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Penn professor and colleages develop Aurora AI
Satellite image of Hurricane Helene, 2006

Image: Courtesy of NASA’s Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory

Penn professor and colleages develop Aurora AI

Penn professor Paris Perdikaris and collaborators developed Aurora, a machine-learning model that has predictive capabilities for air quality, ocean waves, tropical cyclone tracks, and weather.

5 min. read

Lillian Miller: May grad turned Penn Ph.D.
Lillian Miller and Irina Marinov

Lillian Miller (left) graduated as a chemistry and environmental scieces double major in May. This summer, she returns to begin her graduate training in Irina Marinov’s (right), where researchers use big data and computational techniques to make better climate models.

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Lillian Miller: May grad turned Penn Ph.D.

Lillian Miller, a May graduate from the College, will begin graduate studies in the laboratory of Irina Marinov this summer, where she is leveraging big data to tackle ocean and climate-focused research.

5 min. read

Penn Engineers examine the fracture mechanics of 3D graphene structures

Penn Engineers examine the fracture mechanics of 3D graphene structures

A new study from teams in the labs of Penn Engineering’s Ottman Tertuliano and Robert Carpick describes a new, 3D auto-kirigami deformation of graphene, one of the strongest materials known to science, and how the process could be used to transform 2D graphene into 3D structures.

National Academy of Sciences elects four from Penn
Four headshots of Penn Faculty. Top left tile clockwise: Mark Devlin, Katalin Karikó, E. John Wherry III, and Virginia M.Y. Lee

Four faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their innovative contributions to original scientific research. The newly honored scholars are Mark Devlin (top left) from the School of Arts & Sciences and Katalin Karikó (top right), Virginia M.Y. Lee (bottom left), and E. John Wherry III (bottom right) from the Perelman School of Medicine.

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National Academy of Sciences elects four from Penn

The newly elected members, recognized for their innovative contributions to original research, are Mark Devlin of the School of Arts & Sciences and Katalin Karikó, Virginia Lee, and E. John Wherry III of the Perelman School of Medicine.

3 min. read

Armoring CAR T cells to take on cancer
3D visualization showing a reddish-blue tumor mass with internal vasculature, surrounded by blue CAR T cells and small extracellular vesicles against a dark background.

Wei Guo of the School of Arts & Sciences and colleagues from the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Engineering and Applied Science have teamed up to uncover how solid tumors’ complicated microenvironments can manipulate cancer-fighting CAR T cells through extracellular vesicles, causing the engineered CAR T cells to commit fratricide—essentially turning against each other instead of attacking the cancer.

(Image: iStock / Marcin Klapczynski)

Armoring CAR T cells to take on cancer

Wei Guo of the School of Arts & Sciences and colleagues from the Perelman School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Engineering and Applied Science have uncovered how solid tumors manipulate cancer-fighting CAR T cells through extracellular vesicles, causing the engineered CAR T cells to commit fratricide—essentially turning against each other instead of attacking the cancer.

3 min. read

Penn ATLAS shares 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
Members of the Penn ATLAS team and others in front of the inner detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

Members of the Penn ATLAS team and others in front of the inner detector of ATLAS experiment.

(Image: ©CERN/Maximilien Brice)

Penn ATLAS shares 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

The team, which includes Joseph Kroll, Evelyn Thomson, Elliot Lipeles, Dylan Rankin, and Brig Williams from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of an expansive collaboration studying high-energy collisions from the Large Hadron Collider.

Michele W. Berger

2 min. read

Penn alum Hoang C. Le awarded a 2025 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Penn alum Hoang C. Le awarded a 2025 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Le, a Class of 2023 graduate, has been awarded a Fellowship to the merit-based program that provides graduate school funding for immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. Le’s research explores the evolution of viral-host interactions to uncover novel molecular tools and therapeutic targets.

For a better cup of coffee, look to physics
A kettle and pour-over coffee filter full of coffee grounds.

(On homepage) 

(Image: Courtesy of Ernest Park)

For a better cup of coffee, look to physics

Researchers from Penn have found new cost-effective ways to make a great cup of pour-over coffee using fewer beans. Their findings could potentially provide insights into similar systems such as waterfalls and surface erosion.

4 min. read

Using climate modeling to guide global economic and political decisions
A climate map showing temperatures and contours.

Image: Christoph Burgstedt/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Using climate modeling to guide global economic and political decisions

Irina Marinov, associate professor in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Earth and Environmental Science, explains how climate modeling works and the information these models provide.

From the Environmental Innovations Initiative

2 min. read