Exhibits

26        The Listening Cabinet; select a question about the future of democracy and the U.S. from a drawer and contemplate on your own or strike up a conversation with your neighbor; cabinet features questions submitted by Philadelphians on the eve of the U.S. Semiquincentennial; Feintuch Family Lobby, Annenberg Center. Through May 30, 2026.

Fitness & Learning

24        Goldwater Scholarship Information Session; learn about the Goldwater Foundation, which awards undergraduate scholarships to sophomores and juniors who have outstanding potential; 4 p.m.; room G08/09, College Hall (Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships).

            Graduate Student Bienvenida; celebrate the start of the semester with an event designed for Latinx graduate and professional students to connect across schools, explore resources, and build community; 4-6 p.m.; Castor Courtyard (La Casa Latina, Graduate Student Center).

25        Federal Cuts and IPV Programming; a fireside chat to discuss the impact of federal cuts and mandates on IPV-focused organizations, victims, and survivors; noon; Zoom webinar; register: https://tinyurl.com/gsws-workshop-sep-25 (Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies).

26        Knowledge for Life; associate vice provosts for operations Claire DeMarco and Alexa Pearce will share how the Penn Libraries have evolved to support scholarship, teaching, and lifelong learning—offering insight into the expanding array of services and resources available to retired faculty; noon; room 403, McNeil Building; register: https://pp.events/bAXYgDnY (Penn Association of Senior & Emeritus Faculty).

            Fall Grant-Writing Workshop; learn how you can better position yourself to be a competitive applicant for the College Alumni Society Research Grant or Vagelos Undergraduate Research Grant; 3 p.m.; room G08/09, College Hall (Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships).

            Pan-Asian American Community House (PAACH) Open House (Graduate); learn about Penn’s cultural hub for everyone interested in the diverse cultures and experiences of Asian Pacific Islander (API) communities; 3-5 p.m.; ARCH (Pan-Asian American Community House).

29        Transgender Periods Workshop; gain skills, receive transgender-affirming period supplies, and get resources; 6:30 p.m.; LGBT Center; registration required; info: https://ulife.vpul.upenn.edu/calendar/host/LGBT-Center/24 (LGBT Center).

30        Building Your Class Vocabulary: How to Talk about Money, Resources, and Class Background; participate in a transformative, shame-free conversation about how we all experience wealth, varying levels of social class, and shifting access to money and power at Penn; 6 p.m.; room G13, College Hall; register: https://tinyurl.com/paideia-dialogue-sep-30 (SNF Paideia Program).

Graduate School of Education

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

24        Alumni Panel: Where Can Your GSE Degree Take You; 4 p.m.

25        Learning Analytics & Artificial Intelligence (Online) MSEd Virtual Information Session; 7 p.m.

Morris Arboretum & Gardens

Info: https://www.morrisarboretum.org/.

30        Goodbye Pollinators, Hello Autumn!; an opportunity to say goodbye to our migrating butterflies and hummingbirds with songs, poems, and crafts; 11 a.m.

Penn Libraries

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

24        Grad Cafe: Podcasts & Digital Scholarship at Penn Libraries; will introduce some of the approaches graduate students and early career scholars are taking to create or contribute to podcasts in order to share research more broadly; 11 a.m.; room 241, Van Pelt Library.

            Paint with Dr. Spieler; a screen-free crafternoon to learn how to paint; noon; room LL02A, Leon Levy Dental Library, Evans Building.

            Intro to Vacuum Forming for Packaging Design Part 2 of 2; learn to use a vacuum former to create your own commercial looking product using digital design and fabrication; 2-4 p.m.; Makerspace, Education Commons.

25        AI in Action: Smart Prompts & Creative Applications for Students; learn effective AI prompt writing and visual content creation for college projects in this hands-on workshop covering ChatGPT techniques, AI art generation, and ethical AI use in academic settings; 2 p.m.; room 114, Van Pelt Library.

            Bookbinding Workshop: Pamphlet and Accordion Combinations and Variations; learn the basics of making pamphlets and accordions, and create a handful of small books and book objects to take home; 5 p.m.; seminar room level B, Fisher Fine Arts Library.

30        Community Study Sessions—September; a relaxed, supportive space to stay focused, meet others, and enjoy free snacks; 6-8 p.m.; room 124, Van Pelt Library.

Readings & Signings

24        Tell Me What You Like: An Honest Discussion of Sex and Intimacy After Sexual Assault; Kate Simon, journalist; 5:30 p.m.; 2^nd floor conference room, Penn Bookstore (Penn Bookstore).

25        The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood; Kristen Martin, journalist; 5:30 p.m.; 2^nd floor conference room, Penn Bookstore (Penn Bookstore).

Talks

23        Architectures, Topologies and Control for High-Frequency Power Electronics; Khurram Khan Afridi, Cornell University; 11 a.m.; room 225, Towne Building (Electrical & Systems Engineering).

24        Advancing Oral Macrocyclic Peptides as a New Modality: The Discovery and Development of Enlicitide; Robert M. Garbaccio, MERCK; noon; Carolyn Hoff Lynch Lecture Hall, 1973 Chemistry Building (Chemistry).

            Aldehyde Resistance of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis; K. Heran Darwin, New York University; noon; Austrian Auditorium, CRB (Microbiology).

            How Do LLMs Generalize on Out-of-Distribution Tasks? Insights from Model’s Internal Representations; Yiqiao Zhong, University of Wisconsin-Madison; noon; room 414, Amy Gutmann Hall, and Zoom webinar; join: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/91447341103 (ASSET Center).

            Decoding the Moment: Obamacare Subsidies at a Crossroads; Katherine Baicker, University of Chicago; Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 1 p.m.; online webinar; register: https://tinyurl.com/gruber-talk-sep-24 (Leonard Davis Institute).

            Indexing War; Sonal Khullar, history of art; 3 p.m.; room 113, Jaffe Building (History of Art).

            Interpreting and Leveraging Generative Representations; Deepti Ghadiyaram, Boston University; 3 p.m.; room 307, Levine Hall, and Zoom webinar; join: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96632884234 (GRASP Lab).

            Imaging Genetics: Enhancer-mediated Dynamic Gene Control in Space and Time; Bomyi Lim, chemical & biomolecular engineering; 3:30 p.m.; Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering).

            Ramanujan Property and Edge Universality of Random Regular Graphs; Jiaoyang Huang, statistics and data science; 3:30 p.m.; room A4, DRL (Mathematics).

            Single Cell Experiments at the Epithelial Barrier: Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Host-Microbiome Interactions; Oni Basu, University of Chicago; 3:30 p.m.; room A8, DRL (Physics & Astronomy).

            Uncovering the Ancient Milky Way; Anirudh Chiti, University of Chicago; 3:30 p.m.; room 4E19, DRL (Physics & Astronomy).

            The Big House and the Large City; Kersten Geers, architect; 6:30 p.m.; Plaza Gallery, Meyerson Hall (Architecture).

25        Designing Biomaterials With Spatially Tunable Properties; Lesley Chow, Lehigh University; 10:30 a.m.; Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall (Materials Science & Engineering).

            Propagation-of-Chaos in Shallow Neural Networks Beyond Logarithmic Time; Joan Bruna, New York University; noon; room 414, Amy Gutmann Hall, and Zoom webinar; join: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/98220304722 (IDEAS Center, Statistics & Data Science, PennAI).

            Representing the President; Chad A. Readler, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals; Mike McGinley, Dechert; noon; room 240A, Silverman Hall; register: https://tinyurl.com/readler-mcginley-talk-sep-25 (Federalist Society).

            Translated Subjects: Race, Sexuality, and Empire; Hamit Arvas, English; Jonathan Gil Harris and Madhavi Menon, Ashoka University; 3 p.m.; room 135, Fisher-Bennett Hall (Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, English).

            Physical Biology Strategies for Translational Bioelectrical Interfaces; Bozhi Tian, University of Chicago; 3:30 p.m.; room 216, Moore Building (Bioengineering).

            "Domesticating" Climate Change: The Intertwining of Climate and Development in India; Navroz K. Dubash, Princeton University; 4:30 p.m.; World Forum, Perry World House; register: https://casi.sas.upenn.edu/events/navroz-dubash (Perry World House, Center for the Advanced Study of India).

            Domestic and Spectacular Energy at the Parisian Expositions: Le Pavillon du Gaz (1889) and Le Palais de l'électricité (1900); Anne O’Neil-Henry, Georgetown University; 5:15 p.m.; room 543, Williams Hall (French, Italian, & Germanic Studies).

            Taiwan at the Center: Twentieth-Century Economy, Total War, Cold War; James Gergen-Chen, University of Florida; Junko Ono, Kinjo Gakuin University; Richard Ng, Osaka University; Eiichiro Azuma, Center for East Asian Studies; 5:15 p.m.; room 111, Annenberg School; register: https://tinyurl.com/ceas-talk-sep-25 (Center for East Asian Studies).

            Output: A Celebration of Computer-Generated Text; Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, University of Maryland; Nick Monfort, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Steve McLaughlin, writer; Jim Carpenter, Wharton School; Syd Zolf, English; 6 p.m.; Kelly Writers House, and YouTube livestream; register: https://pricelab.sas.upenn.edu/events/output-celebration-computer-generated-text (Price Lab for Digital Humanities).

26        The Picture of Her: Transnational Representations of Vietnamese Women Soldiers; Nicole Hoang, ASAM fellow; noon; room 473, McNeil Building; RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/hoang-talk-sep-26 (Asian American Studies).

            Workforce-Aligned Grant Aid; Rajeev Darolia, University of Kentucky; noon; room 201, Stiteler Hall (Graduate School of Education).

            Foreign Influencer Operations: How TikTok Shapes American Perceptions of China; Daniel Mattingly, Yale University; 12:15 p.m.; room 500, Annenberg School (Elihu Katz Colloquium).

            New Considerations in Legacy Pollutants: Urban Stormwater Management for Nitrogen: Inorganic, Organic, and Synthetic Forms; Erica R. McKenzie, Temple University; 3 p.m.; room 358, Hayden Hall (Earth & Environmental Studies).

27        Politics of Placement in the 18th Dynasty Theban Necropolis; JJ Shirley, University of Michigan; 3:30 p.m.; Penn Museum; tickets: $10/general, $7/members and Penn faculty and staff, $5/students with ID, free/ARCE members; info: https://www.penn.museum/calendar/866/arce-pa-lecture (Penn Museum, American Research Center in Egypt, Pennsylvania Chapter).

29        Beyond the National Frame: Scenes from the Indo-Pak Border; Natasha Raheja, Cornell University; noon; room 345, Penn Museum (Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of India).

            Creator Logic-in-Practice: Political Content Creators and the Negotiation of Influence in the Post-Networked Era; Yena Lee, Center on Digital Culture and Society; 12:15 p.m.; room 300, Annenberg School; register: https://tinyurl.com/lee-talk-sep-29 (Center on Digital Culture and Society).

            Pattern Dynamics Appearing On Compact Metric Graph; Toshi Ogawa, Meiji University; 4 p.m.; room 3W2, DRL (Mathematics).

            “These Thoughts Were All in French, Almost Untranslatable”: The Bilingual Manuscript Notebooks of Kerouac’s Maggie Cassidy; Jean-Christophe Cloutier, English; 5:15 p.m.; Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt Library (Workshop in the History of Material Texts).    

            Remembering 1991 in Central Asia: Shock Therapy? Marianne Kamp, Indiana University; 5:30 p.m.; location TBA (History, Russian & East European Studies).

30        Taking Advantage of Coherent Vortex Wakes: Formation Flight and High Density Tidal Energy Harvesting; Kenneth Breuer, Brown University; 10:15 a.m.; Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall (Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics).

            Chemical Processes in Nano/Microphase Structured Fluids; Lauren Zarzar, Penn State University; noon; Carolyn Hoff Lynch Lecture Hall, 1973 Chemistry Building (Chemistry).

            Debt and Capital in the Medieval Egyptian Countryside; Lorenzo Bondioli, Harvard University; noon; room 209, College Hall (History).

            Cooperation and Chasm: The Health and Future of Global Public Health; Satoshi “Toshi” Ezoe, Senior Assistant Minister for Global Health in Japan; Louise Moncla, Penn Vet; Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Penn Nursing; 4 p.m.; World Forum, Perry World House; register: https://tinyurl.com/pwh-talk-sep-30 (Perry World House).

            Racial Capitalism, Enslavement and Fugitivity in Charleston, SC; Lisa Brock, Adler University; 5 p.m.; room 329A, Max Kade Center; register: https://tinyurl.com/brock-talk-sep-30 (Africana Studies).

            Barbershop Music, Racial Segregation, and Civil Rights, 1938-1963; Clifton Boyd, New York University; 5:15 p.m.; room 101, Lerner Building (Music).

            The Marionettist: Fradl Shtok and the Lexicon of Yiddish Joy; Sunny S. Yudkoff, University of Wisconsin–Madison; 5:15 p.m.; room 543, Williams Hall (French, Italian & Germanic Studies).

            Did Words on the Wall Matter More? Public Scripture and Jewish–Christian Encounters in the First Centuries CE; Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; 5:30 p.m.; Levy Conference Room, Penn Carey Law; register: https://penncareylaw.cventevents.com/qxa2Qw (Penn Carey Law).

            Underwater Revelations: Exploring Climate and Architecture Below the Surface; Michael Weisberg, philosophy; Mantha Zarmakoupi, history of art; 5:30 p.m.; room 121, Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology; register: https://tinyurl.com/weisberg-zarmakoupi-sep-30 (Penn Science Café).

Economics

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

23        Universal Social Pension and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal; Shreemayi Samujjwala, economics; noon; room 101, PCPSE.

24        The Fragility of Government Funding Advantage; Jonathan Payne, Princeton University; 4 p.m.; room 200, PCPSE.

25        Grade Inflation, Signaling, and Status Externality in the PhD Admission Market; Siqi Li, economics; 3:30 p.m.; room 101, PCPSE.

29        Revisiting the National JTPA Study: Estimation of the Distribution of Job Training Effects; Young Ahn, economics; noon; room 203, PCPSE.

30        The Impact of Publicly Funded Home Based Care on Nursing Home Quality; Brady Smith, economics; noon; room 101, PCPSE.

This is an update to the September AT PENN calendar, which is available online now. Submit events for AT PENN calendars or weekly updates at almanac@upenn.edu.