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

Marlyse Baptista, the President’s Distinguished Professor of Linguistics in the School of Arts & Sciences, is a contact linguist and morphosyntactician who specializes in Pidgin and Creole languages (and their source languages), and in theories of language emergence, language contact and change.

Joel Boerckel, an associate professor of orthopaedic surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies how mechanical cues influence morphogenesis, growth, adaptation, and repair, and how these physical stimuli can be used to induce regeneration.

Ken Cadwell, the T. Grier Miller Professor of Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, investigates how the human immune system has adapted to the diverse microbial agents we encounter in our lifetime, focusing on the gastrointestinal tract.

Bodong Chen, an associate professor of learning sciences and technologies in the Graduate School of Education, aims to generate justice-oriented pedagogical designs, technological innovations, and empirical understanding of learning in authentic settings.

Modupe Coker, an associate professor of basic and translational sciences in the School of Dental Medicine, focuses on the study of the microbiome and its relationship with early-life infections, behavioral factors, and environmental influences on oral and dental health.

Jorge Henao-Mejia, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies the interactions between the immune system and whole body and cellular metabolism in the context of health and obesity.

Allison Hoffman, the William Maul Measey Professor of Law and Health Sciences in the Penn Carey Law School, is an expert on healthcare law and policy who examines legal and social issues, including health insurance regulation, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and retiree healthcare expenses, and long-term care.

Monisha Kumar, a professor of neurology in the Perelman School of Medicine, is a neurointensivist and clinical researcher whose area of expertise is in coagulation derangements associated with severe brain injury.

Emily Largent, the Emanuel & Robert Hart Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine, explores ethical and regulatory aspects of human subjects research as well the social, legal, and ethical considerations that arise when research findings are translated into care. 

Jessa Lingel, an associate professor of communication in the Annenberg School for Communication, focuses on digital culture and technological distributions of power. She uses qualitative and interpretive methods to understand relationships between people and technologies.

Damaris Lorenzo, an associate professor of cell and developmental biology in the Perelman School of Medicine, focuses on understanding how membrane and cytoskeleton adaptors modulate cellular processes to maintain homeostasis and how their dysregulation leads to disease.

Adriana Perez, an associate professor of nursing in the School of Nursing, studies the influence of multi-level factors on physical activity, cardiovascular health, cognitive health, and sleep among Spanish-speaking older Latinos with Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD).

Jordan Raney, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, studies experimental mechanics and additive manufacturing of novel composites and material architectures—including hierarchical, heterogeneous, fibrous, and soft systems.

Megan Ryerson, the UPS Foundation Chair of Transportation and a professor of city and regional planning in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, researches transportation engineering and planning, with special attention to intercity transportation planning and urban transportation safety. 

Carlos Santana, an associate professor of philosophy in the School of Arts & Sciences, specializes in the philosophy of science, applied ethics, and the philosophy of language and aims to better equip communities to deal with environmental change.

William Sturkey, an associate professor of history in the School of Arts & Sciences, is a historian of the United States who specializes in the history of race in the American South since 1865. He is an innovative narrative historian who employs a variety of methodologies in social, economic, diplomatic, and narrative history.

Alexis Topjian, a professor of anesthesiology and critical care in the Perelman School of Medicine, is a pediatric critical care medicine physician whose research area is cardiac arrest, specifically post cardiac arrest care and pediatric neurocritical care.

Dirk Trauner, the George A. Weiss University Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies the power of chemical synthesis with challenging target molecules and how to use it toward the establishment of synthetic biological pathways.

Whitney Trettien, an associate professor of English in the School of Arts & Sciences, researches the history of the book and other print and digital text texhnologies. She is invested in exploring the past to better understand our present media environment.

Andrew Vaughan, an associate professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine, focuses his research on defining and understanding the relevant cell types and molecular mechanisms by which the mammalian lung is able to regenerate after severe injury.

Allison Willis, an associate professor of neurology and of epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine, researches drug-disease interactions in Parkinson’s Disease, and health disparities as experienced by individuals with neurological conditions across the lifespan.