Penn Provost Wendell Pritchett and Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen are pleased to announce the appointment of the tenth cohort of Penn Fellows.

The Penn Fellows Program provides leadership development to select Penn faculty in their mid-career. Begun in 2009, it includes opportunities to build alliances across the University, meet distinguished academic leaders, think strategically about University governance and consult with Penn’s senior administrators.

This year’s cohort:

Benjamin Abella, professor of emergency medicine and director of the Center for Resuscitation Science in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies sudden cardiac arrest, a leading cause of death that claims over 300,000 lives each year in the United States.

Ritesh Agarwal, professor of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, is developing techniques for the rational synthesis of functional nanostructural materials for applications in nanophotonic and electronic devices.

José A. Bauermeister, Presidential Associate Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing, researches comprehensive HIV/STI prevention and care programs for high-risk adolescents and young adults, including young gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (YGBMSM); perinatally HIV-infected and HIV-affected youth; and racial/ethnic minorities living in urban centers. 

Elizabeth Brannon, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Professor in the Natural Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences, researches the evolution and development of quantitative cognition, studying how adult humans, infants, young children and nonhuman animals without language represent numbers.

Samantha Butts, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the Perelman School of Medicine, is a reproductive epidemiologist who has made research contributions toward developing a better understanding of how key micronutrients and environmental chemicals affect reproductive health in women and their offspring.

André Dombrowski, associate professor of history of art in the School of Arts and Sciences, focuses his research and teaching on the arts and material cultures of France and Germany, and their empires, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century.

Zahra Fakhraai, associate professor of chemistry in the School of Arts and Sciences, focuses on understanding the influence of surfaces and interfaces on the properties of amorphous materials at nanometer length scales.

Tulia Falleti, Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program in the School of Arts and Sciences, is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on Latin America.

Autumn Fiester, assistant professor of medical ethics in the Perelman School of Medicine, is director of the Penn Program in Clinical Conflict Management, which promotes conflict resolution training for formal clinical ethics consultations and ethics conflicts at the bedside.

Michael Hanchard, professor of Africana studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, is a scholar of comparative politics specializing in nationalism, social movements, racial hierarchy and citizenship.

Jennifer Kogan, professor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses her research on assessment in medical education, particularly feedback, competency assessment and developing and assessing the effectiveness of new approaches for faculty development in workplace-based assessment.

Serguei Netessine, professor of operations, information and decisions in the Wharton School, focuses his research on business model innovation and operational excellence while using a broad set of econometric tools to analyze data that focuses on strategic customer behavior in operational settings.

Rose Nolen-Walston, associate professor of medicine in the School of Veterinary Medicine, has a clinical specialty in large animal medicine with a research focus on equine encephalitis, equine endotoxemia/sepsis models, equine pulmonary function, histamine bronchoprovocation and large animal emergency.

Melissa Sanchez, associate professor of English and comparative literature in the School of Arts and Sciences, studies and teaches sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, with a particular focus on gender, sexuality, and constitutional and religious history.

Eric Stoopler, associate professor of oral medicine in the School of Dental Medicine, focuses on the advancement of oral medicine as an integral component of health education and clinical care through the development of postdoctoral oral medicine education.

Deborah Thomas, R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, is a cultural anthropologist with a focus on the Caribbean whose research interests include political anthropology, the afterlives of imperialism, transnationalism and diaspora, race and gender and culture and political economy.

Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, professor of law and psychology in Penn Law, studies the psychology of legal decision-making, addressing the role of moral judgment with a particular focus on private contracts and negotiations.