The Anatomist of Crime
PIK Professor Adrian Raine is regarded as the world’s leading biological criminologist. He didn’t get there by playing it safe. Plus: “Where to Draw the Lines?” an excerpt from Raine’s new book, The Anatomy of Violence.
Philo Phorever
As it enters its third century, America’s oldest continuously existing college literary society still has a role to fill on campus, in keeping with its unofficial motto: “Raise hell with your brain.”
A Big Step for Small Science
Getting to know the Singh Center for Nanotechnology.
50 Years of Now
With a new director at the helm and a slate of ambitious exhibitions on tap for 2013-14, Penn’s ICA is poised to celebrate its own past while still focusing on bringing what’s new in the art world to campus.
Penn at Pixar
Alumni have been working at the icon of computer animation since long before Toy Story, and a steady stream of Digital Media Design graduates are continuing to help create new hits like the Academy Award-winning Brave and this summer’s Monsters University.
Being There
As director of the Penn Program for Mindfulness, Michael Baime M’81 has helped hundreds of healthcare professionals acquire the skills to improve their interactions with patients, increase their job satisfaction, and reduce stress in their personal lives.
Shell’s Odyssey
Wharton professor Richard Shell’s unorthodox new book on success draws on his own wandering path to an academic career and celebrates the power of uncertainty.
Civic Hacker
Josh Tauberer Gr’11 believed the government should just give him the data he needed to create GovTrack, his website to help people follow the progress of Congressional legislation. When the powers-that-be said No, he went out and got it anyway.
The Work of a Generation
Once hailed as a “landmark” achievement, alumnus and Penn English professor Robert Spiller’s Literary History of the United States now feels not just dated but fundamentally misguided. What happened?
Hope is Part of the Plan
Paralyzed from the neck down by a gunshot wound in 2011, Kevin Neary C’04 can’t help imagining that someday a medical miracle might allow him to walk again.
Good Returns
The dangers and rewards of giving more than you get. An excerpt from Give and Take by Wharton professor Adam Grant. Plus: Interview with the author.
The Purple Passion of Michael Smerconish
Can an unpredictably centrist talk-show host with a yen for “nothing” really have an impact on the national discourse?
Glen Berger’s Amazing Spider-Man Experience
What happens when a playwright best known for a one-man show about a seriously overdue library book gets involved in creating a blockbuster musical about an iconic superhero? In one word: Kapow!
Alumni Weekend 2013
Our annual photo essay.
Going Global
Penn has a longstanding commitment to global engagement, dating all the way back to Ben Franklin.
Seeds of a Quiet Revolution
Lots of aid projects in the developing world provide materials—from latrines to laptops—but little in the way of involvement or input for the people they are supposed to benefit. In Nicaragua a group of Penn alumni, faculty, and students are trying a different approach.
The Spy Who Owned the Yankees
Alumnus Michael Burke’s life reads like an adventure story—
several of them, actually.
On a Roll
How the Penn alumnus behind Humanistic Robotics, Inc. is saving the world one landmine at a time—and making money doing it.
Practically Subversive
Showtime CEO Matt Blank has used boundary-pushing programming, cutting-edge marketing, and smart management to build his cable network into a national powerhouse.
Big Finish, Fresh Start
Penn’s Making History campaign has exceeded expectations, raising $4.3 billion and “catapulting” the University “from excellence to eminence.”
Constructing a New Kahn
Louis Kahn had more or less completed his designs for Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park when he died in 1974. It finally opened last fall to glowing reviews—but it could easily have been a disaster. Or nothing.
The Nora Network
The Nora Magid Mentorship Prize has been giving former students of the legendary nonfiction-writing teacher an excuse to get together and swap war stories—and helping to launch a new generation of Penn students into careers in journalism.
MOOC U.
Does the rise of the “massive open online course” spell the end of the university as we know it?
Stopping the Clock?
Will the mainstreaming of egg freezing offer women more choice about when to have children—kind of like the Pill in reverse—or delude them with a false sense of security?