Mapping the Human Journey
Combining old-school fieldwork and ethnography with up-to-the-minute gene-based analyses, Penn molecular anthropologist Theodore G. Schurr has helped shape our understanding of the movement of ancient peoples into the Americas.
The Psychonaut You Never Heard Of
John Lilly’s very long, very strange trip from Penn’s Medical School to the outer fringes of science—and consciousness.
Alumni Weekend 2017
Wet weather, high spirits. Our annual photo essay.
House Dentist
From Holocaust survivors, to stroke victims, to the garden-variety centenarian next door, Alisa Kauffman’s patients have one thing in common: an inability to travel to a dentist’s office. So she brings her practice into their living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens.
Peter Struck’s Odyssey
The classical studies professor—whose scholarship traces how intellectual concepts and literary works were received and interpreted in ancient Greece and Rome—is an ardent champion of the continued vitality and relevance of liberal arts education in our own time.
When Lies Go Viral
Fake news may be as old as news itself, but the viral deceptions mutating on the internet are affecting the institutions that inform our democracy. Some Penn scholars offer analysis, context, and concerns.
The Serene Strategist
To her mother, alumna Alice Paul was a “mild-mannered girl”; another observer compared her demeanor to “the quiet of a spinning top.” Her leadership in the fight to get US women the vote was a remarkable mix of unyielding commitment and savvy politics.
Pressure and Proof
Alumnus, journalist, and self-described math geek Alan Schwarz saw something rotten in the number of kids diagnosed with ADHD and treated with amphetamines. He responded with a powerful series in The New York Times—and an even more powerful book.
Good Ghosts
Celebrating the Palestra—the beloved “cathedral of college basketball”—at 90 years young.
In Pursuit of Justice
Over more than three decades, mostly at the US Justice Department, Eli Rosenbaum has made a career and a calling out of tracking down Nazi war criminals and more recent human-rights abusers.
Bone Warrior
Dinosaur hunter Edward Drinker Cope studied briefly at Penn in his youth and ended his days as a faculty member at the University. In between, the impulsive and driven scholar churned out more than 1,400 scientific publications—and exchanged many harsh words—in an epic battle with his more methodical rival, Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale, for primacy in the nascent field of paleontology.
Protecting “Negative Heritage” in Rwanda
In a church where victims were massacred, a team from Penn is helping Rwandan officials develop a plan to conserve the material evidence—bullet-riddled walls, blood-stained clothing—that bears witness to the country’s genocide.
Suiting Up
Over the years, Penn has contributed an impressive number of alumni who have left their mark on the many-sided business of sports. And they all have stories to tell.
Homecoming 2016
Our annual photo gallery, plus two arts & culture anniversaries, and the Alumni Award of Merit winners and citations.
What Kids Want (to Watch)
Twenty-five years after she helped launch the original Nicktoons, Linda Simensky is still deciding what millions of kids watch on TV—and teaching Penn students who grew up loving the shows she developed.
Perry World House
Penn unveils its ambitious global policy center—which, in the run-up to the US presidential election, has wasted no time hosting a Who’s Who in the realm of world affairs.
Legal Zoom-In
Law professor and alumna Regina Austin loves star-attorney Perry Mason, but the students in her year-long Visual Legal Advocacy seminar are learning to make their cases from behind the camera.
Unconventional
Photographer Arthur Drooker C’76 has trained his lens on American Ruins and Lost Worlds. His new collection, Conventional Wisdom, covers his strangest territory yet.
Hands On History
For the past three decades, the Raab family has been buying and selling rare documents. It’s a uniquely personal way of learning—and sharing—history.
Chasing Miracles
The author wanted to know why the stem-cell treatments that worked so well for her hobbled dog aren’t being used to put the spring back in humans’ steps. Researchers at Penn’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine explained—and shared some of their own, measured, progress toward successful therapies.
Method Inventor
With an innovation portfolio that ranges from medical devices to folding bicycles to social-impact enterprises to junk food, Wharton professor Karl Ulrich has every justification to bask in entrepreneurial mystique. Only that’s exactly what he sets out to demolish in the classroom.
Director Gone Bad
Mean Girls director Mark Waters C’86 is taking a shot at R-rated comedy with Bad Santa 2 this Thanksgiving—and still trying to figure out his place in ever-evolving Hollywood.
The Christian Association at 125
At the turn of the last century, the CA pioneered the idea of service at Penn with settlement houses and summer camps, and has since been at the forefront of anti-war protests and movements for civil, women’s, and LGBT rights. In the 21st, it’s still providing a “safe space” for students and making a difference on campus and beyond.
The Man Who Put Yellowstone on the Map
As the National Park Service marks its centennial this year, let’s take a moment to celebrate Penn professor and building namesake Ferdinand Hayden, whose visionary advocacy saved what became America’s first National Park from the tawdry, commercialized fate of Niagara Falls.