April 23, 2024 Volume 70 Issue 31

April 17, 2024

Dear Penn Community,

On April 23, our campus community will join the rest of Pennsylvania in voting for Democratic and Republican candidates for the federal offices of President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and the Pennsylvania offices of Attorney General, Auditor General, Treasurer, and House of Representatives.

Pennsylvania is a “closed primary state,” so you must have been registered with a party by April 8 to vote for candidates in the primary. Take two minutes to confirm your party affiliation. If you are not affiliated with a party on your registration, you will be allowed to vote only on ballot measures.

While the election is next Tuesday, April 23, you can make a plan today to ensure your vote is counted.

Right now: Make a plan to go on election day, and block out time on your calendar to vote. On-campus residents can find your polling location here and all others can find it here.

• If you requested a mail-in ballot, your complete ballot must be returned by 8 p.m. on April 23.

This week: Research candidates and ballot measures.

• A nonpartisan voter guide about the offices on the ballot and ballot measures can be found here.

Live in New Jersey? Click here for information pertaining to your primary election.

Next Tuesday: Visit Penn Leads the Vote’s table on Locust Walk, by the Love Statue

• Stop by for free swag!
• We will be on hand to answer any voting-related questions and help you cast your vote.

If you want help registering to vote or have questions about anything else voting related, PLTV can help:

• Visit Penn Leads the Vote’s website built for the Penn community at vote.upenn.edu
• Email PLTV at pennvotes@upenn.edu
• Join PLTV’s mailing list (from which they will only send you a few key reminders)

—Penn Leads the Vote

The Leonard Berwick Memorial Teaching Award

This award was established in 1981 as a memorial to Leonard Berwick by his family and the department of pathology. It recognizes “a member of the medical faculty who in his or her teaching effectively fuses basic science and clinical medicine.” It is intended that this award recognize outstanding teachers, particularly among younger faculty.

Daniel Wolf grew up in Los Angeles, completed undergraduate work at Harvard College, then did his MD and PhD training at Yale University, a psychiatry residency at MGH-McLean, and a neuropsychiatry fellowship at Penn. He is an associate professor in the neurodevelopment and psychosis section of the PSOM psychiatry department, where he is devoted to a wide range of teaching and mentoring roles. As an outpatient attending psychiatrist, he teaches residents and medical students how to provide longitudinal care to individuals with psychotic disorders. As head of the Laboratory for Motivation in Psychiatry and associate director of the psychosis T32 training program, he provides research supervision and career development mentorship to trainees studying the pathophysiology of psychosis and motivation impairment. He lectures on the neurobiology of psychosis for medical students, psychiatry residents, and psychology graduate students. As director of the clinical neurosciences training (CNST) program, he organizes seminars and mentoring programs for medical and graduate students who are interested in translating between basic neuroscience research and clinical care.

A trainee described his contributions: “Dr. Wolf’s psychosis clinic has been one of the most valuable experiences of my residency. Dr. Wolf’s intellectual curiosity is unparalleled. He possesses an incredible breadth and depth of knowledge and wisdom, and he shares it so generously with his learners. In his didactic teaching before clinic each week, he explains basic science concepts clearly and describes their clinical significance (for example, why a particular pattern of receptor activation makes a medication promising for a patient with a specific constellation of symptoms). At the same time, while he provides a wealth of information, he entrusts learners with the autonomy to make clinical decisions, which is incredibly empowering.”

Robert Dunning Dripps Memorial Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education

This award was established by the department of anesthesia in 1984. As a pioneer in the specialty of anesthesia and chair of the department from 1943 to 1972, Dr. Dripps was instrumental in the training of more than 300 residents and fellows, many of whom went on to chair other departments. This award recognizes excellence as an educator of residents and fellows in clinical care, research, teaching, or administration.

Zubair Baloch received his medical degree from Liaquat Medical University in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. After receiving his PhD in 1991, he joined the pathology residency at Hahnemann University Hospital. This was followed by fellowships in surgical pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and in cytopathology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Baloch began his career as an assistant professor in the department of pathology & laboratory medicine at Penn in 1997 and later advanced to a full professor of pathology and laboratory medicine there. He has authored more than 300 peer reviewed publications in leading pathology and endocrine journals about endocrine and head and neck pathology; and book chapters and monographs. Dr. Baloch has coauthored 3 books and most recently co-edited Milan System for Reporting Salivary Gland Cytopathology. Dr. Baloch is chief editor of Diagnostic Cytopathology and a member of the editorial boards of Cancer Cytopathology, Cytojournal, Endocrine Pathology, and the Journal of American Society of Cytopathology.

Dr. Baloch was recently inaugurated as a member of University of Pennsylvania Academy of Master Clinicians. Dr. Baloch’s awards include the University of Pennsylvania Peter Nowell, Kevin Salhany and Best Graduate Student educator awards and service as president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology, which has awarded him the Best Educator Award, the Arthur Purdy Stout Lectureship Award, and the ASCP President’s Service Award.

Blockley-Osler Award

Created in 1987 by the Blockley Section of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, this award is given annually to a member of the faculty at an affiliated hospital for excellence in teaching modern clinical medicine at the bedside in the tradition of William Osler and others who taught at Philadelphia General Hospital.

Paula Chatterjee is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, director of health equity research at PSOM, and a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. She is a general internist and health policy researcher whose work focuses on ensuring the viability of the healthcare safety-net for low-income patients. Her work has been nationally recognized for its use of novel descriptive approaches and causal inference methods to reveal mechanisms of structural inequity in healthcare delivery and payment. Dr. Chatterjee’s research has had policy impact at both the state and national levels: She has testified for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Health on the role of payment policy in ensuring hospital viability, and her work on safety-net hospital financing has influenced discussions held by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Medicaid and CHIP Payment & Access Commission, both of which advise Congress on national healthcare payment policy. Dr. Chatterjee completed her residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School, and her MPH and undergraduate degrees from Yale University. She practices inpatient medicine on the teaching service at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Scott Mackler Award for Excellence in Substance Abuse Teaching

This award was established in 2000 by the Penn/VA Center for Studies of Addiction and the department of psychiatry. Scott Mackler is remembered for his excellence in teaching medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, nurses, and other Penn faculty in many different departments in the area of substance abuse.

Joshua E. Glick is an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and an assistant professor in the Perelman School of Medicine. Beyond his clinical responsibilities, Dr. Glick is also the associate director of PSOM’s Introduction to Clinical Medicine course and the medical director for the Penn Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), Penn’s undergraduate student-run EMS agency on campus.

Dr. Glick earned an undergraduate degree from Penn in 2010, and his medical degree from Penn State in 2014. Dr. Glick rejoined the Penn community for his resident training in emergency medicine, ultimately being hired as a faculty member in 2018. Outside of the department, he has volunteered hundreds of hours educating students as a facilitator of many of the first-and second-year courses, including Doctoring, Ultrasound, Microbiology, and Introduction to Clinical Medicine. He also most recently paired with a medical student to help develop a special session addressing how to take a detailed yet patient-centered substance use history. He works frequently with students on his clinical shifts to ensure that they learn how to provide detailed and compassionate care to patients experiencing substance use and the emergent consequences that can result.

As the medical director of MERT, Penn’s student-run EMS agency, Dr. Glick is not only responsible for ensuring that the group provides exceptional care through regular education initiatives, but also works to promote opioid overdose awareness on campus through community training and education programs with MERT. Most recently, he partnered with two recent graduates and awardees of the President’s Engagement Prize at Penn to develop a program that provided free first aid and overdose awareness skills to local middle and high school students in Philadelphia.

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching (at an Affiliated Hospital)

The Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching was established in 1989 to recognize clinical teaching excellence and commitment to medical education by outstanding faculty members from affiliated hospitals. One or more Dean’s Awards are given annually, the recipients being selected on the advice of a committee of faculty and students.

Andres Deik is a graduate of the Universidad del Norte in his native Barranquilla, Colombia. He completed his residency in neurology and his fellowship in movement disorders at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, then completed a master’s degree in medical education at Penn in 2016. He is currently an associate professor of clinical neurology at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center (PD&MDC).

Dr. Deik devotes his time to clinical care, spearheading the clinical trials enterprise at PD&MDC and directing the center’s Movement Disorders Fellowship. During his tenure at Penn, he has taught medical and genetic counseling students, neurology residents and movement fellows, as well as served as a career mentor for several neurology residents.

Sarah DeMichele is a clinical assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine. She was a resident in the department of psychiatry at Penn, where she served as chief resident, and has been affiliated with Penn since her residency. For years, she has taught in the acute inpatient psychiatry units at the Veteran Affairs Hospital while also educating trainees during their ambulatory rotations, including Resident Assessment Clinic. She recognizes the importance of bedside teaching, the collaboration among disciplines, and the personal well-being of each student, and actively engages with students in all these areas. One student wrote, “[Dr. DeMichele is] one of the best faculty members I’ve worked with this year. She encouraged us to have autonomy in conducting interviews, but was also invested in giving us personalized feedback with many observed interviews. She was clearly invested in ensuring we had a good learning experience and helped us find time for teaching sessions as well as more informal discussion of patients’ diagnoses.”

Dr. DeMichele is a skilled clinician and  devoted educator who is passionate about medical student mentoring and training. She was the inaugural recipient of the Junior Clinical Faculty Teaching Award, and she has been selected four times for the Albert Stunkard Faculty Recognition Award for her dedication, mentorship, and guidance in residency training.

Sudha Kessler is an associate professor of neurology and pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, and an attending physician in the division of neurology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Kessler received her BA in English from Yale University and her MD from Baylor College of Medicine. She completed her pediatrics residency at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, then a child neurology residency at CHOP. She went on to complete an epilepsy fellowship at Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital and to receive her MSCE degree. Dr. Kessler has served as program director of the CHOP pediatric epilepsy fellowship since 2014 and as program director of the CHOP child neurology residency program since 2017. Since her appointment, she has increased the overall resident complement from 12 to 21 (making it one of the largest programs in the country), created three pre-neurology pediatric resident pathways (depending on board specialization and research interests), and doubled  the program’s didactic offerings. On top of her work locally, she has improved neurology education on a national level, serving as the vice chair and question-writer of the Residency In-Service Training Exam (RITE) committee of the American Academy of Neurology. She has also worked with the American Epilepsy Society to create a similar mock board exam for epilepsy fellows called the EPIFITE (established in 2019). Her work has been recognized with several key teaching awards, including the Resident Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and the highly prestigious A.B. Baker Teaching Recognition Award from the American Academy of Neurology (2021).

As former trainees have commented, “[Dr. Kessler] is exactly the kind of physician, teacher, and mentor that a top-flight institution should celebrate and recognize… [she] shows incredible humanity in her everyday life that makes her teaching and practice all the more impactful. She has an appreciation for the joyous, the tragic, the humorous, and the unknown that is incredibly rare among humans. She can celebrate a good outcome alongside family as readily as she can marinate in a disappointing one. Her humanity gives her teaching vitality.”

Jay Mehta is an associate professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of rheumatology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He received his medical degree from the University of Nevada School of Medicine, completed his pediatrics residency at Denver Children’s Hospital, and completed his pediatric rheumatology fellowship at CHOP. He serves as the CHOP pediatric rheumatology fellowship program director and has received the American College of Rheumatology Clinician Scholar Educator Award.

Dr. Metha was one of the founders of the CHOP Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education. He is passionate about mentoring fellows and early career faculty, both at CHOP and nationally, about demystifying rheumatology for trainees at all levels, and about amusing patients of all ages with dad jokes.

Chidinma Nwakanma is an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine. She received her medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University and completed her emergency medicine residency and fellowship in resuscitation/critical care at Stony Brook University Hospital. Dr. Nwakanma joined the Penn faculty in 2017 and has served as an emergency medicine attending physician at both the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Her professional interests include critical care, women’s health, health media, gun violence prevention, global medicine (particularly in West Africa and the Caribbean), and health equity as it pertains to Black/Brown communities. She is passionate about increasing minority representation in medicine and, for the past 3 years, has served as the director of the underrepresented minorities visiting clerkship in emergency medicine. She was recently appointed as the vice chair of inclusion, diversity, equity and antiracism in the department of emergency medicine.

Dr. Nwakanma is dedicated to bedside teaching and presents high quality critical care lectures, which both residents and seasoned attendings have said are practical and digestible with pertinent clinical pearls. She strives to highlight social determinants of health and cultural competency in addition to clinical medicine when teaching trainees. She has been featured at numerous local and international conferences, on local radio shows and podcasts, and in several major national newspapers. She has received numerous departmental teaching and clinical awards at SBUH and Penn, and was recently honored nationally for her exceptional bedside teaching by the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Laura A. Stein is an assistant professor in the department of neurology and the current co-director of the neurology residency program. She graduated from Drexel University College of Medicine, then completed her neurology residency and vascular neurology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Stein also earned her master’s degree in medical education from Penn’s Graduate School of Education in 2018.  She joined Penn’s faculty in 2018 and serves as a vascular neurology and neurohospitalist attending physician at multiple sites across the system, teaching medical students and residents. Dr. Stein’s academic areas of interest include medical education, quality improvement, and health equity. She holds departmental roles in these areas and has mentored multiple residents in their own academic work in these spaces.

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Medical Student Teaching by an Allied Health Professional

This award was established in 1997 to recognize outstanding teaching by allied health professionals (e.g. nurses, physician’s assistants, emergency medical technicians). The recipient is selected on the advice of a committee composed of faculty and students.

Maria T. Castro is the lead certified medical assistant of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia South Philly Primary Care. With over 30 years of experience in the medical field, the last 17 of which were at CHOP, Ms. Castro has found her home in providing outstanding care for those at her workplace. But her care reaches far beyond checkups, vaccinations, and blood work: Anyone who has had the chance to meet Ms. Castro has experienced her nurturing character. As a leader, mentor, and mother, Ms. Castro constantly strives to enrich the lives of others. She welcomes patients with a smile and constantly goes out of her way to make a difference for them, even if for only a moment. As an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, Ms. Castro knows the hardships that come with being far from home and has made it her life goal to help other immigrants navigate these challenges.

Ms. Castro’s passion for providing comfort to those around her means that anywhere she goes, others have a home. A medical student wrote, “Dear Maria, Thank you for being a fun person who taught me the joy in pediatrics. Your cheer and knowledge of the community bring a light to the office that is unmatched. I’m so happy to have worked with you and hope to figure a way to come back.”

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Basic Science Teaching

The Dean’s Award for Excellence in Basic Science Teaching was established in 1988 to recognize teaching excellence and commitment to medical student teaching in the basic sciences. One or more Dean’s Awards are given annually, the recipients being selected on the advice of a committee of faculty and students.

Michael E. Abboud is an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine (EM). He received his BA and MD at Penn, then completed his training at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After returning to Penn in 2018, he completed his master’s degree in medical education at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Dr. Abboud divides his clinical time between HUP and Penn Presbyterian and plays many roles within the emergency medicine (EM) residency program, including as simulation director and assistant residency director. He has spearheaded several major changes within the EM residency curriculum, including designing team leadership curricula, novel simulation training, cadaver labs, beginner and advanced airway courses, and a yearly SonoGames competition.  He has been co-director of the Perelman School of Medicine’s Microbiology and Infectious Diseases I course since 2020, helping to transform the course by injecting clinical correlates and highlighting the connections between microbial properties and patient presentation. Dr. Abboud has won numerous awards for his educational and clinical work, including the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania EM Faculty Teaching Award, HUP’s EM Faculty of the Year, and the department of EM Patient Safety Award.

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching by Housestaff

This award was established in 2015 to recognize clinical teaching excellence and commitment to medical education by outstanding housestaff. One award is given annually. The recipient is selected on the advice of a committee of faculty and students.

Alexandra Miller is a PGY-4 psychiatry resident and served as chief resident for medical education from 2023-2024. Dr. Miller graduated from Harvard College in 2007 with a degree in English. She was a middle school English teacher for six years and completed her master’s degree in education at the University of Pennsylvania, then made the decision to change careers into medicine. She graduated from the Perelman School of Medicine in 2020, where she served as co-president of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and received the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award and the Physicians for Social Responsibility Soul of Medicine Award. During her psychiatry residency at Penn, she has enjoyed being involved in medical education for medical students and residents, participating in a redesign of the Brain and Behavior course. She was recognized with the psychiatry department’s Medical Student Teaching Award in 2022. Clinically, Dr. Miller is passionate about community psychiatry and early psychosis. When she completes her residency training, she will join the faculty in the psychiatry department at Penn, where she will treat patients in the outpatient setting and continue her work in medical education with medical students and residents.

Special Dean’s Award

The Special Dean’s Award was established in 1990 to recognize outstanding achievements in medical education by faculty members, particularly in the development of new, innovative educational programs. The senior vice dean for medical education, in consultation with the Teaching Awards Selection Committee, identifies unique contributions by faculty and recognizes exceptional support and innovative planning for all educational programs during COVID-19, resulting in their receipt of this special honor.

is an associate professor in cell and developmental biology (CDB). After receiving his BA from Dartmouth, he came to Penn, where he received his MD and his PhD. He became a faculty member in CDB (formerly the anatomy department) in 1977.  With his long-time collaborator, the late Alan M. Kelly, dean of Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine from 1994 to 2005, he focused on the determinants of muscle fiber types and on the neural and hormonal causes of transitions from one myosin isoform to another during development. With his student Hansell Stedman, now in the department of surgery, he isolated the human myosin heavy chain gene locus. In 2002, he became course director of the anatomy course for first year medical students; over the succeeding 20 years, he transformed it into a modern clinical anatomy course that incorporated CT, MRI, and ultrasound while remaining centered on cadaver dissection. He recruited clinical faculty to teach in the course, and the success of this clinical approach led to an increased interest in anatomy among upperclassmen. Each year, as many as 2/3 of the MS4 class volunteered to be teaching assistants in the course. This overwhelming interest in reviewing cadaveric-based anatomy has since led to a renewed interest in surgical residencies.

The Michael P. Nusbaum Graduate Student Mentoring Award

The Michael (Mikey) P. Nusbaum Graduate Student Mentoring Award was established in 2017 to honor Mikey Nusbaum as he stepped down from his role as associate dean for graduate education and director of biomedical graduate studies.  

This year’s recipient of the Michael P. Nusbaum Graduate Student Mentoring Award is Crystal S. Conn, an assistant professor of radiation oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Conn has made substantial contributions to mentoring that have made a great impact on their students since they have been at Penn. Further, Dr. Conn’s dedication to being a role model for training advocacy, inclusivity, and mentoring students to reach their scholarly potential exemplifies the type of scientist and mentor that Mikey Nusbaum represents.

The Jane M. Glick Graduate Student Teaching Award

The Jane M. Glick Graduate Student Teaching Award was established in 2009 by the Glick family in remembrance of Jane Glick and her dedication to the biomedical graduate studies (BGS) programs.  

This year’s recipient of the Jane M. Glick Graduate Student Teaching Award is Jeffrey M. Field, a professor of pharmacology in the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Field has taken a leadership role in running the Fundamentals of Pharmacology course over many years. His efforts to ensure the course adapts each year by including the most cutting-edge therapeutics is paramount in ensuring the Pharmacology Graduate Group students benefit immensely from this required course. Dr. Field’s teaching style in the course is lauded by his students. His dedication to these efforts exemplifies the type of scientist/educator that Dr. Glick represented.

Three prize-winning teams will design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world.

University of Pennsylvania Interim President J. Larry Jameson announced on April 18 the recipients of the 2024 President’s Engagement and Innovation Prizes. Awarded annually, the prizes empower Penn undergraduate students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Each prize-winning project will receive $100,000, as well as a $50,000 living stipend per team member. The prizes are the largest of their kind in higher education. All prize recipients collaborate with a Penn faculty mentor.

Five seniors were named recipients of the 2024 President’s Engagement Prize. They are Simran Rajpal and Gauthami Moorkanat for Educate to Empower, and Anooshey Ikhlas, Brianna Aguilar, and Catherine Hood for Presby Addiction Care Program. Seniors Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar have received the President’s Innovation Prize for their project, Jochi.

“The 2024 recipients of the President’s Engagement and Innovation Prize all combine the highest levels of academic excellence with strong service-minded missions,” said Interim President Jameson. “Educate to Empower, Presby Addiction Care Program, and Jochi exemplify Penn’s founding ethos: to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake and to use it to do good in the world. I congratulate each of our prize winners and look forward to seeing their ventures thrive.”

The 2024 recipients—selected from an applicant pool of 68—will spend the next year implementing the following projects:

• Simran Rajpal and Gauthami Moorkanat for Educate to Empower: Ms. Rajpal, a biology and health and societies double major in the College of Arts & Sciences from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, and Ms. Moorkanat, a biochemistry major in the College from Stirling, New Jersey, will work to identify and dismantle barriers to breast cancer screenings in marginalized communities through education and resources at community centers in Philadelphia. They are mentored by Leisha Elmore, an assistant professor of surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine and chief of breast surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
• Anooshey Ikhlas, Brianna Aguilar, and Catherine Hood for Presby Addiction Care Program: Ms. Ikhlas, a neuroscience major in the College of Art & Sciences from Raynham, Massachusetts; Ms. Aguilar, a medical sociology major in the College from West Haven, Connecticut; and Ms. Hood, a health and societies major in the College from West Greenwich, Rhode Island, will focus on implementing a volunteer program at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center aimed at addressing challenges encountered by individuals with substance use disorders during hospitalization. The Presby Addiction Care Program team is mentored by Jeanmarie Perrone, a professor of emergency medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine and the founding director of the Penn Medicine Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy.
• Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar for Jochi: Mr. Dhir, a systems science and engineering major in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from London, and Mr. Nambiar, an applied science in computer science major in Penn Engineering from Dubai, will grow an online ed-tech management platform that improves the educational experience of students with learning differences, such as ADHD, dyslexia, and executive functioning deficits, which will help foster greater efficiency and engagement by teachers and administrators in supporting these students. They are mentored by Amanda Antico, capstone director of the education entrepreneurship program in the Graduate School of Education.

This year’s finalists also included seniors Sindhuja Uppuluri for Project StreetGuard; Himanshi Verma and Nikita Patel for Refugee Health Empowerment Initiative; Kiln Chen, Caroline Li, and Angela Shen for the Jendela Project; Juliana Cimillo, Turner Halle, Melissa Nong, and Ethan Markwalter for Panbo; and Chiadika Eleh, Liam Pharr, Joey Wei, Isaac Kim, and Venkatesh Shenoy for See-Rynge.

“These prize-winning projects exemplify the enterprising spirit of our Penn students,” said Provost John L. Jackson, Jr. “They are all addressing critical challenges in inventive new ways, from ensuring equity and access in healthcare to improving treatments for substance use disorders to expanding educational resources for those with learning differences. We are indebted to their outstanding faculty advisors and to the staff of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, who worked closely with them to develop their ideas into these inspiring initiatives.”

The prizes are supported by Trustee Emerita Judith Bollinger and William G. Bollinger, in honor of Ed Resovsky; Trustee Emerita Lee Spelman Doty and George E. Doty, Jr.; Trustee Emeritus James S. Riepe and Gail Petty Riepe; Trustee David Ertel and Beth Seidenberg Ertel; Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation; and an anonymous donor.

MindCORE, Penn’s hub for the integrative study of the mind, has announced that Brock Kirwan will serve as the inaugural executive director of the new MindCORE Neuroimaging Facility opening at Pennovation Works this spring. He comes to Penn from Brigham Young University, where he has been on the faculty since 2009, most recently as a professor in the department of psychology and neuroscience, and director of its MRI Research Facility.

Dr. Kirwan brings to Penn extensive teaching, mentoring, and research experience from leading his own memory and decision-making lab studying the brain mechanisms that allow people to form and retain long-term memories and then use those memories to guide future decision-making. With publications in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and information systems, Dr. Kirwan has also mentored more than two dozen students and trainees in psychology and neuroscience. Additionally, he has taught more than 18 different courses in cognitive science, neurobiology, neuroscience, psychology, statistics, and several on neuroimaging analysis.

Originally from Idaho, Dr. Kirwan completed undergraduate degrees in both psychology and philosophy at the University of Utah. He then obtained his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2006 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Diego before joining the faculty of Brigham Young University in 2009. He starts his new role at Penn on May 1, 2024.

Dr. Kirwan was identified after an extensive international search by a committee chaired by MindCORE faculty director Joseph Kable, the Jean-Marie Kneeley President’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology. The committee also included Michael Arcaro, an assistant professor of psychology; Allyson Mackey, an associate professor of psychology; and Emily Falk, a professor of communication, psychology, and marketing and the vice dean for research for the Annenberg School for Communication. “I am thrilled to welcome Brock and his family to Penn and Philadelphia,” said Dr. Kable. “His extensive research, teaching, and service experience with human neuroimaging makes him an ideal leader for this facility, as we expand what we can discover about the human brain through powerful new tools.”

Established by the School of Arts & Sciences under the Mapping the Mind goals of the strategic plan outlined by School of Arts & Sciences dean Steven J. Fluharty, the MindCORE Neuroimaging Facility will provide access to shared facilities and equipment to support the research of scholars across campus, including more than 100 MindCORE-affiliated faculty members from a range of academic disciplines.

The centerpiece of the new facility is a new state-of-the-art Siemens Magnetom Cima.X 3T MRI scanner, dedicated to interdisciplinary research on the mind. This cutting-edge scanner, along with other tools, will help researchers decipher the complex relationship between brain activity, human intelligence, and behavior. The facility will officially open this spring, followed by an open house to invite the Penn community to visit and learn more about the research tools available. Questions can be directed to pennmindcore@sas.upenn.edu.

Steven Douglas, a professor of pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine, died on March 13. He was 85.

Dr. Douglas was born in Queens, New York.  He earned his medical degree from Cornell University in 1963 and completed his residency in medicine at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. After completing an immunology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco in 1969, he held faculty positions at both Mt. Sinai and the University of Minnesota Schools of Medicine. Early in his career, in 1970, he developed laboratory techniques to investigate two crucial types of immune cells: monocytes and macrophages. Dr. Douglas dedicated his life to the study of cellular immunology.

Dr. Douglas joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, serving as a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He served as the chief of the section of immunology and as the medical director for the Immunogenetics Laboratory. Additionally, he held leadership roles in various professional societies. He served as a core director in the NIMH-funded Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center and was the principal investigator for the Laboratory Biomarkers Quantitative Pharmacology Neuroimaging and Neurobehavioral Characterization Core. Dr. Douglas is widely celebrated for his significant contributions to the Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) spanning 25 years. This includes his co-leadership of the CFAR Immunology Core, his popularity as a colleague and collaborator within CFAR, and his mentorship of numerous investigators who have come to make impactful contributions to the pediatric AIDS field at CHOP.

Dr. Douglas was the first researcher to isolate and culture human monocytes from peripheral blood. This groundbreaking achievement facilitated the discovery and advancement of technology to study monocyte receptors for immunoglobulin and complement, as well as disorders of monocytes in long-term culture. Dr. Douglas shared his knowledge with the scientific community in over 500 published articles and book chapters, which have been cited over 13,000 times. He was honored for his work, receiving the Abbott Immunology, Neter, Conason, and Redway Awards.

Outside of Penn, Dr. Douglas served as president of the Society for Leukocyte Biology and chaired committees of the VA, FDA (Blood Products Advisory Committee), and NIH-CSR (AIDS Immunology Pathogenesis Study Section). He also founded the Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Dr. Douglas is survived by his wife of 44 years, Mary Ann Forciea; his sister and brother-in-law, Florence and Richard Bank; his two daughters and their husbands, Hope Douglas Wisman and Michael Wisman, Anne Douglas and Evan Eisler; his grandsons, Simon and Nathan Eisler; and his two nephews, Jonathan and Brian Bank.

Funeral services were held on March 17. Donations may be made to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Please specify “Dr. Steven Douglas Education Fund” on the memo line.

Virginia LiVolsi, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, died on March 7. She was 80.

Dr. LiVolsi was born in the Bronx and attended the College of Mount Saint Vincent. She went on to receive her medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She then taught at Yale University for eight years before joining the faculty at Penn’s School of Medicine in 1983 as a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine.

In addition to this position, Dr. Liviolsi served as director of surgical pathology; in 2007, she became the chief of anatomical pathology. During her career at Penn, she worked extensively on endocrine and head and neck pathology, publishing over 450 original articles, numerous reviews, chapters, and several books. She was a member of the editorial boards of several pathology and endocrine journals. Her expertise in thyroid pathology has been recognized around the world.

Outside of her work, she loved music and sang in her church choir, enjoyed needlework, and cared for her cats.

A private viewing and mass were held on March 12 at Saint John Neumann Church. In lieu of flowers, donations in Dr. LiVolsi’s name can be made to Morris Animal Refuge.

The April 2024 meeting of the University Council was held on Wednesday, April 17 in the Hall of Flags in Houston Hall. Interim President J. Larry Jameson began the meeting by expressing sorrow for the loss of College of Arts & Sciences student Nathaniel Gordon and leading a moment of silence in Mr. Gordon’s memory.

Council moderator Melissa Wilde introduced Associate University Secretary Lizann Boyle Rode, who updated the council on topics raised by new business speakers at the March 27 meeting. Regarding a call for Penn Transit to better accommodate disabled users, Ms. Rode said that these concerns have been shared with Penn Transit, which has agreed to expand advance notification for rides for disabled users from 5 to 15 minutes. Ms. Rode also mentioned that Penn community members have access to SEPTA paratransit services, which operate for more extensive hours than Penn Transit. Regarding a request for Penn to include chest binders for transgender people in health insurance coverage, Ms. Rode said that Penn’s administration is working with the LGBT Center and the Lambda Alliance to increase access to chest binders. Regarding concerns about the namesake of Penn’s rowing center, Ms. Rode referred the speaker to Penn’s comments from the March 27 council meeting.

Year-end reports were make by University Council committees, including its Committee on Committees.  Presenters included:

• Eric Feldman (Committees on Committees)
• Domenic Vitiello (Campus and University Life)
• Guobin Yang (Diversity and Equity)
• Rashida Ng (Committee on Facilities)
• Olivia Mitchell (Personnel Benefits)
• Lisa Bellini (Open Expression)
• William Burke-White and Daniel Smith (Academic and Related Affairs)

See Almanac’s University Council Committee Reports supplement for each committee’s report.

In the New Business portion of the meeting, speakers:

• Called for Penn to address concerns registered via the Bias Incident Report forms more transparently.
• Urged Penn to dedicate more funding to cultural student groups on campus, many of which have had to fund events out-of-pocket.
• Shared the need for more affordable transportation options for students who commute and suggested that Penn work with SEPTA to implement a discounted student monthly pass.
• Highlighted events happening this month that promote awareness of sexual violence.
• Called for more consistent access to curricular practical training (CPT), which students need to find industry positions, among all of Penn’s graduate programs.
• Requested more lenient late fee policies for FGLI students who use PennPay.
• Called for more consistent daycare services on campus—the services Penn already offers have limitations that disrupt the studies and work of Penn community members who are parents.

Interim President Jameson thanked the members of the council and its committees for their thoughtful work this academic year.

Read the 2023-2024 University Council Year-End Reports supplement.

Wale Adebanwi and Deborah A. Thomas, both affiliated with the department of Africana studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, have been named 2024 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellows. 

Drs. Adebanwi and Thomas were among 188 scholars in the United States and Canada chosen from nearly 3,000 applicants working across 52 scholarly disciplines. Now in its 99th year, the fellowship was created in 1925 by Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son, John Simon. The award is designed to support a project lasting six to 12 months and to allow fellows to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions,” according to a press release from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Dr. Adebanwi is the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Center for Africana Studies, with a secondary appointment in the department of political science. Dr. Adebanwi researches the social mobilization of power in Africa as manifested through ethnicity, nationalism, racial and urban formations, elites, state and civil society, media, intellectual history, and social theory. Educated in Nigeria and Cambridge, Dr. Adebanwi’s books include Authority Stealing: Anti-Corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria, Yorùbá Elites and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Obáfémi Awólówò and Corporate Agency, and The Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning. His latest book, How to Become a Big Man in Africa: Subalternity, Elites, and Ethnic Politics in Contemporary Nigeria, will be published in August by Indiana University Press. He is the sole awardee in the category of Africana studies. 

“Africana studies is the study of humanity,” Dr. Adebanwi said. His current project, The Enlightenment in Africa: Newspaper Press and Intellectual Responses to Modernity and Colonialism in Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century Nigeria, will span three continents, taking Dr.  Adebanwi to the U.S., England, and Nigeria in order to link the history of the Enlightenment to the history of people of African descent.

Dr. Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts & Sciences, where she is also core faculty in gender, sexuality and women’s studies with secondary appointments in the Graduate School of Education and the department of Africana studies. Her written work includes Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation: Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair, for which she won the Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award from the Caribbean Studies Association and the Senior Book Prize from the American Ethnological Society and was runner-up for the Gregory Bateson Prize. Dr. Thomas also co-directed and co-produced two films, Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens and Four Days in May, both of which explore issues of culture, power, violence, and post-colonialism in Jamaica. Before her life in academia, Dr. Thomas was a professional dancer with the New York-based Urban Bush Women, a company that uses art as a means of addressing issues of social justice and encouraging civic engagement.

During her fellowship year, Dr. Thomas will work on three ongoing projects that integrate creative practice and research. Dr. Thomas’ new work, Inheritance: A Speculative Ethnography of Evidence, will encompass a eugenics study conducted in 1920s Jamaica; the Ethiopian Zion Coptic church, a branch of Rastafari discovered by white American hippies in the 1960s who plied in the ganja trade to fund the building of a Black kingdom in Jamaica; and Kumina, a Jamaican ritual cultural practice that creates a communion between the living and their spiritual ancestors through drumming, singing, and dancing.

The book will address questions of embodied knowledge, the technology of inheritance, and the field of anthropology, Dr. Thomas said. “It’s about embodied knowledge, what we think the body tells us, how that knowledge circulates and how that changes over time.”

“Humanity faces some profound existential challenges,” said Edward Hirsch, an award-winning poet and the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. “The Guggenheim Fellowship is a life-changing recognition. It’s a celebrated investment into the lives and careers of distinguished artists, scholars, scientists, writers, and other cultural visionaries who are meeting these challenges head-on and generating new possibilities and pathways across the broader culture as they do so.”

In honor of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s recognition that local engagement is essential to the struggle for equality, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change Executive Planning Committee of the University of Pennsylvania announces the 2024 Community Involvement Recognition Awardees. The awards honor members of the Philadelphia community whose active service to others best exemplifies the ideals Dr. King espoused.

The 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Involvement Recognition Awardees were honored at the annual MLK Interfaith Program and Awards Commemoration.

The winners are:

Judith Rodin Community Education Award

Regina Bynum, Director of Teaching and Learning, Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships

Community Involvement Recognition Award-Community Member

Akhenaton Mikell, founder and executive director, Imani Star Development

Community Involvement Recognition Award-Penn Faculty or Staff

Sonja Ogden, manager and executive support for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Penn Medicine

Student Award-Graduate

Talayah Johnson, bioengineering PhD student in Penn Engineering

Student Award–Undergraduate

Om Manghani, C’24

Junior students Aravind Krishnan and Tej Patel, have received Harry S. Truman Scholarships, a merit-based award of as much as $30,000 for graduate or professional school to prepare for careers in public service.

Mr. Krishnan and Mr. Patel are both majoring in molecular and cell biology, as well as in  healthcare management and policy and statistics, in the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management, a dual-degree program in the Wharton School and the College of Arts & Sciences.

They are among 60 Truman Scholars from 54 U.S. colleges and universities selected this year from 709 candidates nominated by 285 institutions. They are the 31st and 32nd Truman Scholars from Penn since the first awards were given in 1977.

Mr. Krishnan, from Newark, Delaware, co-founded ToxiSense, a biosensor technology for detecting bacterial toxin contamination and screening for bacterial infections. He conducts research in the Perelman School of Medicine’s Greenberg Lab, where he works on understanding DNA damage repair mechanisms. He is the development chair of the Shelter Health Outreach Program, a Penn undergrad-led organization that runs hypertension screening clinics across Philadelphia and partners with Penn Medicine to operate mobile primary care clinics and a free clinic in West Philadelphia. In that role, Mr. Krishnan also organized a citywide health needs assessment, interviewing over 100 people at shelters across Philadelphia. Based on the findings, he then helped launch a mobile dental clinic program with Penn Dental Medicine. He has also worked on equity in care delivery abroad, including at the Aravind Eye Hospital in India, through the Center for the Advanced Study of India. Mr. Krishnan is a Perry World House Student Fellow, a U.N. Millennium Fellow, and a recipient of the Wharton Social Impact Research Experience grant and Hassenfeld Foundation Social Impact Grant. He has received several awards and prizes, including the Perelman Grand Prize at the Penn Venture Lab Startup Challenge. He plans to pursue an MD/PhD focused on immunology and infectious diseases.

Mr. Patel, from Billerica, Massachusetts, is interested in making healthcare systems more equitable and cost-effective. He has co-authored 19 peer-reviewed research manuscripts, 10 as first author, on radiation oncology, health economics, and care delivery. Mr. Patel works in Penn Medicine’s radiation oncology and breast surgery departments, as well as the Human Algorithm Collaboration Lab, where he led a systemwide study examining the cost-effectiveness of a machine-learning intervention meant to increase serious illness conversations in end-of-life care. Mr. Patel co-founded the Social Equity Action Lab, a youth-led think tank that brings together students, institutional partners, and policymakers to inform legislation on key healthcare issues. On campus, Mr. Patel is the director of the Locust Bioventures group, coordinator of the Netter Center Pipeline Program, and policy/outcomes researcher for the Shelter Health Outreach Program. He also has interned with the Mongan Institute for Health Policy and Institute for Healthcare Improvement, working on projects covering Medicare Part D policy and alternative payment models. Mr. Patel plans to pursue an MD/MPP with a goal to improve nationwide care delivery.

The students applied to the Harry S. Truman Scholarship program with assistance from Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. 

In addition to funding, Truman Scholars also receive priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some graduate institutions, leadership training, and special internship opportunities within the federal government. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation was created by Congress in 1975 to be the nation’s living memorial to President Truman. The foundation has a mission to select and support the next generation of public service leaders.

Penn students Min Jae Kim and Zijian (William) Niu have each received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a merit-based program that provides graduate school funding for immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. 

Mr. Kim is a graduate student pursuing an MD/PhD in neuroscience at the Perelman School of Medicine; and Mr. Niu is a senior majoring in biochemistry, biophysics, and physics as a Roy and Diana Vagelos Molecular Life Sciences Scholar in the College of Arts & Sciences. They are among the 30 chosen as 2024 PD Soros Fellows from 2,323 applicants. Each fellow receives as much as $90,000 for their graduate studies.

Born in Korea, Mr. Kim immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 14 and settled in Fairfax, Virginia. Mr. Kim’s research focuses on the biological underpinnings of neurological disorders and applying mathematical and engineering principles to address them. At Penn, alongside multidisciplinary research and clinical faculty members at Penn Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Mr. Kim investigates novel methods to optimize clinical effects of neuromodulatory therapies across neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Mr. Kim earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University in 2022. He worked on numerous translational and clinical research projects across the neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry departments at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Mr. Kim participated in research in identifying neural circuits involved in Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. From this work, he holds a patent as a lead inventor and was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship. Mr. Kim had additional training at Harvard Medical School before coming to Penn in 2023. He has published more than 18 papers in medical and scientific journals and his research has been recognized by national and international medical organizations. Mr. Kim’s goal is to become a neurosurgeon-scientist and to develop next-generation neuromodulatory therapeutics to repair neurophysiological and network dysfunctions in neurological disorders.

Mr. Niu was born in Kaifeng, China, but spent much of his early childhood in Shanghai. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 8, and he grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts. At Penn, Mr. Niu works with Arjun Raj in the Raj Lab for Systems Biology to develop new computational methods for biomedical image analysis, including a deep learning algorithm for detecting diffraction-limited spots in fluorescence microscopy images obtained from spatial transcriptomics. For this work, he was awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in 2023. Mr. Niu is also a Dean’s Scholar, a recipient of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Challenge Award and the William E. Stephens Prize, and an elected member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2022, he co-founded the student-led Project Lucid to build awareness and confidence for effective science communication among Penn undergraduates. Mr. Niu has also been a teaching assistant and peer educator at Penn and a STEM mentor at underserved Philadelphia high schools. With the PD Soros Fellowship, Mr. Niu plans to pursue a PhD in computational and systems biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Kim and Mr. Niu are Penn’s 23rd and 24th Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows since the fellowship program was founded in 1998, according to the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

Alain Rook, a professor of dermatology and the former director of the photopheresis program, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Cutaneous Lymphomas. 

Dr. Rook founded Penn’s photopheresis program 37 years ago and served as the director for 35 years. He has spent 38 years at Penn, following a seven year career at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, where he studied viral infections in immunocomprised patients. 

Dr. Rook is board certified in dermatology, internal medicine, and nephrology and has has been funded for 30 years by the National Cancer Institute to study cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. 

The award recognizes outstanding contribution to the science and care of patients with cutaneous lymphomas.

Exhibits

25        Odds and Ends: The Landscape Architecture of Richard Weller; acknowledges Richard Weller’s chairmanship of the architecture department from 2012-2022 by presenting the visuals from his two most recent books, An Art of Instrumentality and To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the Twenty-First Century; Upper Gallery, Meyerson Hall. Opening reception: April 25, 6 p.m.

Fitness & Learning

24        Understanding and Supporting the Diverse Needs of Students with Disabilities; pilot TAA training session hosted by Vanessa Dash, disability specialist; noon; room 801, BRB (Inclusion Diversity Equity and Learner Research).

25        The Nuts and Bolts of Retirement: Practical Advice for the Transition to Retirement; panel of speakers including Arberetta Bowles, PSOM; Amy Collins, Office of the Provost; Erin Rossello, PSOM; and Susan Sproat, HR; 4 p.m.; Zoom webinar; info: https://button.provost.upenn.edu/pasef/events (Penn Association of Senior & Emeritus Faculty).

28        Taiko Workshop and Performance; participants will have the unique opportunity to play Japanese instrument the taiko; 2:30 p.m.; Amado Recital Hall, Irvine Auditorium (Japanese Language Program).

Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships

Info: https://curf.upenn.edu/events.

24        Fellowships: What Do I Need to Know?; 4 p.m.; room 242, Van Pelt Library. Also April 29.

29        Introduction to the Truman Scholarship & Scholar Panel; 12:30 p.m.; room 242, Van Pelt Library.

            Introduction to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program; 3:30 p.m.; online webinar.

Graduate School of Education

Info: https://www.gse.upenn.edu/news/events-calendar.

24        Penn Employee Information Session; 12:30 p.m.; Hall of Flags, Houston Hall.

25        Learning Analytics, MSEd (Online) Virtual Information Session; 8 a.m.; online webinar.

On Stage

26        Penn Singers Light Opera Company: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812; young and impulsive, Natasha Rostova arrives in Moscow to await the return of her fiancé from the front lines; when she falls under the spell of the roguish Anatole, it is up to Pierre, a family friend in the middle of an existential crisis, to pick up the pieces of her shattered reputation; 7:30 p.m.; Harold Prince Theater, Annenberg Center; tickets: https://tickets.pennlivearts.org/0/89562 (Penn Live Arts). Also April 27, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Special Events

25        African Languages & Culture Day 2024; experience the beauty and hospitality of African cultures through songs, skits, dance, poems and delicious cuisine; 5-8 p.m.; Hall of Flags, Houston Hall (Africana Studies).

Talks

24        The Falling Sky on Merchandise People: Kopenawa Yanomami’s Analysis of White Culture; José de Araujo Costa, CLALS; noon; room 473, McNeil Building (Center for Latin American & Latinx Studies).

            Institutional Legibility: Data-Intensive Surveillance, Individual Outcomes, and Group Disparities; Sarah Brayne, University of Texas at Austin; noon room 403, McNeil Building (Sociology, Population Studies Center).

            Statistical Methods for Trustworthy Language Modeling; Tatsu Hashimoto, Stanford University; noon; room 225, Towne Building, and Zoom webinar; join: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/94597712175 (ASSET Center).

            Know Your Rights: Security Deposits as a Tenant; panel of speakers; 12:15 p.m.; room 214, Gittis Hall (Civil Practice Clinic, Penn Carey Law).

            Exploiting Time-Domain Parallelism to Accelerate Neural Network Training and PDE Constrained Optimization; Eric Cyr, Sandia National Laboratories; 2 p.m.; room 534, 3401 Walnut Street (Penn Institute for Computational Science).

            Conversations with Musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra; Juliette Kang, Christine Lim, and Marvin Moon, Philadelphia Orchestra; 3 p.m.; Benjamin Franklin Room, Houston Hall; RSVP: https://forms.gle/sNPSEiq1ZACNxWRM9 (Korean Studies).

            Toward a Better Understanding of Hereditary Cancer: Dissecting BRCA1 Haploinsufficiency Through Precise in Vivo Models; Carman Li, Harvard University; 4 p.m.; Glen Gaulton Auditorium, BRB, and Zoom webinar; join: https://tinyurl.com/li-talk-apr-24 (Cancer Biology).

25        Special Briefing: America’s $900 Billion Water Crisis; panel of speakers; 11 a.m.; Zoom webinar; register: https://tinyurl.com/iur-talk-apr-25 (Penn Institute for Urban Research).

            Dirty Guns & Grimy Dealers: Examining the Trade of Illicit Firearms With Violent Histories; Brian Wade, Crime and Justice Policy Lab; noon; 4^th floor library, McNeil Building (Criminology).

            Philanthropy’s Role; Amy Schiller, Dartmouth College; Kat Rosqueta, Center for High Impact Philanthropy; noon; location TBA; info: https://tinyurl.com/schiller-rosqueta-apr-25 (School of Social Policy & Practice).

            Optical Coherence Tomography - From Conception to Current Frontiers; David Huang, Casey Eye Institute; 2 p.m.; room 307, Levine Hall (PRECISE Center).

26        Theoretical/Computational/Experimental Phonology; Canaan Breiss, University of Southern California; 10:15 a.m.; room 401, Fisher-Bennett Hall (Linguistics).

            Executive Leadership Dialogue; Monica Taylor, chair of Delaware County Council; 1 p.m.; location TBA; info: https://tinyurl.com/taylor-talk-apr-26 (Fels Institute of Government).

            Representations Learnt from Synthetic Volumes Enable Training-free Medical Image Analysis; Neel Dey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2 p.m.; room 534, 3401 Walnut Street (Penn Institute for Computational Science).

30        Collective Transitions in Beating Cilia and Swimming Fish; Eva Kanso, University of Southern California; 10 a.m.; Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall (Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics).

            Identidad Marron: Prácticas Políticas, Estéticas y Antirracistas del sur Global; Chana Mamani, artist and activist; 3:30 p.m.; room 473, McNeil Building (Center for Latin American & Latinx Studies).

            The CONCERN Project: Using AI to Model Nursing Expertise and Provide Early Warning; Kenrick Cato, informatics; 7 p.m.; Zoom webinar; register; https://tinyurl.com/cato-talk-apr-30 (Penn Nursing).

Economics

In-person events at various locations. Info: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/events.

24        Labor Search and Strategic Information Disclosure; Ruben Piazzesi, economics; 12:15 p.m.; room 100, PCPSE.

            A Song of Debt: Internal Debt Emergence; Mingzhuo Deng, economics; 12:45 p.m.; room 100, PCPSE.

            Selling Subscriptions; Ben Klopack, Texas A&M University; 3:30 p.m.; room 100, PCPSE.

            Heterogeneous Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity: Foundations of a Nonlinear Phillips Curve; Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé, Columbia University; 4 p.m.; room 101, PCPSE.

25        Learning to Love Globalization; Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Prudentia; noon; room B2, Meyerson Hall.

            Measurements in Economics; Orazio Attanasio, Yale University; 3:30 p.m.; room TBA, PCPSE.

GRASP Lab

Unless noted, hybrid events at Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall, and Zoom webinar. Info: https://www.grasp.upenn.edu/events/.

24        New Wine in an Old Bottle: A Structured Approach to Democratize Robot Learning; Harish Ravichandar, Georgia Institute of Technology; 3 p.m.; room 307, Levine Hall.

Mathematics

Info: https://www.math.upenn.edu/events.

23        Programmable Matter and Emergent Computation; Dana Randall, Georgia Tech; 3:30 p.m.; room 4C8, DRL.

24        On Proving Mathematics Has No Contradictions; Henry Towsner, mathematics; 3:45 p.m.; room A2, DRL.

26        Mapping Class Group and Dehn Twists of p-adic Fields; Nadav Gropper, University of Haifa; 3:30 p.m.; room 4N30, DRL.

This is an update to the April AT PENN calendar, which is online now. The May AT PENN calendar appears in this issue of Almanac. Email almanac@upenn.edu to submit events for a future AT PENN calendar or weekly update.

Division of Public Safety University of Pennsylvania Police Department Crime Report

About the Crime Report: Below are the Crimes Against Persons and/or Crimes Against Property from the campus report for April 8-14, 2024. The Crime Reports are available at: https://almanac.upenn.edu/sections/crimes. Prior weeks’ reports are also online. –Eds.

This summary is prepared by the Division of Public Safety (DPS) and contains all criminal incidents reported and made known to the Penn Police, including those reported to the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) that occurred within our patrol zone, for the dates of April 8-14, 2024. The Penn Police actively patrol from Market Street to Baltimore Avenue and from 30^th Street to 43^rd Street in conjunction with the Philadelphia Police.

In this effort to provide you with a thorough and accurate report on public safety concerns, we hope that your increased awareness will lessen the opportunity for crime. For any concerns or suggestions regarding this report, please call DPS at (215) 898-7297. You may view the daily crime log on the DPS website.

Penn Police Patrol Zone
Market Street to Baltimore Avenue and from 30^th Street to 43^rd Street

Philadelphia Police 18th District
Schuylkill River to 49th Street & Market Street to Woodland Avenue

Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 13 incidents were reported for April 8-14, 2024. by the 18^th District, covering the Schuylkill River to 49th Street & Market Street to Woodland Avenue.

The Division of Public Safety offers resources and support to the Penn community. DPS developed a few helpful risk reduction strategies outlined below. Know that it is never the fault of the person impacted (victim/survivor) by crime.

• See something concerning? Connect with Penn Public Safety 24/7 at (215) -573-3333.
• Worried about a friend’s or colleague’s mental or physical health? Get 24/7 connection to appropriate resources at (215) 898-HELP (4357).
• Seeking support after experiencing a crime? Call Special Services - Support and Advocacy resources at (215) 898-4481 or email an advocate at specialservices@publicsafety.upenn.edu
• Use the Walking Escort and Riding services available to you free of charge.
• Take a moment to update your cellphone information for the UPennAlert Emergency Notification System
• Download the Penn Guardian App which can help Police better find your location when you call in an emergency.
• Access free self-empowerment and defense courses through Penn DPS.
• Stay alert and reduce distractions; using cellphones, ear buds, etc. may limit your awareness.
• Orient yourself to your surroundings. (Identify your location, nearby exits, etc.)
• Keep your valuables out of sight and only carry necessary documents.

Another tip in a series provided by the Offices of Information Security, Information Systems & Computing and Audit, Compliance & Privacy

To help secure your accounts, Penn and many other organizations have implemented two-step verification. Two-step verification adds an additional layer of security to your accounts. It works by adding something you have, such as your phone, to something you know, which is your username and password.

While two-step verification helps to keep your information secure, it can also be used by hackers to fool you into a compromise of your accounts. By being mindful of your accounts and how you use them, you can help prevent a compromise. 

Only approve push notifications when you have initiated them. If you have not entered your username and password directly onto a website, and you receive an unexpected push notification, do not approve it, and instead deny it. If you are inundated with push notifications you have not initiated, contact your local computing support immediately for assistance. Duo pushes that you have not initiated may indicate an active attempt to compromise your account.

For more information on two-step verification, visit https://upenn.edu/twostep.

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For additional tips, see the One Step Ahead link on the Information Security website: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/news-alerts#One-Step-Ahead.