Provost John L. Jackson, Jr. and Vice Provost for Faculty Laura W. Perna have announced the appointment of the sixteenth 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.

Health Track

Kara Anne Bernstein, the George W. Raiziss Professor II in Biochemistry and Biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses her research on proteins that contribute to cancer development and the accurate repair of DNA double-strand breaks, using the budding yeast and mammalian systems.

Kenrick Cato, a professor of clinical informatics in the School of Nursing, focuses his research on using electronic patient data to support decision-making for clinicians, patients, and caregivers and on using and modeling nursing data to optimize the value of nursing in healthcare.

Philip Gehrman, a professor of clinical psychology in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses his research on insomnia and other sleep disorders in the context of mental health conditions, using a variety of research approaches to understand how sleep and mental health are intertwined.

Priti Lal, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses her research on the application of high-throughput technology to gain insights into the biology of human cancers, with focus on urothelial and prostate cancers.

Amol Navathe, a professor of medical ethics and health policy in the Perelman School of Medicine, has expertise in policy analysis and design, the economic behavior of physicians and hospitals, and the application of informatics and predictive analytics to healthcare.

Paul M. Titchenell, an associate professor of physiology in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses his research on the regulation of metabolism by hormones and nutrients, especially insulin, the master regulator of organismal anabolic metabolism.

Humanities Track

Vaughn A. Booker, the George E. Doty, Jr. & Lee Spelman Doty Presidential Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, is a historian of 20th-century African American religions, especially practices of simultaneously (re)making religious and racial identities, communities, and forms of authority.

Ian Fleishman, an associate professor of cinema and media studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses his work on sex and violence and their influence on the evolution of narrative form and its underlying epistemological shift from modernism to postmodernism.

Scott Francis, an associate professor of French and Francophone studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies reformation theology, gender and the Querelle des Femmes, alterity, rhetoric, and print culture.

Sarah Guérin, an associate professor of the history of art in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses her research on the material conditions of medieval art, with an emphasis on the socio-economic circumstances and theological conceits surrounding the production and use of art.

Bakirathi Mani, the Penn Presidential Compact Professor of English in the School of Arts & Sciences, specializes in South Asian American public cultures, particularly how empires in the U.S. and in postcolonial South Asia shape South Asian American racial formations.

Jennifer Morton, the Penn Presidential Compact Professor of Philosophy, focuses her research on the philosophy of action, moral philosophy, the philosophy of education, and political philosophy.

Teemu Ruskola, a professor in the Penn Carey Law School, focuses his research on the study of Chinese law and society in a comparative and global context, with an interest in China’s place and role in the development of social theory.

Jorge Téllez, an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses his research on the legacies of colonialism in Latin American cultural production, past and present, with an emphasis on Mexico.

Elly R. Truitt, an associate professor of the history and sociology of science in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies the circulation of scientific objects and natural knowledge throughout central and western Eurasia and north Africa, from antiquity into the early modern period.

Social Science Track

Rachel B. Baker, an associate professor in the policy, organizations, leadership, and systems division in the Graduate School of Education, studies access to and success in higher education, with a focus on students in broad-access institutions.  

Arthur van Benthem, an associate professor of business economics and public policy in the Wharton School, specializes in environmental and energy economics, the unintended consequences of environmental legislation, and the economic efficiency of energy policies.

Sarah Bush, an associate professor of political science in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses her research on how international actors try to aid democracy, promote women’s representation, and influence elections globally, as well as the politics of climate change.

Ioana E. Marinescu, an associate professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice, focuses her research on wage determination and monopsony power, antitrust law for the labor market, the universal basic income, unemployment insurance, and green jobs.

Xi Song, an associate professor of sociology in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses her research on statistical, demographic, and computational techniques to understand how patterns of social inequality are created and changed within and across generations.

STEM Track

Allyson Mackey, an associate professor of psychology in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies how changes in the brain give rise to changes in the mind, both as development unfolds and in response to experience.

Ryan Hynd, a professor of mathematics in the School of Arts & Sciences, focuses his research on partial differential equations, especially in mathematical models for fluid mechanics, control theory, finance, and with eigenvalue problems.

E. James Petersson, a professor of chemistry in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies the roles of proteins in the understanding of diverse biological phenomena, especially how proteins fold and change shape, with applications in neuroscience and medicine.