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

The Penn Fellows Program provides leadership development to select Penn faculty in 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.

Tami Benton, associate professor of psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies pediatric psychosomatic illnesses and minority health, specifically Sickle Cell Disease and HIV, and comorbid depressive disorders.

Julia Hartmann, professor of mathematics in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses on algebraic structures and their symmetries. She is now the faculty sponsor of Penn’s Association for Women in Mathematics chapter.

De’Broski Herbert, associate professor of pathobiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, researches regulatory networks, immunity, inflammation, tissue repair and mucosal interface.

Rebecca Hubbard, associate professor of biostatistics in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses her research on development and application of statistical methodology for studies that use observational data from clinical medical practice.

Daeyeon Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, focuses his research on developing deep understanding of the interactions between soft materials.

Christopher Lengner, associate professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine, is the associate director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a faculty director of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research. His lab is broadly interested in the mechanisms by which stem cells acquire and maintain developmental potency.

Julia Lynch, associate professor of political science in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses her research on the politics of inequality, social policy, and the economy in comparative perspective, with a focus on the countries of Western Europe and the United States.

Matthew McHugh, professor and Independence Chair for Nursing Education in the School of Nursing, has advanced the field of nursing outcomes and policy research by showing the value of investing in nursing as a vehicle to achieve a higher functioning health-care system.

Raina Merchant, associate professor of emergency medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, conducts research at the intersection of digital media and health. Much of her work also bridges new technologies in the field of cardiovascular health and resuscitation science.

Masao Sako, associate professor and undergraduate chair of physics and astronomy in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses on observational cosmology with supernovae (SNe). He is also interested in several aspects of high energy astrophysics including X-ray spectroscopy and observations of gamma-ray bursts, X-ray binaries, supermassive black holes and clusters of galaxies.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, associate professor in the Literacy, Culture and International Education Division of the Graduate School of Education, focuses on children’s and adolescent texts; the teaching of African American literature, history and culture in K-12 classrooms; and the roles that race, class and gender play in classroom discourse and interaction.

Franca Trubiano, associate professor of architecture in the Weitzman School of Design, conducts funded research in the areas of advanced energy retrofits and building information modeling.

Rachel Werner, professor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, is a practicing general internist and a PhD-trained health economist. Her research seeks to understand the effect of health-care policies and delivery systems on quality of care.