February 9, 2021 Volume 67 Issue 26

Penn Dental Medicine has received a major gift that will provide the resources to help build the School’s leadership role in global oral (public) health. A $5 million gift from Penn Dental Medicine alumnus Garry Rayant, D’77, and his wife, Kathy Fields, will create a new endowed professorship at the School and establish the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health.

“We are immensely grateful to Garry Rayant and Kathy Fields for this exceptional gift,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Penn Dental Medicine has long been a pioneer in advancing innovations that transform dental education, research, and practice here in Philadelphia and throughout the world. This inspired commitment will continue that work by creating the Fields-Rayant Endowed Professorship and allowing us to take significant steps toward launching a new Center for Integrative Global Oral Health.”

“The tremendous vision and generosity of Dr. Rayant and Dr. Fields will have a far-reaching impact,” said Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean, Mark S. Wolff. “Through this new Center, we will be able to elevate the discussion on the vital role of oral heath as part of overall health, to influence local, national, and global oral health policy, and to educate and train graduates to lead in developing public policy and addressing health inequities.”

The endowed Fields-Rayant Professorship will provide the first step in organizing the Center, enabling the recruitment of a leader to work with faculty, develop curricula, and leverage partnerships within the University and beyond in formulating an initial plan of investigation. Some of the primary goals of the Center include developing curricula for DMD and Master’s-level training in issues of oral disease prevention, social-behavioral and commercial determinants of (oral) health, and integration of oral health as part of overall health, including the establishment of a Penn Dental Medicine Master of Public Oral Health degree; conducting health policy and health systems research from both domestic and global perspectives; and advancing dialogue in these areas with educators, practitioners, and policy makers.

“Kathy and I believe that Penn Dental Medicine has the capacity to be a tremendous force in amplifying the current dialogue about global and integrative oral health,” said Dr. Rayant, who is a member of the Penn Dental Medicine Board of Advisors and will chair the initial advisory group for the center. “In keeping with Jerome M. Adams Surgeon General’s 2020 report and priorities, the Center will evaluate the interaction between oral health and general health throughout the lifespan and consider advances in science, health care integration, and social influences to articulate promising new directions for improving oral health and oral health equity across communities. The impact of one of the oldest and most highly regarded dental schools in the United States taking on this work will be profound; we are excited to be part of it and for the many affiliated faculties that Penn uniquely brings to bear.”

Dr. Rayant has had a long-time interest in oral epidemiology, dental public health, and health behavior. A specialist in periodontics and implant dentistry, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist, he retired from clinical practice in December 2018. Dr. Rayant is editor-in-chief emeritus of Dear Doctor, a print and online national consumer health care magazine, for which he was co-founder and partner along with Penn alumnus Dr. Mario Vilardi, GD ’77. In addition to serving on the Board of Advisors to Penn Dental Medicine, Dr. Rayant also serves on the Board of Advisors of Penn’s Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Dr. Rayant is active in the area of education and educational reform: he is chair of the advisory committee at the Center for Children & Youth, JFCS Bay Area, and a member of several other advisory boards and councils (including that of Rodan & Fields, a premium skincare brand co-founded by his wife, Dr. Kathy Fields).

“By creating this center, we will be challenging the oral health community—and particularly oral health educators—to move well beyond producing technically adept professionals operating in isolation from other health providers,” said Dean Wolff. “Rather, we will become a visible force for integrative health, speaking truth to power about prevention and solidifying the role of the dentist as fundamental to ensuring the public’s overall good health.”

Penn Dental Medicine plans to launch a multi-year fundraising initiative to match the $5 million contribution from Drs. Rayant and Fields to capitalize the new center with an enduring endowment.

A team of researchers led by Li-San Wang, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded a two-year pilot grant expected to total $4.8 million from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, for studies of the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease in people of Asian heritage.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia among seniors, affects about 6.5 million people in the United States and Canada combined. Its prevalence is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades as these countries’ populations age. The cause or causes of AD are still unclear, and success testing therapeutic targets to slow or stop the disease process has been elusive in the last two decades despite many clinical trials. Scientists continue to seek clues to the disease’s origin in large genetic studies as well as studies of lifestyle and other factors. But while susceptibility to diseases may differ by ethnicity, and indeed small genetic studies suggest that Asians may have a distinct set of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s, studies of this disease (and many other complex diseases) so far have recruited mostly populations of European ancestry.

A key goal of the new project, which is called the Asian Cohort for Alzheimer’s Disease (ACAD), is to enroll a population of at least 5,000 participants of Asian ancestry in the United States and Canada—a large enough sample to enable the discovery of new gene variants related to AD risk. ACAD will be recruiting participants over age 60 who have evidence of cognitive impairment, as well as age- and sex-matched controls who have no cognitive complaints. The researchers will compare the DNA, medical histories, and lifestyle factors of these two groups for clues to risks for dementia, and will track participants’ memory and other cognitive test scores.

Dr. Wang has a distinguished track record in research on the genetics of neurodegenerative disease and the management of collaborations for such research. He co-directs the Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center, and the NIA-funded Genome Center for Alzheimer’s Disease (GCAD) and NIA Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS).  He is a faculty member of the newly founded Penn Center for Global Genomics and Health Equity directed by Sarah Tishkoff, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology, who is on the ACAD scientific advisory board.

For the two-year pilot period covered by the initial funding, Dr. Wang and colleagues will demonstrate the feasibility of the wider project by first enrolling and beginning studies of a smaller cohort of ethnic Chinese participants at a number of academic centers in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, ACAD will conduct pilot studies for recruiting Korean American and Vietnamese Americans to validate recruitment strategies and assessment procedures in preparation for the full project. ACAD investigators have invested heavily in the enrollment team’s crucial role in engaging directly with local ethnic Asian communities and their senior populations, with bilingual staffing and in a culturally sensitive way, to develop long-term trust and thereby enhance the recruitment effort.

“We really have an exceptionally cross-collaborative team for this project, which may be the key to our ultimate aim to assemble a large-enough cohort that we can get a clear picture of the genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease among Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians,” Dr. Wang said. “Having a better understanding of these risk factors will inform treatment and other care-related decisions, especially when effective treatments are available, and should also help us make more accurate models of the lifetime Alzheimer’s risk in these fast-growing segments of the aging population.”

Penn investigators include Gerard Schellenberg, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Mingyao Li, a professor of biostatistics, epidemiology, and informatics (DBEI). The other principal investigators for the project are Helena Chui, of the University of Southern California, Van Ta Park, of the University of California—San Francisco, and Gyungah Jun, of Boston University. 

The Crossroads Project, co-directed by Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious studies and Africana studies, was awarded a $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Dr. Butler directs the project with Judith Weisenfeld, the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor and chair of the department of religion at Princeton University, and Lerone A. Martin, an associate professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Crossroads Project: Black Religious Histories, Communities, and Cultures is a new initiative based in the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. Drs. Butler, Weisenfeld, and Martin will lead the creation of a digital archive of materials related to Black religious life in the U.S., a first-of its kind resource for scholars, teachers, religious and civic leaders, community organizations, and artists.

“This funding comes at a crucial time,” Dr. Butler explains. “A lot of historical material is being lost, and it is essential that we preserve it and create ways for people to access it. And as we reckon with the history of racism in this country, it is important for people to understand how African American religious groups have fought for equality and acted as stabilizing forces.”

“Philadelphia is an important center of African American religion,” she adds. “There is a richness here, and all of these religious groups have a stake in the city’s history. I’m anxious to get historical resources online for people to see.”

In addition to the creation of a digital archive, the four-year, multi-institution project will include public events and support for early-career scholars.

“Anthea, along with her colleagues in the religious studies and Africana studies departments, has been doing important work on the religious lives of Black Americans and the diasporic community,” says Steven J. Fluharty, Dean of SAS and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience. “The Luce Foundation grant recognizes her as a leader in the field and will help to advance understanding of influential yet understudied communities.”

Jonathan VanAntwerpen, program director at the Henry Luce Foundation. also notes the fit between the project’s goals and the foundation’s mission. “Working at the intersections of disciplines, geographies, and generations, this compelling initiative will support public scholarship and stimulate the crossing of boundaries separating multiple knowledge communities,” he said. “Seeking to illuminate the diversity and complexity of African American religion, the project’s efforts will reach well beyond North America, examining the historical and contemporary impact of engagements in Africa and across the Americas, as well as the influence of immigration, on Black religious life in the United States. We are delighted to support this important new effort to advance scholarship and enrich public discourse.”

The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative scholarship, cultivating new leaders, and fostering international understanding. Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the Luce Foundation advances its mission through grantmaking and leadership programs in the fields of higher education, religion and theology, art, and public policy.

February 2, 2021

We are writing, now that the Quiet Period has ended, to thank you for a safe and successful start of the semester and to reaffirm our shared commitments for the coming weeks and months.

The Student Campus Compact remains in effect, as does public health guidance from Penn Cares and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, which requires masking, distancing, and handwashing. Students on and off campus must participate in screening testing and enroll in PennOpen Pass, our daily symptom management tool.

For the health and safety of our campus and West Philadelphia communities, you must continue to maintain your household and/or study pods. You may not visit friends in other residences, host parties, or attend large gatherings. All reports of such violations will be investigated by the Campus Compact Review Panel, with the potential for individual and group sanctions. The core concept of the post-Quiet Period phase is “more places, not more faces.”

Continued Vigilance: Virtual and Outdoors 

All personal, social, student government, and club activity taking place virtually must remain virtual. Seeing friends outdoors in small, masked, physically distanced groups and eating takeaway meals may continue, and we are pleased to be opening more opportunities to get food across campus in a careful and safe way.

We are beginning a process for student groups to request opportunities to host in-person events and meetings, indoors or outdoors. Only vetted, approved events will be allowed to take place in designated meeting rooms. The bar for approval will be set intentionally high, given the many steps necessary to ensure participants’ health and safety. To submit a request for an in-person activity (indoors or outdoors), please visit the Graduate Student Center website.

Phased Indoor Openings on Campus

Athletics & Recreation

• A pilot program to begin a gradual re-opening of the Pottruck Health & Fitness Center will allow small groups of students to use the facility on weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Students will be allowed to reserve access for one hour on Floors 1 and 2. Eligibility in this pilot program will be determined in consultation with Campus Health, based on students’ demonstrated adherence to the Campus Compact. Eligible students will be invited to participate in the pilot via email. If successful, this pilot will lead to a phased reservation system for all students at Pottruck in the coming weeks.
• Outdoor recreation hours will resume at the Franklin Field track. You can make reservations at the Campus Recreation website.
• The Penn Park Farm will be open for recreational activities and scheduled, COVID-safe events. Students may also request time slots to host small, physically distanced gatherings.
• Sansom Place East (SPE) will hold several virtual events. SPE residents who are interested in attending a program should contact their GA for more information.

Graduate Study Space 

• The Office of the Deputy Provost and the Graduate Student Center will be providing temporary study/relaxation space for graduate and professional students in the Ben Franklin Room on the 2nd floor of Houston Hall. This space will be available for graduate and professional students Monday-Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., by reservation (1-5 days in advance) at the Graduate Student Center website. 

Penn Libraries 

• Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center has opened limited seating for individual study Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays noon to 5 p.m. All undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are eligible to reserve seats (at least 12 hours in advance). You must comply with Penn’s COVID-19 testing protocols, showing your reservation and PennOpen Green Pass for entry. Learn more and make reservations at the Penn Libraries website. 

Penn Dining 

• Only students with a Green PennOpen Pass will be allowed to enter Dining facilities. Students with a Red PennOpen Pass can follow instructions on the Penn Dining site.
• Sharing food remains a high-risk activity, necessitating a slow transition. Penn Dining has begun piloting 25% seating capacity at Starbucks in 1920 Commons, with reservations in the Penn Eats app.
• Additional indoor dining options will be determined and communicated in the coming weeks.

Perelman Quadrangle will support essential functions:

• Campus testing sites in Houston Hall and Irvine Auditorium
• Grab-and-go service in Houston Market and retail operations at Insomnia Cookies and University Copy Center
• Penn Commons outdoor seating
• Limited indoor meetings and activities (scheduled by administrative units and/or student groups), where approved through the review process described above.

Rest & Recharge

As a reminder, PhD and research master’s degree students will have three days off from classes and assignments in the coming weeks: 

• Friday, February 12
• Tuesday, March 30
• Monday, April 12

Professional students should check with your programs regarding plans for these days. If the days are available to you, we urge you to use them to rest and recharge—relax, unplug, and take part in the virtual events of these three Engagement Days.

Your decisions impact the lives and health of your classmates and our West Philadelphia neighbors. You are implored not to travel, and Penn will not provide COVID-19 testing documentation for travel this semester.

Thank you for your continued dedication to adhering to the public health guidance of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and the University. We are enormously grateful for your resilience and your commitment to keeping our community safe.

—Beth A. Winkelstein, Deputy Provost 
—Benoit Dubé, Associate Provost and Chief Wellness Officer 
—Mamta Motwani Accapadi, Vice Provost for University Life

The Trustees’ Council of Penn Women (TCPW) is accepting applications for its Annual Grants Program and encourages members of the University community to apply.

Grants ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 will be available to individuals or organizations which promote:

• women’s issues
• the quality of undergraduate and graduate life for women
• the advancement of women
• the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of women

Favorable consideration will be given to projects that:

• affect a broad segment of the University population
• foster a greater awareness of women’s issues
• provide seed money for pilot  programs that have the potential to become ongoing  self supporting programs

To apply, visit the TCPW website at TCPW Grant. Applications must be submitted no later than February 19, 2021. Awards will be announced in the spring of 2021 and funds will be distributed in July/August 2021 for projects in the 2021-2022 academic year. For more information, contact Terri Welsh at welsh@upenn.edu.

The McCabe Fund Advisory Committee is calling for applications from junior faculty in the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) and the School of Veterinary Medicine for the annual Thomas B. and Jeannette E. Laws McCabe Fund Fellow and Pilot awards. The McCabe awards were established in 1969 by a gift from Thomas B. and Jeannette E. Laws McCabe to the Perelman School of Medicine.  The purpose of this gift is to support junior faculty who initiate fresh and innovative biomedical, clinical, and surgical research projects. Applications from clinical track physicians are encouraged and will receive special consideration. Faculty who have received either limited or no external research funding while in their first through third years on the faculty at the PSOM or the School of Veterinary Medicine at Penn are eligible. Junior faculty in these schools should contact their Department Chair for information and application forms. The guidelines and instructions to determine eligibility are also available on the PSOM website: https://www.med.upenn.edu/evdresearch/mccabe-fund.html

The deadline for submission is Wednesday, May 12, 2021. The McCabe Fund Advisory Committee will select the winners at its annual meeting in June.

Arti Madhusudan Adya, a former senior application developer in Penn’s Division of Finance, died on January 24. She was 47.

Ms. Adya received a degree from Shivaji University in Kolhapur, India. In 1997, she entered the tech field, becoming a software developer at Comsortium. In 2002, she became a senior programmer analyst at Able Laboratories, Inc.; three years later, she was hired for the same position at Burlington Coat Factory. Ms. Adya worked as an Oracle financials analyst at Kenexa from 2008 to 2010, then as a senior Oracle financials development specialist at Cigna until 2013. That same year, she joined Penn as a senior application developer. Ms. Adya left Penn in 2019 to become a freelance application developer.

Ms. Adya is survived by her brother, Anand Adya, and several other family members. Memorial plans will be announced at a later date.

Waheed Hussain, a former lecturer and assistant professor at the Wharton School and most recently associate professor  of philosophy at the University of Toronto, died on January 31 from causes related to cancer. He was 48.

Dr. Hussain received an AB in philosophy from Princeton in 1995 and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 2006. In 2004, he joined Penn’s faculty as an instructor in Wharton’s department of legal studies and business ethics. Two years later, he became an assistant professor in the same department, a position he held until 2014, when he became an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. Dr. Hussain’s work earned him several honors, including the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellowship at Princeton University from 2013 to 2014. He was also a member of the American Philosophical Association, the American Political Science Association, and the Society for Business Ethics.

Robert Yongue Turner, emeritus professor of English at Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, passed away on January 16. He was 93.

Dr. Turner received an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. In 1958, Dr. Turner was hired as an instructor in the English department  of Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. Three years later, he became an assistant professor in the same department; in 1964 he was promoted to associate professor. During the 1960s, Dr. Turner taught one of Penn’s earliest “television courses,” the precursor to remote learning (Almanac April 1962). In 1972, Dr. Turner became the chair of the English department, a position he held for three years, and in 1974, he was promoted to professor of English. Dr. Turner also taught courses in the College of General Studies (now the College of Liberal and Professional Studies). He retired from Penn and took emeritus status in 1996. 

Dr. Turner specialized in Renaissance drama, with primary emphasis on Shakespeare. In 1974, he published a book with the University of Chicago Press, Shakespeare’s Apprenticeship, which traced the development—from the didactic to the mimetic—of both Shakespeare’s early drama and the early stage of English drama. Rebecca Bushnell, School of Arts and Sciences Board of Advisors Emerita Professor of English, refers to Dr. Turner’s work on the Renaissance as “always insightful and deeply informed by both a sense of period and the text.”

Throughout his career, Dr. Turner also published many peer-reviewed articles. According to Margreta de Grazia, Sheli and Burton Rosenberg Emerita Professor of the Humanities, “the last of his many articles on non-Shakespearean drama, on patronage and market forces in Phillip Massinger’s comedies, was titled ‘Giving and Taking’, a telling title for someone who asked nothing in return for all he was ready to give.”

Toward the end of his life, he was busy researching Jacobean tragicomedies by Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Webster, and Massinger. His research earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974, and in 1963 he won Penn’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 1966, Dr. Turner became an honorary member of Penn’s Kite and Key Society. Dr. Turner was active at Penn, serving on University Council committees and writing letters to The Daily Pennsylvanian to engage with student activism.

Dr. Turner’s colleagues and students overwhelmingly recall his generosity. Herman Beavers, Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt President’s Distinguished Professor of English and Africana studies, was in his first year as an assistant professor when he administered a graduate student’s oral examination with Dr. Turner and remembers being anxious to prove his mettle. “I took note of Bob’s ability to set the student at ease so that she could get through the exam (and in taking note, I felt my anxiety lift). His compassion for her struggle and his desire to see her succeed have been touchstones for me.”

“In over 50 years at Penn,” said emerita professor of English Phyllis Rackin, “I’ve seen many good teachers, but none to equal Bob Turner. When I first came here, I was assigned to advise undergraduate students, and the consensus among them was that Bob’s classes were the best—not easy, but very, very good.”

For Gwynne A. Kennedy, PhD ’89, now an associate professor of English and women’s & gender studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Dr. Turner’s compassion also remains a touchstone. “At my university, I have been graduate chair in English and in women’s & gender studies several times, and Dr. Turner has been my role model. I have tried to be as kind and encouraging as he was to me.”

Dr. Turner is survived by a cousin, Lillian J. Howland of Gastonia, North Carolina. His funeral and interment were private.

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To Report A Death

Almanac appreciates being informed of the deaths of current and former faculty and staff members, students and other members of the University community. Call (215) 898-5274 or email almanac@upenn.edu

University Council Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
4 p.m.

I. Approval of the minutes of the January 27, 2021 University Council meeting. 1 minute 
II. Follow-up comments or questions on Status Reports. 5 minutes
III. Presentation: Campaign for Community and Penn Projects for Progress. 30 minutes
IV. Open Forum. 70 minutes
V. New Business. 5 minutes
VI. Adjournment

Two Penn faculty members, Scott D. Halpern of the Perelman School of Medicine and Jennifer Prah Ruger of the School of Social Policy & Practice, have been named Hastings Center Fellows for deepening public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, science, and technology.

Drs. Halpern and Prah Ruger are two of 14 new Hastings Center Fellows joining an elected group of more than 200 that produce publications on ethical issues in health, science, and technology that inform policy, practice, and public understanding of bioethics. These individuals are chosen for insight and experience in managing the ethical questions and societal effects that arise as a consequence of advances in the life sciences, the need to improve health and health care for people of all ages, and mitigation of human impact on the natural world.

Dr. Halpern is the John M. Eisenberg Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, as well as a practicing critical care doctor. He is the founding director of the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center, which generates evidence to advance policies and practices that improve the lives of all people affected by serious illness, and is the director of the NIA-funded Penn Roybal P30 Center on Palliative Care in Dementia. He is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and serves on the editorial boards of the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American Journal of Bioethics.

Dr. Prah Ruger is the Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics, and Policy in the School of Social Policy & Practice and a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine. She is also the founder and director of the Health Equity and Policy Lab, which conducts quantitative and qualitative research on the equity implications of health and public policies. She is a leading scholar of global and domestic health policy and public health who conducts theoretical and empirical studies of health equity to reduce global and national health inequities with a focus on the most disadvantaged populations worldwide, especially women and children. She is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a past Guggenheim Fellow. She also serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Bioethics.

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created to bridge multiple disciplines, including philosophy, law, political science, and education. The Hastings Center was critical to establishing the field of bioethics in 1969 and has been evolving ever since. Founded by philosopher Daniel Callahan and psychoanalyst Willard Gaylin, the Hastings Center is the oldest independent, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary research institute of its kind in the world.

The University of Pennsylvania’s 2020 Green Purchasing Awards, presented by Penn Purchasing Services and Penn Sustainability, were recently announced during the award recipients’ virtual staff meetings. The award honorees, who are recognized for their outstanding contributions that significantly advance the development of sustainable purchasing at Penn, are Megan Ryerson from the Weitzman School of Design and Cheryl Hickey from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

In the Spring of 2020, Megan Ryerson, UPS Chair of Transportation and Associate Dean for Research at the Weitzman School of Design, incorporated a new aspect to her course CPLN 750: Advanced Transportation Seminar. In a novel approach, she collaborated with Purchasing Services and tasked her graduate students with exploring the sustainability impact associated with Penn’s air travel consumption.  

Students explored travel efficiencies for various modes of transportation and documented best practices to minimize travel-related emissions. Doing so allowed students to gain real-world experience and provided the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee’s Air Travel working group with valuable information to better understand Penn’s air travel practices and options for addressing the resulting carbon emissions. Dr. Ryerson’s innovative use of the campus-as-lab concept moves forward the Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 3.0 (CSAP 3.0) goal to “support the use of campus-as-lab to promote applied learning.”

Cheryl Hickey, Faculty Recruiting/Distinguished Lecturer Coordinator in the computer & information science department, eliminated a waste stream from the department’s two kitchens, one inside Levine Hall and another inside Levine North Hall. In February 2020, Ms. Hickey made a switch from disposable cups and purchased 150 permanent ceramic replacements to meet the department’s needs.

This initiative makes a significant contribution to waste minimization in the Engineering Complex and eliminates an ongoing, unsustainable purchase. Since disposable coffee cups are not recyclable, a switch to ceramic mugs will stop approximately 12,000 cups from reaching a landfill each year. This green initiative also saves CIS $1,355.88 a year. Also, Ms. Hickey has encouraged others in the Penn Engineering community to bring in mugs rather than using disposable alternatives.

The McCabe awards were established in 1969 by a generous gift from Thomas B. and Jeannette E. Laws McCabe to the Perelman School of Medicine to support junior faculty who initiate fresh and innovative biomedical, clinical and surgical research projects. 

For the 2020-2021 fiscal year, there were seven winners of Fellow awards of $50,000 each: 

• Elise A. Chong, medicine, PSOM
• Crystal S. Conn, radiation oncology, PSOM
• Stephanie Y. Jo, radiology, PSOM
• Kyu Sang Joeng, orthopedic surgery, PSOM
• Mehran Makvandi, radiology, PSOM
• John T. Miura, surgery, PSOM
• Austin R. Pantel, radiology, PSOM

There were nine Pilot Award winners who received $30,233 each: 

• Stephen Cole, pathobiology, Penn Vet
• Danielle Fortuna, pathology & laboratory medicine, PSOM
• Michael George, medicine, PSOM
• Cerrene N. Giordano, dermatology, PSOM
• Elinore J. Kaufman, surgery, PSOM 
• Rachel Kohn, medicine, PSOM
• Yehoda M. Martei, medicine, PSOM
• Cristobal Navas de Solis, clinical studies, Penn Vet
• Shariq S. Raza, surgery, PSOM

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor of law Elizabeth Pollman was recently appointed by the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) as one of its 50 new research members.

With the appointment, Ms. Pollman becomes eligible to publish her scholarship on corporate governance and stewardship in the ECGI Working Paper Series (Law and Finance), internationally known for its reliable, informed, and interdisciplinary contributions to a wide range of global issues that currently confront business and governments.

Recently appointed ECGI research members hail from all over the globe, including North America, Europe, the UK, the Middle East, and Asia. Selection is based on the quality of the members’ academic work in the field of corporate governance and stewardship.

In addition to her professorial position at Penn Law, Ms. Pollman is also a co-director of the Institute for Law and Economics, a joint research center of the Law School, the Wharton School, and the School of Arts and Sciences’ department of economics. She teaches and writes on a wide variety of topics in business law, with a particular focus on corporate governance, purpose, and personhood, as well as startups, entrepreneurship, and law and technology. Ms. Pollman’s recent work has examined the distinctive governance of venture-backed startups, director oversight liability, corporate disobedience, companies that have business models aimed at changing the law, the trading of private company stock, corporate privacy, and the history of corporate constitutional rights.

Ms. Pollman is an active member of the Corporate Laws Committee of the American Bar Association and has served on the National Business Law Scholars Conference Board and the AALS Business Associations Executive Committee.

Before joining the Law School faculty, Ms. Pollman taught at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and was a visiting professor at the law schools of the University of Sydney and UC Berkeley.

Nicole Rust, associate professor of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences, will receive a 2021 Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) at the 158th Annual NAS Meeting.

Two Troland Research Awards of $75,000 each are given annually to recognize unusual achievement by early-career researchers and to advance empirical research within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology.

Dr. Rust’s lab combines investigations of human and animal visual memory behaviors, measurements and manipulations of neural activity, and computational modeling to understand the neural basis of visual memory. At Penn, Dr. Rust is the associate director of research at MindCORE and co-director of the Computational Neuroscience Initiative. She has previously been recognized with a McKnight Scholarship, an NSF CAREER award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and Penn’s Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award.

“In the psychology department, we have long known Nicole as an outstanding colleague and scholar, so it is no surprise to see her honored by the National Academy of Sciences,” said David Brainard, Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences and RRL Professor of Psychology. “Her pioneering work has clarified how we perceive and remember complex visual information. Congratulations to Nicole on this well-deserved recognition.”

In announcing the award, NAS called Dr. Rust’s research “groundbreaking” and stated that she “has pushed the field forward both in providing new insights about how neural signals throughout the visual system inform specific capabilities, and about how the advancement of population-based analysis and computational tools can be applied to other brain areas and activities.”

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and—with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine—provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

Annenberg postdoctoral fellow and alumna Natacha Yazbeck, PhD ’20, has received a Leeway Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation. Dr. Yazbeck is one of 11 artists and cultural producers in the Greater Philadelphia region to receive the award, which recognizes each individual’s commitment to their communities and art for social change.

“Growing up, there were few, if any, Arab voices which spoke to our experiences as immigrants, refugees, and their children in the United States,” Dr. Yazbeck says. “My work aims to produce documentation that bears witness to the roots of our growing community, primarily in Philadelphia and New Jersey.”

Located in Philadelphia, the Leeway Foundation supports women, trans, and/or gender nonconforming artists and cultural producers working in communities at the intersection of art, culture, and social change. The foundation’s work promotes artistic expression that amplifies the voices of those on the margins, promotes sustainable and healthy communities, and works in the service of movements for economic and social justice.

Spanning an array of artistic disciplines and social change intents, the Transformation Award recipients are focused on issues like upholding cultural legacies, developing artistic responses to systemic racism, and raising questions of sustainability in the built and natural environment. Selected by a national panel, the recipients are a reminder of the importance of arts and culture as a tool for community building and a conduit for change.

Dr. Yazbeck received the award for her work in reviving traditional non-linear modes of storytelling as a means of cultural preservation and immigrant justice. Her current project is an oral history of Arab immigrant experiences, told by women community elders.

Chenbo Zeng, a research assistant professor of radiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, received an award from The National Comprehensive Cancer Network Oncology Research Program to further study abemaciclib, a drug used to treat hormone receptor-positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-) breast cancer. Dr. Zeng’s project will use PET imaging of cell cycle arrest to predict responses to abemaciclib alone or in combination with endocrine therapy. Research funding is being provided by a grant from American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company.

A passion for pizza-making, a little ingenuity, and a desire to give back led Ben Berman, WG’21, to create Good Pizza PHL—a pizza shop that donates all profits to local charities.

Good Pizza doesn’t have a storefront or fixed hours. Mr. Berman runs the entire operation from his Center City apartment, where he bakes about 20 pies on any given night. In order to snag one of the limited number of pies, “customers” must sign up for an email newsletter and place orders online. The finished pies are safely lowered out of the second-floor window via a cardboard box and rope pulley system.

Good Pizza was humming along making “pizza drops.” Then, on November 20, 2020, a positive “One Bite Pizza Review” from Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports sent it to new heights. In the first 24 hours, Good Pizza’s Instagram account attracted more than 10,000 new followers and donations from around the world flooded in. Mr. Berman has chosen the recipients of charity donations via a poll on his Instagram page.

“When the pandemic started in March, I had made pizza to have some friends over and it became clear that we probably shouldn’t gather for a pizza night,” says Mr. Berman. “But I had these 10 pizzas that I needed to give away somehow or else I’d be eating them myself. And so I texted a bunch of friends that I was going to have over and because I live on the second floor of this apartment building, I can drop them out of the window. The original ‘Pizza Drop’ was a paper plate inside of a plastic bag from DiBruno Brothers, on a long string and I just lowered it out the window.

“What’s been the coolest thing about it has been to see the positive response across the board. I just didn’t expect so many people to reach out from around the world, frankly, and just say, ‘Hey, we saw you on YouTube, we saw you on Instagram. We think it’s so cool what you’re doing. We can’t come to try your pizza but here’s $10 or here’s $20’, or all the way up to $150 from people who will likely never have the chance to actually try the pizza. People are reaching out to say: ‘People need this right now, thanks for bringing a little bit of kindness to our lives. I wish more of the internet was like this.’ That’s been the coolest part for me. I’ll take all the pizza compliments, I’ll never turn those away and I love to hear people are enjoying the pizza. But the best part for me has just been to see that it’s making people smile.”

Recently, Mr. Berman has also appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and NBC Nightly.

Partially adapted from a November 30, 2020, story by Mike Kaiser & Brian Kotloff. Read the full text at www.wharton.upenn.edu/story/how-mba-student-ben-bermans-pizza-drops-raised-15000-for-local-charities/

Conferences

12        Civil Procedure, Judicial Administration, and the Future of the Field: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Stephen B. Burbank; brings together leading scholars in civil procedure and judicial administration along with renowned jurists; noon-8 p.m.; Zoom meeting; register: https://tinyurl.com/burbank-conference (Penn Law). Also February 13, 10 a.m.-5:15 p.m.

Exhibits

Upcoming

12        Virtual Global Guide Tour: Middle East Galleries; 2:30 p.m.; online event; register: https://tinyurl.com/global-guide-feb-12 (Penn Museum).

Fitness & Learning

9          Tuesday Tea With PWC; virtual tea and friendship; 11 a.m.; Zoom meeting; join: https://www.vpul-upenn.zoom.us/j/97336657480 (VPUL, PWC).

10        Virtual 2021 Spring Career & Internship Fair; open to students from all majors and degree levels, featuring a wide variety of employers from across all industries; 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Handshake event; info: https://upenn.joinhandshake.com/events/676707 (Career Services).

12        Know Your Rights: Support for Students Regardless of Your Immigration Status; learn more about immigration and/or whose families are impacted by immigration restrictions; 3 p.m.; online event; register: http://bit.ly/PennDACA (La Casa Latina, Law, GIC, CAPS).

Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF)
Online events. Info and to register: https://www.curf.upenn.edu/curf-events

10        Summer Humanities Internships Info Session; 5 p.m.

12        R&F Month—Civic Engagement through Research & Fellowships; 3 p.m.

16        PURM Info Session; 3 p.m.

Graduate School of Education (GSE)
Online events. Info and to register: https://www.gse.upenn.edu/news/events-calendar

10        Applying to College 101; 12:30 p.m.

11        Planning for College; noon.

15        ExCITe Center's 7th Annual (First Virtual) STEAM Education Workshop; 9 a.m.-noon.

Readings & Signings

Kelly Writers House
Online events. Info and to register: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0221.php

15        Instant Literature; 7 p.m.

Special Events

12        Left of Queer: Happy Hour With Social Text; launch of a special magazine edition; 5-7 p.m.; Zoom meeting; register: https://tinyurl.com/left-of-queer-feb-12 (GSWS).

15        ENIAC Day: 75th Anniversary of ENIAC Mini-Symposium; celebration of how far we’ve come since ENIAC and what lies ahead; 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; Zoom meeting; join: https://tinyurl.com/eniac-day-feb-15  (SEAS).

Sports

Penn Basketball Virtual Season
Info: https://pennathletics.com/sports/2021/1/19/penn-basketball-virtual-season.aspx

11   Women vs Yale; orginal broadcast: March 3, 2001.

Talks

9          Automated Feature Extraction from Large Cardiac Electrophysiological Data Sets; Peter Hinow, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; 4 p.m.; Zoom meeting; join: https://tinyurl.com/hinow-talk-feb-9 (Mathematics).

            Making Meaning of the Election Part II: What Do We Need from the Biden-Harris Administration Now; Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Fernando Chang-Muy, and Ioana E. Marinescu, SP2; 6 p.m.; Zoom meeting; join: https://tinyurl.com/election-panel-feb-9 (SP2).

10        Global Discovery Series: Pilgrimage Routes Across the World; Justin McDaniel, religious studies; 1 p.m.; online event; register: https://tinyurl.com/mcdaniel-talk-feb-10 (Penn Alumni, SAS).

            Engineering Bacteria to Expand the Chemistry of Life; Jorge Marchand, Harvard; 3 p.m.; Zoom meeting; info: chebiom@seas.upenn.edu (CBE).

            What is Race?; Quayshawn Spencer, philosophy; Chike Jeffers, Dalhousie University; 5 p.m.; Zoom meeting; register: https://tinyurl.com/spencer-jeffers-feb-10 (Africana Studies).

11        Conducting Real-World Data Studies on the Effectiveness and Safety of Diabetes Medications; Elisabetta Patorno, Harvard; 9 a.m.; BlueJeans meeting; join: https://bluejeans.com/368827150 (CCEB).

           Asian America Across the Disciplines Series; Samip Mallick, South Asian American Digital Archive; noon; Zoom meeting; info: anabelb@sas.upenn.edu (ASAM).

           Critiquing the Category of Religion in Muslim South Asia; Brannon Ingram, Northwestern; 3 p.m.; online event; info: https://rels.sas.upenn.edu/events/ (Religious Studies).

            Multi-Input Chemical Control With Computationally Designed Proteins for Research Tools and Cell Therapies; Glenna Wink Foight, Lyell Immunopharma; 3 p.m.; online event; info: be@seas.upenn.edu (Bioengineering).

            Cellular Signaling and Transcriptional Responses to Injury of Regenerative Lung Alveolar Epithelium; Ying Tian, Temple; 4 p.m.; BlueJeans meeting; join: https://bluejeans.com/497920610 (Penn-CHOP Lung Biology Institute).

            Humanities and the Community College: Lessons for Classical Studies; Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College; 4:30 p.m.; Zoom meeting; register: https://tinyurl.com/braun-strumfels-feb-11 (Classical Studies).

            Black Dance and the Politics of Movement; Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson, Africana studies; 5:30 p.m.; Facebook stream; info: https://www.penn.museum/calendar/660/living-room-lecture (Penn Museum).

12        Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy; Li Zhang, UC Davis; Zoom meeting; register: https://tinyurl.com/zhang-talk-feb-12 (CSCC).

15        Interior Exclusion, Japanese American Incarceration During WWII; Shirley Ann Higuchi, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation; 4:30 p.m.; Zoom meeting; info: anabelb@sas.upenn.edu (ASAM).

            Bad Impressions: Livery Badges and Lucre in Late Medieval England; Sonja Drimmer, UMass Amherst; 5:15 p.m.; Zoom meeting; info: https://pennmaterialtexts.org/about/events/ (Workshop in the History of Material Texts).

Economics
Online events. Info and to register: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/events

10        Efficient and Convergent Sequential Pseudo-Likelihood Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Games; Adam Dearing, Ohio State; 3:30 p.m.

15        Proxy Controls and Panel Data; Benjamin William Deaner, MIT; 4:30 p.m.

16        Selling Consumer Data for Profit: Optimal Market-Segmentation Design and its Consequences; Kai Hao Yang, Yale; 4 p.m.

University of Pennsylvania Police Department Crime Report

Below are the Crimes Against Persons, Crimes Against Society and Crimes Against Property from the campus report for January 25-31, 2021. View prior weeks' reports. —Ed.

This summary is prepared by the Division of Public Safety and includes all criminal incidents reported and made known to the University Police Department for the dates of January 25-31, 2021. The University Police actively patrol from Market St to Baltimore and from the Schuylkill River to 43rd St in conjunction with the Philadelphia Police. In this effort to provide you with a thorough and accurate report on public safety concerns, we hope that your increased awareness will lessen the opportunity for crime. For any concerns or suggestions regarding this report, please call the Division of Public Safety at (215) 898-4482.

18th District

Below are the Crimes Against Persons from the 18th District: 8 crimes against persons (3 assaults, 3 robberies, 1 aggravated assault, and 1 domestic assault) with 1 arrest were reported for January 25-31, 2021 by the 18th District, covering the Schuylkill River to 49th St & Market St to Woodland Avenue.

Dear Penn Community,

Thank you for your continued generosity especially during the challenging times of the pandemic. In spite of programming being conducted virtually, your generosity was still evident. Many continue to benefit from your willingness to give.

Thank you to the following departments and volunteers for “adopting” deserving families. Families were treated to clothing, gifts, toys, food, and more. The following departments and volunteers ensured that local families enjoyed a joyous holiday season:

• African-American Resource Center, coordinated by Valerie Allen
• Anesthesiology and Critical Care Residency Program, coordinated by Scott Seki
• School of Arts & Sciences, coordinated by Danielle McNinch
• Career Services, coordinated by Jamie Grant
• Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, PSOM, coordinated by Anne Levy Pugh
• Department of Rheumatology, PSOM, coordinated by Sarah Trumbull
• Department of Psychiatry at the Lifespan Brain Institute, PSOM, coordinated by Megan Himes and Sage Rush
• Facilities and Real Estate Services, coordinated by Cheryl Lisa Smith, Chloe Cerwinka and Revita Shawn Curry
• General Counsel, coordinated by Helen Logan*
• Institutional Research & Analysis, coordinated by Patricia Diehm
• ITMAT Education Programs, coordinated by Megan Maxwell
• Kislak Center Special Collections, Penn Libraries, coordinated by Regan Kladstrup
• The Lauder Institute, coordinated by Kara Keenan Sweeney
• Masters and Certificate Programs, PSOM, coordinated by Rachel McGarrigle
• Netter Center for Community Partnerships, coordinated by Deb Sokalczuk
• Office of Clinical Research, PSOM, coordinated by Matthew MacDonald and Lynn Bachalany
• Office of the Comptroller, coordinated by Celestine Silverman
• Office of Gift Planning, coordinated by Lorleen Finor-Maxwell
• Office of the Provost, coordinated by Carolyn Rasp
• Office of Research Services, coordinated by Evelyn Ford
• Online Learning Initiative and Center for Teaching and Learning, coordinated by Jessica Morris
• Penn Champions Club, coordinated by Emily Shields
• Penn Fund, coordinated by Joshua Nay
• Penn Libraries Area Studies, coordinated by Rebecca Mendelson
• Penn Museum, coordinated by Karen Klaverkamp
• Penn Vet, coordinated by Peter Javian and Chipo Siantumbu
• Penn Women’s Center, coordinated by Sherisse Laud-Hammond
• PSOM Academic Programs, coordinated by Francia Portacio
• College Housing and Academic Services, coordinated by Linda Kromer
• Nursing Pediatric Acute-Chronic NP Program, coordinated by Meghan McGowan
• Wharton Executive Education, coordinated by Anne Corcoran-Petela, Danielle Bruno and Julianna Goldring
• Wharton Fund, coordinated by Kinjal Mathur
• Wharton Marketing and Communications, coordinated by Jennifer Buchness
• Wharton School Dean’s Office, coordinated by Jennifer O’Keefe

*Departments that adopted multiple families.

A special thank you to the following families and groups who participated in the Penn Adopt-a-Family Program:

• Carisma Therapeutics, Inc., coordinated by Kara Collins
• Chris Connor Family
• Lisa Deming Family
• Elizabeth Hansen Family
• Megan Maxwell Family
• Pamela Robinson and Donald Smothers Family
• Mark Sellmyer Family

Special thanks to Helen Logan and the Office of General Counsel for adopting several families.

Thank you to the Dropsite volunteers who provided information to the Penn community so that they could respond virtually to requests for donations. The Penn community sent gifts and toys directly to agencies to increase their capacity to serve their constituencies.

The following agencies benefitted: People’s Emergency Shelter, Southwest Family Services Center*, St. Barnabas Mission Emergency Shelter*, Revolutionary Vision Pantry*, Salvation Army West Philadelphia Corps-Soup Kitchen*, Potter’s House Mission*

* Agencies that also benefited from the University’s Annual Food Drive

A very special thanks to the Office of Research Services for their contribution of 40 $25 gift cards to Southwest Family Services to increase their capacity to serve their constituents during the holiday season. Thank you to all the special persons and departments both named and unnamed for their remarkable generosity.

Upcoming March Event

Details are still being worked on to develop a plan to conduct the Change Drive virtually. The Change Drive will benefit a graduating high school student accepted at an accredited college or university. This is a non-tuition scholarship donation given to graduating high school students accepted at an accredited college or university. The program has been in existence for over 20 years and has made a difference in many students’ lives; the program name was changed to the Marie K. Bogle Scholarship in 2017. Students have been able to use the funds to buy books and the many other items needed to make a home away from home.

Join Penn VIPS Drives Committee

Penn volunteers provide a drop off location to collect the many donated items we receive during our annual drives. A variety of drives are conducted during the course of the year to partner with and help support local schools, families, and agencies. Dropsite volunteers  are located throughout campus. Volunteers post the events, set up collection sites and help select the recipients for the donations. They also participate in an annual thank you luncheon. Drives are held during the following months:

Change Drive—March
School Supplies Drive—August
Food Drive—November
Gift/Toy Drive—December

Contact Isabel Sampson Mapp at sammapp@pobox.upenn.edu for additional info.

—Isabel Sampson Mapp, Associate Director, Netter Center for Community Partnerships

Another tip in a series provided by the Offices of Information Security, Information Systems & Computing and Audit, Compliance & Privacy

In October 2020, the University’s Office of Information Security (OIS) launched a contest seeking personal experiences with phishing, securing personal computing devices, or securing personal and University data. There were five winning entries, of which we share two below.

First experience:

“A few days after my aunt added me on Facebook, I received a message from her account requesting money in a hurry. At 3 a.m. in the morning, I was asked to go to the nearest Walmart and buy five $200 eBay gift cards for her. I knew it was a scam, but I was curious and asked some personal questions. Apparently, a hacker who had gone through my posts messaged me, posing as my aunt. I decided to ignore the messages, but the hacker managed to find my cell number and began calling and texting at 4 a.m. inquiring about the cards. I realized that I have too much information about myself online and need to be more careful about what I post!”

Second experience:

“As a person working in IT, I try to maintain security best practices but recently learned that doing everything right means nothing if you don’t physically secure your device. I dropped my smartphone a block from my home, tracked it with location sharing, and the guy who picked it up asked for 50 bucks in return for it. Unable to convince him to meet at a handoff location of my choosing, I waffled, ultimately deciding that a 2-week-new Android was not worth the risk of injury to life and limb. I issued a remote wipe to my phone with no confirmation that it worked—my phone’s new owner, no doubt realizing he was trackable, must have disabled the phone’s data. Moral: Attach your phone to your belt.”

For additional tips, see the One Step Ahead link on the Information Security website: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/news-alerts#One-Step-Ahead

Penn Campus Recreation announced that virtual group exercise memberships will remain free for the spring semester. The schedule runs through May 11, 2021.

Sign up for a membership online at https://recreationwebportal.dria.upenn.edu/Membership/Index.

All Virtual Group Exercise Members will register for classes on the online portal at https://tinyurl.com/virtualclassreg. Classes must be registered for individually. Please see the FAQs page for detailed steps to follow our registration process and more.

For the most up-to-date group exercise information, including cancellations and adjustments, please visit https://recreation.upenn.edu/sports/2021/1/12/group-ex-1-12.aspx.