5/1/19: Penn Today for Parents

for Parents

Wednesday, May 1, 2019
For more News from Penn, visit the Penn Today website

At a special gala Friday evening, the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia honored President Amy Gutmann with this year’s William Penn Award. “I think everyone in this room, everyone in this city, everyone in this region, should thank their lucky stars every day that we have Amy Gutmann as a member of our business community, and as the leader of the great University of Pennsylvania,” said Comcast’s David L. Cohen, Penn Board of Trustees chair.

Memorable anniversary

For 125 years, the nation’s largest outdoor track and field event has convened on Franklin Field for Penn Relays, come rain or shine. With the Relays kicking off on Thursday, Penn runners and teams around the world were on campus for a weekend of competition. During three days of events, Penn Women’s Track Team made history, winning their first Distance Medley Relay.

‘Quadrillion solutions’

In a Q&A, Mirjam Cvetic, Ling Lin, and Muyang Liu from the School of Arts and Sciences discuss string theory, their recent discovery of a “quadrillion solutions” within the standard model of elementary particles, and how theoretical and experimental physicists at Penn are working together to answer questions about the nature of the universe.

Pros and cons

Neel Chokshi of the Perelman School of Medicine weighs in on the pros and cons of the little-to-no-carb, high-fat keto diet: “We often don’t have a lot of data to guide us on the positive or negative effects [of certain diets], so I am cautious to say this is the right thing to do and not the right thing to do.”

Uplifting message

Melinda Gates (center), co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and author of “The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Can Change the World,” came to campus last week for a conversation with Adam Grant of the Wharton School. President Amy Gutmann, who introduced Gates, urged the audience to take Gates’ message—that when you lift up women, you lift up humanity—to heart.

Curbing congestion

On WHYY’s podcast “The Why,” William Whitaker of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design (not pictured) discusses Philadelphia architect Louis Kahn’s attempt to curb the city’s traffic in the1950s. That plan was never implemented, but Whitaker says future cities may be able to learn from Kahn’s vision. (Audio)

Singer-songwriter

Kelly Writers House Fellow Rosanne Cash met with students this week in a course designed to study her entire body of work, including songs, albums, music videos, a memoir, short stories, essays, poetry, and articles. She made two public appearances, including a discussion with Al Filreis of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Tiny teeth cleaners

A swarm of microrobots, directed by magnets, can break apart and remove dental biofilm, or plaque, from a tooth. The innovation arose from a cross-disciplinary partnership led by Hyun (Michel) Koo of the School of Dental Medicine and Edward Steager of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

African roots

Three seniors with roots in West Africa will spend next year in Liberia building a basketball and literacy program for girls, thanks to a President’s Engagement Prize, founded by President Amy Gutmann. Oladunni Alomaja of Minneapolis; Princess Aghayere of Reston, Virginia; and Summer Kollie of Philadelphia say they’re excited to inspire girls. “We have always had that passion, that drive to want to work with youth in West Africa,” Kollie says.

Workplace intervention

With the President’s Engagement Prize, seniors José Maciel (left) of Yakima, Washington, and Antonio Renteria of Laredo, Texas, hope to bring information about subjects like nutrition and sleep to the mushroom farmworkers of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The project reinforces preventive screenings already offered by a local clinic and primary care providers like the pair’s mentor, Adriana Perez of the School of Nursing.

Predicting risk

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine have developed an app that predicts the likelihood of a patient developing an incisional hernia following abdominal surgery. “Our tool presents the risk for each case at the point of care, giving surgeons and patients the chance to consider this outcome ahead of time and incorporate data into the decision-making process,” says John P. Fischer.

Passing the baton

After 19 years of service, Vice President and University Secretary Leslie Laird Kruhly will retire at the end of June. In a Q&A with Penn Today, Kruhly reflects on her tenure, her plans for retirement, and the Penn values that she’ll take with her. “My observation is that everyone working at Penn is really dedicated to doing good. That’s a value I’ve had all of my life and will stay with me,” she says.

Understanding smell

Using varying combinations of banana and pine scents, PIK Professor Jay Gottfried discovered that three key brain regions help humans navigate from one odor to the next. The work points to the existence of a grid-like hexagonal architecture in the olfactory regions of the brain, similar to mapping configurations previously found to support spatial navigation in animals.

Lab to clinic

Patricia Corby, the School of Dental Medicine’s new associate dean for translational research, has a passion for helping researchers move their scientific discoveries to clinical application, where they can improve patient care. In addition to carrying out her own clinical trial, related to oral health during cancer treatment, she’ll be overseeing an expansion of clinical research at the School.

Penn Relays

The 125th running of the Penn Relays took its mark at Franklin Field last week. Dave Johnson, director of the Penn Relays, discusses planning for the meet, its international appeal, what makes the Relays unique, and some of his most memorable moments.

Lessons learned

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center raises the question, “What should the press learn from its use of Russian hacked content in 2016?” Jamieson concludes that, going forward, journalists should be mindful of how they use and what they disclose about hacked materials from sources like WikiLeaks.

Scroll unrolled

Students in a history of art course had the chance to closely examine a rare 200-year-old painted Chinese scroll at the Penn Museum. It was one of many rare objects displayed for the class taught by Nancy Steinhardt and her teaching assistant Chuanxin Weng (center) in the School of Arts and Sciences.

International bonds

Writing about her semester abroad, Elana Burack, a senior from Fort Mill, South Carolina, describes a “failed” Shabbat dinner with the local Jewish community in Seville, Spain. “Although the service failed and the challah was bad, it was a Shabbat—a long Spanish Shabbat—that I will remember not for the failed service and bad challah but rather for being filled with laughter, chatting, and lasting connection.”

Penn in Uganda

Students in Guy Grossman’s Penn Global Seminar traveled to Uganda in March for a first-hand look at how mobile phones and other technological advances can benefit Africans as well as how even well-planned projects sometimes don’t work. The experience, says senior Gretchen Bednarz of Yardley, Pennsylvania, “entirely changed” how she thinks about the relationship between technology and development.

Parental leave

With companies exploring gender biases in the workplace, the issue of parental leave highlights “a larger conversation about gender inequality,” says Stephanie Creary of the Wharton School. “People are starting to see the issue of parental leave and gender bias as one and the same.”

Healing wounds

A new study by the Perelman School of Medicine finds that whether a wound like a diabetic foot ulcer heals or progresses to a worse outcome, including infection or even amputation, may depend on the microbiome within that wound. Published in Cell Host and Microbe, the study found specific strains of Staphylococcus aureus may be the culprit.

‘Spectacular gift’

The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy has received an anonymous $30 million gift to support continued programming. It will also allow hiring of faculty who “will influence today’s critical energy policy decisions [and] help develop tomorrow’s energy policy leaders,” says President Amy Gutmann. The Center, housed in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, is headed by founding faculty director Mark Alan Hughes (above).

125 years

Franklin Field, home to the Penn Quakers and Penn Relays, is celebrating its quasquicentennial. The stadium, located on the eastern edge of campus, opened on April 20, 1895, with the first running of the Penn Relay Carnival. It is the oldest college stadium in the country.

Industry in crisis

On Knowledge@Wharton, John Paul MacDuffie discusses the future obstacles faced by auto companies in the U.K. “Free movement across borders of products, of components, of people is just hugely important to them,” says MacDuffie. “That’s the real potential loss here, and it’s huge.” (Audio)

Sheeba’s eye

The Ryan Veterinary Hospital is a regular participant in the National Service Dog Eye Exam, offering eye exams to screen for conditions that could harm a working dog’s vision. So when a small lesion was detected in the eye of diabetic alert dog Sheeba (above, with owner John Vagner), a team at Ryan used laser therapy to quickly stop the growth and leave Sheeba happy and healthy.