Research is in Penn’s DNA.With more than$1 billion in annual R&D expenditures,the University is one of the top research universities in America.“Research embodies Penn’s most profound mission:to discover the solutions to the most challenging global issues,and to develop those solutions to improve people’s lives,”says Provost Wendell Pritchett.Published each year for the past 19 years,Research at Penn highlights groundbreaking research from each of the University’s 12 schools.Guided by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and written by the Office of University Communications,the brochure showcases fundamental connections between research and the pursuit of solutions to important issues,such as climate change,pandemics,and health inequality.Due to the pandemic,Research at Penn is online-only this year. 查看详细>>

A small Spanish guitar is amost-precious possession for Constantia Constantinou,one of the few things she had after becoming arefugee.Another is her first book,“David Copperfield,”in Greek,given to her by the Red Cross.Music and books have been the threads through her life ever since.Constantinou was 10 years old the day that Turkish troops invaded her town in Cyprus,forcing her family from their home and into resettlement on the other side of the country.Her parents had the guitar made for her,hoping to create away for their oldest child to heal and find away to aformal education.The first in her family to have apassport and leave the island of Cyprus,she came to New York City at 18 to study classical guitar at aconservatory.But while she loved the music,she found her passion as awork-study student in the music library.“I fell in love with libraries.It is in this setting with people and books and information specialists who know how to find things,because Irealized knowledge is something you acquire and you never lose,”she says.“It’s not like when someone could take over your home or your family or your childhood.It is something you always have and something you always continue to build,knowledge.”As her career outlook evolved from amusician to alibrarian,Constantinou discovered the power of technology to preserve,protect,and share knowledge through digitizing collections.She also learned to build bridges and communities through partnerships and collaborations,even to those who took away her childhood home.Constantinou arrived at Penn one year ago to become the H.Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries.Rogers had been at Penn for 43 years,the Libraries director for the last 14,building the libraries on“very solid ground,”she says.“This is truly an exceptional opportunity to lead the Penn Libraries into the future.Now is the time that we begin to look at our historical strengths,and with technology how we can do things differently while preserving the lessons and the best practices of our past,”she says.“Penn Libraries is entering anew era of innovation.” 查看详细>>

Shoulder to shoulder at alab bench in the basement of Penn’s Levin Building,Sonia Luthra,Johanna Fowler,and Tracy Tran compare small microscope slides they’re preparing.Fowler,a rising junior at Haverford College,and Tran,a rising sophomore at Penn,observed Luthra’s technique,drawing asample of canine blood carefully across the slide to make athin smear.The high school senior at Friends Central School had aleg up on the undergrads:whereas their 10-week project was only just beginning,Luthra had already logged amonth in the lab.Students get the hang of placing eosin dye on the plates,allowing different components of cells to stand out under the microscope.Working under the supervision of Penn scientists Jennifer Punt and John Wagner,the students are doing more than just honing their scientific technique;they’re advancing the field of canine immunology. 查看详细>>

Penn’s Bridge to Ph.D.program provides an opportunity for students from underrepresented backgrounds to earn master’s degrees in mathematics while also preparing for aPh.D.The program,now in its second year,is receiving positive feedback from the STEM community while enabling adiverse group of students to become the next generation of mathematicians.Ryan Hynd,one of the faculty advisors for the Bridge program,has been at Penn since 2012.While serving on the mathematics graduate admissions committee,he noticed that while many prospective students from underrepresented groups had strong applications,there was hesitancy to admit some of them.“GRE math subject test scores have alot of influence on our admissions decision-making process,but some people argue that it really doesn’t test for much.We should try to broaden our horizons in terms of who we give opportunities to because,if we don’t broaden anything,we’ll get very few female and minority students,”says Hynd. 查看详细>>

Campus&Community The inaugural India Research and Engagement Fund awards help further the‘global university’.During the next two years,Penn IREF will award as much as$2 million in matching research grants to Penn faculty to stimulate and support research activity in India.The IREF project“The Inhabited Sea,”led by Nikhil Anand in the School of Arts and Sciences and Anuradha Mathur in the School of Design,examines in part how populations such as the dock workers of Mumba... 查看详细>>

Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Wendell Pritchett recently joined more than 100 presidents,provosts,and senior administrators from dozens of colleges and universities across the country to discuss diversity and inclusion in higher education.“Changing the National Conversation:Inclusion and Equity”was hosted on Penn’s campus Sept.20-21 and co-sponsored by Penn,the University of Maryland,College Park,and Swarthmore College.The executive planning committee was chaired by Ruth Enid Zambrana from the University of Maryland,College Park and Debra Peréz of Simmons University served as its co-chair.The other committee members were Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen,Vice Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Perelman School of Medicine Eve Higginbotham,Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Joann Mitchell,and the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing Antonia Villarruel.Gutmann presented the opening keynote address,which touched on her personal and professional journey,and underscored the importance of diversity and inclusion in enriching the educational experiences for all students and propelling innovation.“Solutions to complex problems must come from the academy,”Gutmann said.“To take on the toughest problems,we must be at our very best,which means we must be maximally creative,which means we must be at our most inclusive and diverse to tap the widest range of great talent.” 查看详细>>