Sarah Baneit-Weiser, who is currently the Lauren Berlant Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School, was named the school’s next dean. “Sarah Banet-Weiser has a stellar record as an astute, effective, and visionary leader and is a deeply respected voice in the field of communication,” said Penn President Liz Magill. Her term begins Aug. 14.
President Liz Magill hosted an ice cream social for the Penn community, drawing faculty, staff, and students together on College Green. Marguerite Kotze, an international student from South Africa, said she appreciated the “community building” aspect of the campus-wide gathering. “You wouldn’t expect to see so many different faces on a hot summer day in one afternoon,” Kotze said. “For me, that’s really inviting and creating a space to talk and meet with different people.”
The Presidential Ph.D. Fellows began during the COVID-19 pandemic to help graduate students, specifically assisting students who contribute to increasing diversity in their fields. Fellows receive a 12-month stipend for up to three years; tuition, fees, and insurance coverage; and research funds of $10,000 per year. Penn Today caught up with three fellows from the inaugural cohort. “It’s just been such a gift to know that I have this buffer to do my work the right way,” explains Linnea Gandhi.
Dean Vijay Kumar, Harlan and Sabina Stone, and President Liz Magill celebrated a construction milestone—the signing and placement of the final wood panel on Amy Gutmann Hall, Penn Engineering’s new data science building. Eighty-two truckloads of mass timber, a more sustainable and efficient product than steel or concrete, have been used to construct the 116,000-square-foot, six-story building, which is set to open next year.
Sigal Ben-Porath, the MRMJJ Presidential Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and secondary appointments in the School of Arts & Sciences, was named faculty director of the SNF Paideia Program at Penn. “This is a pioneering effort that engages our undergraduate students with skills and knowledge to engage in dialogue across lines of differences, a vital skill in today's world,” said Penn President Liz Magill in making the announcement. “There are few if any faculty scholars anywhere more qualified to lead this effort than Professor Ben-Porath, whose expertise, experience, and leadership in issues of free speech and civil discourse have earned high international regard.” (Image: Kyle Kielinski)
Rand Quinn, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, was named faculty director of Civic House and the Civic Scholars Program. “Rand Quinn is an ideal leader to help us chart the future of Civic House and Civic Scholars,” said Provost John Jackson Jr. “He is deeply experienced in civic engagement and community service, and he is devoted to mentoring students—both graduate and undergraduate—and bringing them together with schools and nonprofit organizations across Philadelphia.”
Light-filled study spaces, data visualization consultations, a virtual dissection table—Penn Libraries’ Holman Biotech Commons is brimming with resources for students, faculty, and staff. “What I feel every day when I go into work is just this energy,” says Hannah Rutledge, director of the library. “A wide variety of people are finding us, some for the first time, some of whom are rediscovering us. They’re seeing how warm and welcoming the space is, in addition to the really exciting services, expertise, and resources that we have. The space has a revived energy to it.”
Produced by the Office of University Communications and guided by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, this year’s Research at Penn brochure features findings about the risk of lead exposure in Philadelphia, light-to-moderate alcohol consumption and brain volume, and the potential for a chewing gum to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
The Netter Center for Community Partnerships and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation supported an initiative to bring the story of Paul Leroy Robeson, an athlete, actor, singer, and activist, to ninth graders from Paul Robeson High School. They make regular visits to Paul Robeson House & Museum to become youth docents. “He persevered in a lot of the things he did, despite people hating him and getting death threats,” says Georgia Rowe, a participant in the program.
A popular, frequently wait-listed course in the English Department, Whitney Trettien’s “Cultures of the Book” class ran its fourth iteration this spring and draws enrollment from all four undergraduate schools. “My main goal is to try to get them to think about the history of how human cultures have recorded and shared knowledge with each other, so we don't think of the book as just the codex with a spine and leaves that you read from one point to another,” says Trettien, an assistant professor of English.
Masoud Akbarzadeh of the Weitzman School of Design and his former Ph.D. student, Hao Zheng, explained how the wing of a dragonfly can be used to redesign a Boeing 777. “Nature’s a great teacher in telling us how to optimize systems,” Akbarzadeh says. “And when you look at a dragonfly, you see wings that have evolved over millions of years into an incredibly lightweight, efficient, and strong structure.” (Image: iStock / yanikap)
In a Q&A with Penn Today, Alexander Vershbow, former deputy-secretary general of NATO and a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, discusses the deals struck at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “Even though the U.S. held its ground on the issue of a timetable for Ukraine’s membership, I think the U.S. also will come away impressed that the vast majority of the allies, including some who have been cautious in the past like France and Germany, are now much more supportive of Ukrainian membership,” says Vershbow. (Image: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Erin Conley, the rose garden horticulturist at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens, unpacks how roses are affected by climate change and how the Morris selects its varieties for the future. “It’s thinking about what varieties might be bred for humid or hotter climates than we currently are in, so that we do well in the future. Roses as a whole grow well in the heat, but if it gets to be really hot, they don’t flower as well,” she says. (Image: Rob Cardillo)