nature as head of Morris Arboretum’s public programs. “You’ve never seen an evening gown that’s as beautiful as a cedar waxwing.”