City Limits
JJ Tiziou has been walking around the city of Philadelphia for a decade. Now he wants everybody else to join him.
LDI and American Healthcare
The interdisciplinary experts at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics have seen a lot since LDI was created after the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, but nothing quite like the challenges roiling the US healthcare system now.
The 30-Year Squat
Three decades ago a “ragtag army of squatter-minded poets” took possession of a modest cottage at 38th & Locust Walk and conjured by candlelight a vision of a “house for writers.” Today Kelly Writers House is a University institution that hosts a dizzying variety of classes, readings, and other events and sits at the center of a constellation of affiliated programs whose impact stretches around the globe. But in a lot of ways it hasn’t changed at all. Plus: ModPo’s story in The Classroom and the Crowd.
Alumni Weekend 2026
Our annual photo gallery.
Semiquincentennial Sampler
To mark the impending 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence: a package of articles looking back to the Revolutionary War era on campus, examining the printing of the Declaration and highlighting Bicentennial dissent, and profiling the alumnus planning Philadelphia’s celebrations this year.
Witness and Judge
In his first book, Presidential Professor of Law Shaun Ossei-Owusu—a self-described “dark-skinned, sneaker-wearing, hip-hop referencing, first-generation everything with an unmaskable New York accent” and scholar given to “big swings”—offers a wide-ranging, eye-opening account of a legal system that “distributes pain and privilege unequally.”
Fresh Angle
How to see the Golden Gate Bridge.
Hyper Text
Synthetic text extrusion. Virtual teaching assistants. Illusions of mastery. Silicon Socrates. Four years after the debut of ChatGPT, higher education is starting to look different.
A Degree Too Late
Remembering Penn’s first women in architecture.
The Eye of Denise Scott Brown
Having long battled sexist neglect of her own work and what she contributed in partnership with Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown GCP’60 GAr’65 Hon’94 has cemented her position as a major figure in 20th-century architecture and urbanism. Photography has been key to her influence.
Paper Record
Tracing the history of American English, one slip at a time. An excerpt from Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary by Stefan Fatsis C’85. Plus: A Q&A with the author.
Full Circle
Over five decades and across five states, Fran McCaffery W’82 has been a winning college basketball coach. Now back at his alma mater, does the 66-year-old once known as “White Magic” have enough magic left to overcome significant NCAA obstacles and restore Penn to its former great heights?
Homecoming 2025
Our annual photo gallery. Plus: Alumni Awards of Merit and citations.
Historian of the “Taken-for-Granted”
Whether probing the concept of common sense, mulling the role of expertise in a democracy, or examining how choice intersects with freedom, Sophia Rosenfeld is carving out new realms of cultural and intellectual history.
Who Will Own Your Digital Twin?
Law professor Jennifer Rothman is an expert in “the ways intellectual property law is employed to turn people into a form of property.” As we enter an era of deepfake videos, voice clones, and digital replicas of human beings, she worries that the United States Congress is on the cusp of a horrible mistake.
Tossing Out the Playbook
Weitzman School alumni and faculty are prominent in a movement to make US playgrounds more challenging, stimulating, educational—and fun!—for users of all ages.
A Daughter’s Reckoning
For most of her life, conservation journalist Artis Henderson C’02 W’02’s late father had been kept a dark secret. Then she went on an expedition to learn about his adventurous existence as a dad, husband, pilot, remote island owner, and international drug smuggler—as well as “the accident” 40 years ago that killed him (and nearly her).
Alzheimer’s Now
Well over a century since it was first identified and following decades of intensive research, Alzheimer’s disease continues to withhold its essential secrets and a cure remains elusive. But recent drug treatments, improvements in diagnostic techniques, and other developments constitute what one Penn Medicine leader calls the “dawn of a new era” in confronting its impacts on patients and caregivers.
The Hackney Files
For 10 budding history majors living through tumultuous times for Penn and US higher education, Jared Farmer’s class on archival research methods doubled as a crash course on how the University navigated the culture-war clashes of another era.
Helping Hands
Penn First Plus aims to level the college and early-career playing field for first-generation, low-income students and alumni at the University.
The Prudent Patriot
There’s a lot more to Founding Father John Dickinson than not signing the Declaration of Independence.
Chasing Every Cure
When David Fajgenbaum M’13 WG’15 unlocked his own treatment after being diagnosed with a rare disease, he saved his life. Now he has his sights on a higher purpose that’s bringing hope to millions.
Travels in Trashland
Journalist Alexander Clapp C’13 set out to follow our trash to the end of the trail. Two years and five continents later, his debut book illuminates the surreal second life of the things we throw away. Plus: an excerpt from Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash.
The Producer as Problem Solver
Before the recent real-life election of a new pope, Michael Jackman C’85 helped bring a film version—Conclave—to movie screens and the awards circuit. It was a career highlight for a veteran film producer who often labored far from the Hollywood that lives in our collective imagination.