Students moved into their college houses, family members said their goodbyes, and new Penn President Liz Magill joined in on the festivities, meeting with students and their families as the Penn Band boomed and the Quaker mascot danced around campus. “This marks the beginning of an extraordinary journey that a lot of these students will be embarking on,” said Richard Ou, a graduate student in Penn Engineering and a Lauder resident advisor. “Being able to contribute to that journey and add as much value as possible is really a privilege.”
In a video, Penn President Liz Magill grabbed a pen and paper and met with students around campus, asking what they were most looking forward to doing at Penn and in Philadelphia. The result: a list of “26 for the Class of 2026.”
The University announced the Presidential Inauguration of Liz Magill will take place Friday, Oct. 21. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. at Irvine Auditorium, and the occasion will be celebrated through Saturday with various festivities, including an academic symposium with President Magill in conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. An Inauguration website offers a detailed plan of events.
At the President and Provost’s New Family Welcome event, Penn President Liz Magill and Interim Provost Beth Winkelstein welcomed new students to the Penn family and pledged support to parents. “In us they have a caring, educational partner, a community full of friends, mentors, professionals, all of them are devoted to the wellbeing and the thriving of your student,” Magill said.
Kathleen Shields Anderson was named the vice president of Penn’s Division of Public Safety. In a profile, she spoke of how growing up Catholic inspired her call to service, the impact 9/11 had on her career in public safety, and working to integrate DPS’ program into neighboring communities. “We are in and of the City of Philadelphia, and that’s one of the things that makes us great,” she says. “You can’t talk about Penn without talking about Philadelphia, and vice versa.”
James J. Husson was named vice president of Development and Alumni Relations, effective Oct. 17. “Jim is a visionary leader, and I am thrilled to welcome him to the Penn family,” said Penn President Liz Magill. “He is a person who cares passionately about students, faculty, and alumni. He knows how to engage volunteers and donors to advance our highest aspirations and has a deep personal appreciation for how higher education can transform people’s lives for the good.”
After previously serving as associate provost for Finance and Planning since 2017, Mark F. Dingfield will assume the role of vice president on Oct. 17. “Mark’s selection follows the completion of a national search from a robust and diverse pool of candidates,” said Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli. “His strong leadership skills, broad-based experience, and dedication to Penn’s mission greatly distinguished him within a highly competitive pool.”
Penn, alongside 14 other universities, signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on Aug. 1, expressing support for Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, in two cases brought against them by Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. The group argued that Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill’s admissions policies were unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment and unlawful under federal law for considering race and ethnicity as one factor in their admissions process.
Construction crews tackled an impressive array of projects over the summer, including work on renovations to the Graduate School of Education, repairs to the bridge on Locust Walk, and completion of the Penn Boathouse. “[Summer is] extremely busy—there’s a lot of work done in a condensed time period, so everything is ready for when students come back,” says University Architect Mark Kocent.
Sophia Zehler is a first-generation Cuban American and recent recipient of her master’s degree from the Fels Institute of Government. She was also the Quaker mascot for the past year. “Being a mascot is unique in what it is and what it offers,” says Zehler. “It gave me so much, in and out of suit.”
December graduate Saif Khawala, a winner of the inaugural Penn President’s Sustainability Prize, is building Shinkei Systems, a robotics-based system for minimizing waste in the fishing industry through more efficient processing. The company is currently running pilots with fish farms and boats in several northeast states. “We gave one chef of a Michelin restaurant a taste test: three boxes of fish, one that died from suffocation, one that was hand-processed, and one that was processed with our technology,” Khawaja says. “He could tell right away which was the suffocated fish but couldn’t distinguish between the other two.”
Experts from various Penn schools and departments commented on the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, citing the noteworthiness of provisions that address climate change and allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on 10 medication costs starting in 2026. The Penn Wharton Budget Model, meanwhile, concluded tax alterations slightly increase GDP over time and lowers the deficit by $264 billion over 10 years—while also having no meaningful effect on inflation in the near term.
Penn Nursing students Aman Uppal and Michelle Tran spent the summer before their final semesters in a clinical rotation at the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy. Uppal worked with the school’s day students while Tran focused on the residential population. “As nurses, our job is to meet patients where they are,” Uppal says. “So, if I can learn how to use my skills and my knowledge and apply them to the patients where they are, that’s what matters. And no matter what we do—if we decide to work in geriatrics or pediatrics—that aspect will never change.”
Theoretical work led by physicist Charles Kane of the School of Arts & Sciences revealed an unexpected link between two major principles in physics that may inform future experimentation and an understanding of how to harness quantum information. “Our work ties two big ideas together,” says Kane. “It’s a conceptual link between topology, which is a way of characterizing the universal features that quantum states have, and entanglement, which is a way in which quantum states can exhibit non-local correlations, where something that happens in one point in space is correlated with something that happens in another part in space. What we’ve found is a situation where those concepts are tightly intertwined.”
Ibrahim Bakri, assistant director at the Middle East Center, has focused on community outreach since he was a kid growing up as a Syrian immigrant in South Philly. He now works with nonprofits and other centers and organizations in the U.S. and abroad, as well as universities and think tanks, to build bridges between the Middle East and Philadelphia communities. “Sometimes it can feel like a bit of a double life because I can go from working with Philadelphia school teachers one week to engaging with Middle Eastern policymakers and public officials the next,” Bakri says. “But in a good way it all blends together, and you feel like you’re aiming in one direction: to make your voice worth something.”
Sigal Ben-Porath of the Graduate School of Education spoke about the recent wave of book bans in parts of the U.S., why they’re happening now, and the role of higher education in setting reasonable standards of debate for developing K-12 curriculums. “Institutions of higher education are important for developing evidenced-based tools for assessment,” she says. “They can also help advocate for using truth and inclusion as the guiding principles for learning in K-12 schools.”
Iain Mathieson and his team of interns are working to analyze genome data from ancient humans that can, potentially, paint a clearer picture of the relationship between genes and the shift to an agricultural lifestyle. “One of the big technology changes in the last 10,000 years is the development of agriculture; before that, people lived by hunting and gathering, and in the last 6,000 to 8,000 years many transitioned to an agricultural diet,” says Mathieson. “You might wonder if variants of diseases today—obesity, diabetes, or even some autoimmune diseases—might have a genetic basis in that diet.”
A team from the School of Veterinary Medicine has identified an association between colder areas of the U.S. and diabetes diagnoses in dogs. A similar finding has been established with people who have Type 1 diabetes. “This link is something that has been discussed in regard to humans with Type 1 diabetes, but it’s never been rigorously looked at in dogs,” says Rebecka Hess, a professor at Penn Vet and senior author on the study. “It’s important to explore because dogs and people live in the same world. If the environment—cold temperatures and seasonality—are important in this disease in both species, it gives us something to look at with further research.”
