Documenting architecture and memories of a changing neighborhood
A film by Penn fine arts professor David Hartt about Watts, a historically Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, is one of five videos included in ‘Freedom Dreams,’ an exhibition at the Barnes in Philadelphia that centers the “memories, dreams, and histories of Black Americans.”
Amyloid removal may reduce tau buildup and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease
In a brain autopsy of a Penn Medicine clinical trial participant, regions cleared of amyloid showed little tau buildup, while nearby areas with persistent amyloid had greater signs of damage.
Meet foxes, coyotes, deer and other wildlife neighbors
Penn Vet’s Accessing Urban Nature Initiative is documenting Philadelphia’s wildlife through trail cameras, and shares its findings after a year of monitoring.
Immune activation may determine success of dual-target CAR T therapy in glioblastoma
New research from Penn Medicine finds that activation of natural killer cells is linked to longer survival, and suppressive immune cells is tied to poor response.
The impact of microplastics—and how to limit exposure
Microplastics researchers Samantha McBride and Derek Ho of Penn Engineering and Vijay Bhatia of the Philadelphia Water Department discuss how microplastics get into ecosystems and human bodies, offering practical ways to minimize exposure.
Examining the important and changing landscape of children’s media
Penn Today talked to Annenberg’s Kim Woolf about communication theories of children’s relationships to media and how the children’s media ecosystem has evolved—topics she covers in the Children and the Media class.
Sade Bonilla, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, and colleagues found that high school students in the San Francisco Unified School District experienced academic benefits from participating in an ethnic studies course.
The Shakers: Black Visionary Practices in Collective Life
The Institute of Contemporary Art will host a conversation between featured artist and choreographer Reggie Wilson, whose work explores the intersections of African diasporic and Shaker traditions through movement and embodied research, and artist and composer Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, whose practice engages Black history, spirituality, and collective memory through music, performance, and storytelling. This panel considers the histories, legacies, and representations of Black Shakers. Free and open to the public. Register to attend.
This talk will share the results of a carbon footprint assessment of Penn Libraries’ digital collections environments. Participants will learn how storage decisions, redundancy, and system design can shape environmental impact. The session will also introduce a framework for measuring and tracking sustainability in digital preservation over time. Free and open to the public. Register to attend.
A University-wide initiative to shape Penn’s future
Guided by Penn’s strategic framework, In Principle and Practice, Penn Forward launched in September 2025 with six working groups of faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral scholars who challenged legacy assumptions and proposed bold, actionable strategies to advance Penn’s mission and strengthen operations.
Penn Forward’s initial nine priority initiatives aim to build trust with those we serve, enable bold discovery, and extend Penn’s geographic reach and impact across a lifetime. Learn more about these initiatives and follow along with Penn Today as Penn continues to drive forward.
Penn’s community engagement progress at the turn of the century
The third installment in the limited series ‘Chapters of Change’ explores how Penn has led community engagement efforts in public education, economic development, and neighborhood prosperity during a time of widespread change in the nation’s cities.
Chapters of Change: Thirty years of life sciences transformation at Penn
In the fourth and final installment of the series, ‘Chapters of Change’ highlights another transformational moment in Penn’s past when the evolution of life sciences research sparked the University to commit to investing in new research facilities and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
How the Quaker Commitment empowered one student to create her path at Penn
Gabrielle Fine, a fourth year in the Wharton School and recipient of financial aid from the Quaker Commitment, will graduate in May with an interdisciplinary skillset and new perspectives from a global adventure and local engagement.
Chapters of Change: The blossom of Penn’s professional schools in the 19th century
‘Chapters of Change’ highlights key moments of change in Penn’s history, adapting to shifts in society. In the 19th century, the University faced industrialization and more by creating some of its first professional schools.
“We had already done that with prescribing buprenorphine for opioid use disorder,” says Kit Delgado of the Perelman School of Medicine, who developed “nudges” for emergency department providers to ask patients about their alcohol concerns.
Sea star skeleton does something engineers never expected
“The same porous mineral framework that provides support also contains built-in light-guiding elements, and these organisms have had millions of years of evolution to perfect these functions,” says Ling Li of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences about sea stars.
Classicist Emily Wilson: ‘Odysseus is a different kind of conman’
“There is something really useful emotionally as well as intellectually about understanding that the world has been extremely different from how it is now — and will be different again,” says Emily Wilson of the School of Arts & Sciences about the renewed interest in the classics.
