August 31, 2021 Volume 68 Issue 3

August 31, 2021

For many readers, this “Welcome Back” column is just that. 

The new academic year is off and running, and this promises to be a truly spectacular semester back on campus for our staff, faculty, and students. Before we get swept away in a whirlwind of important and purposeful Penn activity, I would like to take this opportunity to say once again how pleased, proud, and deeply moved I am by the way our Penn community responded to the unprecedented challenges of the past 18 months. 

Some of us delight in novelty. Others prefer the new and untested to unfold at a measured pace with some fair warning that change is coming. None of us likes having the rug yanked out from under our feet. Yet that is exactly what happened last March. One day, it was life and work as usual. The next day, most of us were suddenly working from home, not knowing what would lie ahead, and trying to learn how to love the Zoom.

It wasn’t easy (to say the least). It often wasn’t fun (that’s an understatement). There were times when the very great uncertainty of not knowing made even ordinary things seem daunting. 

In the face of many challenges, Penn didn’t just persevere. We more than occasionally moved mountains to make sure the vital work of the University continued unabated. As much as possible, along the way we tried to acknowledge and share with the broader community all the amazing acts of bravery, kindness, extraordinary effort, and self-sacrifice that defined the Penn community’s response to the pandemic. These ranged from our front-line healthcare responders heroically providing comfort and care and saving lives, to the astonishing feat of our faculty moving thousands of courses online in a matter of weeks, to construction crews working around the clock to build additional beds and care capacity at the Pavilion, to students lowering pizza on ropes to help feed and cheer our community. The stories were many. They were heart-warming and cheering and, so often, they were inspiring.

But that’s not what I’m writing about here. For every great story that you saw in Penn Today, there were a thousand acts of care, concern, and kindness that went by unremarked. No doubt you saw some, you experienced some, and some you did yourselves. This is what is really on my mind as we begin this new semester. A place as large and complex and intricate as Penn cannot hope to succeed unless all our many communities, schools, centers, departments, and people work in accord, as one caring, giving, and high-performing University. None of us can know of all the admirable actions, large and small, the unheralded moments of bravery, sacrifice, and dedication, and the immense caring that enabled Penn to pull through the worst of this pandemic with flying colors. 

What we do know—for certain—is that Penn met the challenge of these times magnificently. Thanks to a caring commitment to our deepest values that never wavered. Thanks to all of us working together.

While we wish it were not so, the pandemic is not yet over. We must remain vigilant and continue to do all we can to ensure our community’s health. All the while we advance our mission of unsurpassed teaching, research, service, and healthcare in an ever more diverse and inclusive community that defines this amazing Penn community. All of this, thanks to you.

—Amy Gutmann, President

Christopher Woods, who recently joined Penn as Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations, has been named Avalon Professor in the Humanities. Formerly the John A. Wilson Professor of Sumerology at the University of Chicago, Dr. Woods has published widely on Sumerian language and writing, the origin and development of writing and writing systems, and early Mesopotamian history, literature, religion, and state formation. At Chicago, he served as director of the Oriental Institute, one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary research on Near East civilizations. Dr. Woods’ research has received support from the U.S. Department of State, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among many others. He has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions and the Journal of Near Eastern Studies and on the editorial boards of Languages of the Ancient Near East (Eisenbrauns) and Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East publications, among others. 

The Avalon Foundation Chair in the Humanities was established in 1966 by the Avalon Foundation, now the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to support the study of the humanities. The Avalon Foundation was founded in 1940 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce, daughter of Andrew W. Mellon.

Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff Gregory S. Rost has announced the appointment of Pierce Buller as Associate Vice President and Advisor to the President in the Office of the President, effective July 1.  He will work on an array of special projects on behalf of the President’s Office, including providing strategic support for an array of University-wide initiatives. Mr. Buller joins Penn from Franklin & Marshall College, where he served as vice president and general counsel for the past seven years. 

Before his time at Franklin & Marshall, Mr. Buller spent 10 years in Penn’s Office of General Counsel as associate general counsel, where he advised on issues related to employment, faculty and staff appointments, governance, admissions, community concerns, and institutional policies. A graduate of Colgate University and Villanova Law, with a MA in history from Penn, Mr. Buller was also formerly an attorney at Dilworth Paxson in Philadelphia.

Long-term funding for work at the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders has been renewed for another five years by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal, and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The additional $4 million in funding will continue the center’s investigations into all types of musculoskeletal tissue injury and repair.

“This center grant has allowed us to grow the community of musculoskeletal doctors and researchers in the Philadelphia region and neighboring states, and provide critical physical and intellectual resources to tackle the most important problems in our field,” said the center’s founding director, Louis Soslowsky, a professor of orthopaedic surgery.

Operating since 2006, the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders is the longest-running NIH-sponsored musculoskeletal research center in the United States. Since its start, the center’s research has delved into the fundamental understandings of the cause, development, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of a spectrum of conditions, ranging from osteoporosis to rotator cuff tears.

“We have been able to grow to 17 partnering institutions in our region and are particularly excited about some of the outreach efforts that this next grant cycle will develop and support,” Dr. Soslowsky said.

Many research efforts focus on specific types of tissue, such as cartilage, ligaments, or bone. But that can limit discoveries. As such, researchers at the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders strive to learn from research across all tissues. For example, inflammatory cytokines—a type of signaling molecule—are fairly well researched for certain types of tissues, but whether the findings in one tissue apply to another are not as well understood. By avoiding the siloing of research and focusing on how each study applies to the entirety of the musculoskeletal system, the researchers at the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders hope to dispel some of those uncertainties.

Today, the Penn Center for Musculoskeletal Disorders has 204 faculty members, 76 more than it had the last time the grant was renewed, five years ago. Five different schools at Penn participate, including the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the School of Arts and Sciences. Members of the center have $169 million in annual extramural funding, an increase from $105 million just five years ago.

Much of the focus in this round of funding will address developing a deep bank of researchers and infrastructure for continued high-level research. The center has three specific aims in its mission made possible by the new grant:

• To provide innovation within key areas that cross disciplines, such as microCT imaging, biomechanics, and histology
• Creation of a grant program for pilot of new ideas and collaborations before seeking outside funding
• Development of educational programs spanning tissue types and research approaches so that investigators can learn from leaders in the field and each other

“We are so grateful to the NIAMS at NIH for continuing to support our multidisciplinary research,” Dr. Soslowsky said. “We are excited to broaden the impact of our efforts locally and globally to better understand and treat musculoskeletal disorders for the better care of our patients.”

August 25, 2021

We are writing to update you on the important additional steps that we are taking since our last communication to help our students, faculty, staff, and postdocs safely navigate the semester and to provide important links to more information and resources.

With the start of the academic year less than a week away, there is great excitement, expectation, and hope across Penn’s vibrant campus. Many programs are already welcoming students through in-person programming and have had very successful classroom and group activities. At the same time, COVID and the Delta variant continue to weigh heavily on people’s minds. We share your concerns and are listening and responding to them, in close collaboration with public health experts and officials.

Requiring Vaccination

We appreciate the tremendous positive response from the Penn community in complying with the University’s vaccine requirement. With 90% of our faculty, staff, and postdocs and 88% of our students reporting being fully vaccinated to date, we remind everyone that all students, faculty, staff, postdocs, and other campus partners are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for the Fall 2021 semester. Consistent with the recently revised Philadelphia Department of Public Health guidance, the University will be requiring all faculty, staff and postdocs to be fully vaccinated, except for those with medical or religious exemptions, by October 15, 2021. We continue to offer vaccine clinics weekly. Unless you are granted an exemption, failure to report full vaccination will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination. We are monitoring the availability of boosters and guidance on their administration in order to provide them as appropriate in a timely way. More details about vaccinations can be found at the Penn COVID-19 Response website.

Requiring Gateway and Screening Testing

The dynamic nature of COVID requires us to be vigilant, responsive to emerging trends, and mindful of the wider communities in which we live and work. The recent emergence of the Delta variant exemplifies the type of development that merits a reexamination and expansion of our safety measures. Over the past several weeks, we have been closely monitoring the effects of the Delta variant across our region. While we are currently working well together as a community to keep our COVID positivity rates low on campus, the high transmission rates in Philadelphia and surrounding counties are concerning. Until further notice, we are therefore updating our surveillance testing protocols as follows:

All students are required to participate in an initial gateway test upon arrival to campus. Today we announce that, beginning September 7, the University will be expanding the gateway testing requirement to include all faculty, staff, and postdocs. Faculty, staff, and postdocs are required to schedule and complete gateway testing by September 17. More information on how to schedule a test can be found in this scheduling tip sheet.

In addition, we are requiring all members of our community to participate in a screening test program. Beginning the week of September 13, all students enrolled in an on-campus program will be required to participate in a mandatory screening test program twice a month. All fully vaccinated faculty, staff, and postdocs who are accessing campus for any reason during the fall 2021 term are required to participate in an ongoing screening test program. Each week, a random sample of those faculty, staff, and postdocs accessing campus will be notified by email if selected and will be required to get tested within two weeks of selection. Faculty and staff in clinical schools, as well as medical students on clinical rotations, will be required to follow their local guidance. Failure to comply with this requirement will result in a RedPass in the PennOpen Pass system. Students, faculty, staff, and postdocs who have not yet reported being fully vaccinated must continue to test twice a week unless they submit vaccine documentation. After October 15, those who have been granted a medical or religious exemption from vaccination will be required to continue to test twice a week.

This screening test requirement is an important step to help us all better understand the rate of transmission among vaccinated individuals on our campus. The testing program will be very similar to the saliva-based program we provided last spring and will require advance scheduling. In addition, any member of the Penn community who wants to access a COVID screening test for any reason may participate in volunteer testing by scheduling a screening test.

Quarantine, isolation, and contact tracing capacity will also be expanded as needed. We will continue to work closely with public health experts and revise the manner and frequency of testing as the situation evolves. You can always find up-to-date information at the Penn Cares website.

On-Campus Protocols & Guidance

PennOpen Pass is again required of all members of the Penn community. We will be requiring all members of the Penn community to participate in PennOpen Pass, the University’s daily symptom tracker designed to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread within the Penn community.

Masks are required indoors for all, even those who are fully vaccinated. Consistent with our August 5, 2021 message, the University requires that all members of the Penn community and visitors wear masks while indoors or in public or shared spaces. Detailed information about the exceptions can be found on our Public Health Guidance page. Information about types of masks can be found at: Universal Mask and Cloth Face Covering Precautions. We have also implemented a process for reporting non-compliance with the mask mandate through a simple online form.

Resources and guidance are in place for instructors teaching in-person. The Provost’s Office has developed an FAQ for instructors that includes information about teaching while masked, classroom protocols, and other resources. In particular, faculty seeking a medical accommodation can contact the Office of Affirmative Action (OAA) and Equal Opportunity Programs at (215) 898-6993 or oaaeop@pobox.upenn.edu.

Updated guidance on events and gatherings. Special events and large gatherings are strongly recommended to be held outside and with precautions in place. Additional requirements apply to any Penn-sponsored event with visitors, which require attendees to attest to being fully vaccinated and to register their contact information in case follow-up is needed. Further information on events and gatherings is available on the Penn Coronavirus website.

Continued updated guidance for Faculty, Staff, and Postdocs. Human Resources maintains a comprehensive guide with policies and protocols for returning to campus work. Faculty and staff are encouraged to be familiar with the guide, which is updated regularly when there are changes to the University’s protocols or policies. Faculty, staff, and postdocs needing workplace accommodations should visit the Office of Affirmative Action.

Review of building and facilities compliance. Each building at Penn has specific heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Facilities and Real Estate Services and Environmental Health and Radiation Safety have conducted building-by-building HVAC systems condition and performance reviews. All occupied on-campus buildings are in compliance with the prevailing International Building Code and American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers standards for ventilation. More information on your HVAC systems and other facilities resources can be found on the Facilities and Real Estate Services website.

We are grateful to everyone for enabling us all to provide a robust academic environment, to keep students safely on track for their degrees, to sustain an active research enterprise, to care for patients, and to help support our neighbors and local community. As always, we are closely monitoring conditions and consulting with public health experts, and we will continue to adjust our policies as needed based on scientifically informed data. With a shared commitment to keeping our campus as safe as possible, we are confident that Penn will continue to offer an education of the highest quality on one of the most beautiful campuses in America and in a supportive environment filled with exciting opportunities.

—Amy Gutmann, President
—Beth Winkelstein, Interim Provost
—Craig Carnaroli, Senior Executive Vice President

On behalf of the President, Interim Provost, and Senior Executive Vice President

The University has sponsored programs to recognize and honor Juneteenth for the last two years.  We are pleased to share that Penn will now recognize Juneteenth as part of the University’s academic calendar and make it a recognized University holiday. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas received word that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation more than two and half years earlier, and that they were free.  

The University will observe this new federal holiday starting in Fiscal Year 2022. 

On behalf of the Division of Human Resources

The following holidays will be observed by the University in the upcoming fiscal year (July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022) on the dates listed below:

• Independence Day, Monday, July 5, 2021 (observed)
• Labor Day, Monday, September 6, 2021
• Thanksgiving, Thursday and Friday, November 25 & 26, 2021
• Christmas Day, Friday, December 24, 2021 (observed)
• New Year’s Day, Friday, December 31, 2021 (observed)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 17, 2022
• Memorial Day, Monday, May 30, 2022
• Juneteenth, Monday, June 20, 2022 (observed)

To the University Community:

Each year, the President, Provost, and Senior Executive Vice President assess the feasibility of observing Penn’s traditional Special Winter Vacation. Thus, the Special Winter Vacation granted to faculty and staff will be December 27, 28, 29, and 30, 2021. If an employee is required to work to continue departmental operations for part or all of this period, the Special Winter Vacation can be rescheduled for some other time.

Staff members who are absent from work either the work day before a holiday, the work day after a holiday, or both days, will receive holiday pay if that absence is charged to pre-approved paid time off or to sick time substantiated by a written note from the staff member’s health care provider.

Vacations and holidays for hospital employees or those staff members in collective bargaining units are governed by the terms of hospital policies or their respective collective bargaining agreements.

­—Division of Human Resources

Mark Oyama has been named interim chair of the department of clinical sciences and advanced medicine (CSAM) at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet), effective September 1, 2021.

Dr. Oyama succeeds Oliver Garden, who led the department since 2016. Dr. Garden will become Dean of Louisiana State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Oyama served as an assistant and then associate professor of cardiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois before arriving at Penn Vet in 2005 as an associate professor of cardiology. Six years later, in 2011, Dr. Oyama became a professor of cardiology; he also served as chief of the section of cardiology through 2019. Last year, he was named as the Charlotte Newton Sheppard Endowed Chair of Medicine. Dr. Oyama serves as head of the clinical sciences research division of CSAM. His clinical and research interests involve mitral valve disease, novel therapies for heart failure, clinical epidemiology, and cardiac biomarkers.

A diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM), Dr. Oyama served as president of the ACVIM, specialty of cardiology. He is a member of the Perelman School of Medicine’s Institute for Translational Medicine and the Penn Cardiovascular Institute, and he serves as an associate scholar at Perelman’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. 

Dr. Oyama earned his veterinary doctorate at the University of Illinois and his master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency at the University of California at Davis.

The Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Center for Social Impact Strategy (CSIS) at the School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2) aim to help meet the need for changemakers and other social action workers to navigate the fast-changing world of digital media. The two schools have jointly launched a new executive education program entitled Digital Media for Social Impact (DMSI).

“The University of Pennsylvania has a long history of valuing collaborations between schools and disciplines,” said John L. Jackson, Jr., Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School and Richard Perry University Professor. “The DMSI program falls squarely within that tradition, and I am excited that Annenberg and SP2 will be working together to provide this interesting learning opportunity to social impact leaders across a variety of industries.”

Annenberg’s first executive education offering, the program combines action-oriented education with leading scholarship on digital media and social change. It is designed for media industry professionals, activists, community organizers, nonprofit leaders, and social entrepreneurs looking to build mission-aligned digital media strategies.

“DMSI is an initiative to create an institutional base for such engaged scholarship,” said Guobin Yang, the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School and the director of CDCS. “CSIS has done trailblazing work in this area, and I cannot think of a better partner in this venture.”

The five-month program is online and asynchronous, so students can go at their own pace. Courses will be taught by Penn experts on digital media, including Annenberg School professors Sarah J. Jackson, Jessa Lingel, Victor Pickard, and Guobin Yang, and Annenberg alums Rosemary Clark-Parsons, PhD’18, Emily Dean Hund, PhD’19, and Hanna E. Morris, PhD’21. Students will gather virtually every week to build community and learn from one another. In addition, the program features two online convenings and one on-campus convening.

Through the DMSI program, students will gain a critical understanding of digital media platforms’ affordances and limitations for social impact and social justice work, develop a tool kit for building and evaluating mission-aligned digital campaigns, and build a community of likeminded changemakers.

“DMSI is a unique opportunity because it combines leading scholarship in communication with a hands-on, action-oriented curriculum,” said Dr. Clark-Parsons, the program manager of CSIS. “This is a really exciting opportunity for anyone looking to take a research-driven approach to their digital outreach strategies and build their professional network along the way.”

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has announced that, for the first time in its 140-year history, women will comprise more than 50% of the incoming first year class of MBA students. At nearly 52%, the percentage of women in the Wharton MBA Class of 2023 represents a 10% increase in female students over last year’s first year students. These achievements are the result of a years-long effort to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) throughout Wharton, which is led by Deputy Dean Nancy Rothbard and Dean Erika James, who is the first woman ever appointed to lead the school.

“This landmark achievement demonstrates Wharton’s commitment to providing a diverse and representative community for our students,” said Dean James. “As a female leader, I understand firsthand the significant impact that experiencing meaningful gender representation can have on women as they chart their careers. I also note the sobering reality that, even in 2021, women still command a small percentage of leadership positions in the corporate arena. If industry truly desires its organizations—and the leadership within them—to reflect the world around us, we must improve the diversity of the pipeline of future business leaders. In short, this crucial work must start here.”

Wharton builds and promotes gender representation in its MBA program through numerous initiatives, including a partnership with the Forté Foundation, fellowships for outstanding women students, on-campus visit days for women and conferences and networking opportunities via student clubs such as Wharton Women in Business. Students of any gender can also take courses like “Leading Diversity in Organizations” and engage with faculty researching DEI topics.

“As we do every year, we made a conscious effort to ensure female applicants felt wanted and welcomed at Wharton, and showed them the many resources and communities in our program where they can connect, collaborate and feel supported,” said Maryellen Reilly, Deputy Vice Dean of the Wharton MBA Program. “Diversity, equity and inclusion are central to our efforts, and while we are extremely proud to welcome this record number of women to our MBA community this year, we do hope that equitable gender representation soon becomes the norm among business schools, rather than the exception.”

In addition to attaining more than 50% women, two other Wharton MBA records were broken: the Class of 2023’s 733 average GMAT is the highest ever for an incoming class and LGBTQ+ representation reached 7%, also an all-time high. The class totals 897 students, including 36% international students and 35% Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

Lila R. Gleitman, professor emerita of psychology and linguistics in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, died on August 8. She was 91. 

Dr. Gleitman was born in Brooklyn and graduated from the James Madison High School in Sheepshead Bay. After earning a bachelor’s degree in literature from Antioch College, she entered graduate school in linguistics at Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, also working as a research assistant in Penn’s department of linguistics. She studied under Zellig Harris and earned her master’s degree in 1965 and her PhD in 1967. She began her academic career as an assistant professor at Swarthmore College, teaching there from 1968 to 1971. In 1972, she became the William T. Carter Professor of Education at Penn. She subsequently served as professor of linguistics and as the Steven and Marcia Roth Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 until she retired in 2001.

In 1991, Dr. Gleitman and Aravind Joshi of Penn Engineering founded the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at Penn; she co-directed the center until 2001. Under Dr. Gleitman’s leadership, the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science became a model for promoting interactions between psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience and other branches of inquiry that contribute to the computational study of the mind (a role inherited by Penn’s MindCORE today).

Dr. Gleitman’s contributions to the study of language and cognition are renowned. In a career that spanned six decades, she explored questions pertaining to language in children and adults, such as how children acquire language, how language and thought are related, the nature of concepts, and the role of syntax in shaping the direction of word learning. She has earned particular acclaim for her work showing that children’s keen sensitivity to syntactic structure plays a crucial role in their language acquisition. Dr. Gleitman and her collaborators’ theory of syntactic bootstrapping enabled them to address many longstanding mysteries in the field, such as how blind children effortlessly acquire spoken language (including such words as “look” and “see,” and color terms), and how deaf isolates invent sign language without exposure to any language at all.

Dr. Gleitman was a legendary mentor who trained a long and distinguished list of psycholinguists, many of whom went on to become central figures in the field. As former colleagues John Trueswell, professor of psychology, and Anna Papafragou, professor of linguistics, note, “Lila was a tremendous colleague and teacher. Her secret weapon was to combine serious discourse with joy, laughter and, crucially, respect for all present. This was on full display each week, at the famous ‘cheese seminar’ held at her home and named in honor of the cheese she served. There, student projects were regularly discussed, shaped and improved through her exceptional ability to get to the heart of the matter. She was deeply interested in mentoring students throughout her entire career, with much of her best work coming from collaborations with students.”

Dr. Gleitman was widely recognized for her influential research: She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as President of the Society for Language Development, the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and the Linguistic Society of America. Her publications include Phrase and Paraphrase (1970, with Henry Gleitman), Language Acquisition: The State of the Art (1982, co-edited with Eric Wanner), Language and Experience: Evidence from the Blind Child (1985, with Barbara Landau), Sentence First, Arguments Afterward: Essays in Language and Learning (2020), and the upcoming Oxford Handbook of the Mental Lexicon (co-edited with Dr. Papafragou and Dr. Trueswell).

Dr. Gleitman is survived by her two daughters, Claire and Ellen; and grandchildren, Zachary, Zoe, Philip and Lucas.

Robert Parris (Bob) Moses, a civil rights activist and the recipient of an honorary doctor of humane letters from Penn in 2017 (Almanac January 31, 2017), passed away on July 25. He was 86.

Born in New York City, Dr. Moses grew up in Harlem and received a BA from Hamilton College in 1956. A year later, he earned an MA in philosophy from Harvard, and in the early 1960s, he became active in the civil rights movement. He directed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Mississippi Project, helping register Black voters in the historically intolerant Amite County, Mississippi. Dr. Moses was beaten, arrested, and shot at for his efforts. Undeterred, he became a co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations and was active in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. 

In 1966, disillusioned by the persistence of Jim Crow legislation in the U.S. and the Vietnam War, Dr. Moses moved to Tanzania and worked for the Ministry of Education there. He returned to the U.S. in the late 1970s and received a PhD in philosophy from Harvard. He used funding from a 1982 MacArthur Fellowship to create the Algebra Project, which aimed to improve math education in under-resourced schools. The program has received funding from the National Science Foundation and over 40,000 students in the U.S. have been taught using the program. Dr. Moses was named a visiting professor at Princeton and Cornell Universities and was a frequent keynote speaker around the world. His life was subject of a 2016 book by Laura Visser-Maessen, Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots.

Dr. Moses is survived by his wife Janet, his daughters Maisha and Malaika, his sons Omowale and Tabasuri, and seven grandchildren.

Ella Schaap, a former member of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)’s board of overseers, died on July 10. She was 108. 

Ms. Schaap came to the United States with her young family after first fleeing the Nazis and then the Japanese. She started volunteering at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the 1950s, and later became a curator there, specializing in Delft pottery from her native country of Holland. In 2007, Ms. Schaap was knighted by the queen of the Netherlands for her work to advance and research Dutch culture. She also authored several books about ceramic tiles and was an avid art collector. In 1989, Ms. Schaap joined the board of advisors of the ICA, a position she held for more than three decades. She supported many initiatives and exhibits at the ICA, and in 2014 was named an emeritus advisor. 

Ms. Schaap is survived by her daughters, Ida Schmertz, Aletta and Martina Yamin; six grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and other relatives. No formal service is planned. Donations in her memory may be made to the Philadelphia Museum of Art Dutch ceramic collections at Philadelphia Museum of Art Development, PO Box 7646, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101-7646 or online at https://philamuseum.org/?keyword=InMemoryOf. 

Robert A. (Bob) Schoenberg, GrS’89, the founding and longtime director of Penn’s LGBT Center, died on August 2 due to complications from cancer. He was 76.

Dr. Schoenberg was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and graduated from Erie’s Academy High School. He went on to receive a bachelor of arts from the University of Rochester in 1966; two years later, he received a master’s degree in social work from Penn’s School of Social Work (now the School of Social Policy and Practice). After spending the better part of a decade working at the Elwyn Institute and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Dr. Schoenberg returned to Penn in 1976 to become a lecturer in the School of Social Work. He took initiative in University life, serving on several University Council committees. 

In 1982, a gay sophomore at Penn was brutally beaten on Locust Walk, and in response, the University hired Dr. Schoenberg to work part-time as a point person to deal with gay and lesbian concerns around campus (only the second such person in the country at the time). Dr. Schoenberg worked through the Office of Student Activities, stationed at Houston Hall. In the mid-1980s, the Office of Student Activities was restructured, and Dr. Schoenberg took the leadership of a new Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance, which commandeered office space on Locust Walk and became a University institution. 

As the program grew to include work-study students and additional staff members, Dr. Schoenberg continued to advocate for LGBTQ voices across campus, serving on Faculty Senate and University Council committees and writing op-eds in campus publications, including Almanac (December 7, 1982, May 13, 1986), castigating homophobic incidents on campus and calling for University to do better by its LGBTQ students. At the same time, Dr. Schoenberg continued his education, earning a doctorate in social work in 1989, and continued to lecture in the School of Social Work.

With a new decade, Penn’s LGBT Center (a name it assumed in 1999 with the addition of “T” for transgender) came under the purview of the Vice Provost for University Life (VPUL). In 1992, VPUL formed an HIV/AIDS Task Force to brainstorm “strategies and services which address the prevention and response to the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS infection within the campus community”; Dr. Schoenberg was tasked to lead the committee and gather community input (Almanac December 1, 1992). The committee’s report (Almanac March 22, 1994) emphasized destigmatizing AIDS education and recommended establishing a testing site on campus, a function that the Student Health Service now covers. Dr. Schoenberg also lobbied for employee domestic partnership benefits at Penn, which were instated in 1994.

In the late 1990s, Dr. Schoenberg led a fund-raising effort for the LGBT Center to have a physical home at Penn, raising $2.5 million in the process. In 2002, the LGBT Center moved into its current space on Spruce Street, a testament to Dr. Schoenberg’s masterful leadership of the organization (Almanac September 24, 2002). Penn’s LGBT Center has been consistently recognized as one of the leading centers of its type in the U.S. 

In 2004, Dr. Schoenberg joined the inaugural Affirmative Action Council; the same year, he joined Penn’s 25-Year Club. Dr. Schoenberg was one of the pioneers of Penn’s movement toward diversity, serving on the Committee on Diversity and Equity and advocating for funding for LGBTQ programs. Dr. Schoenberg was also involved with local institutions that benefited the LGBTQ community, like Penn’s Center for AIDS Research, the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, the Council for Relationships, the LGBT Elder Initiative in Philadelphia, and the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia. 

Dr. Schoenberg’s work at Penn and elsewhere has been widely recognized. In 1988, he was named Social Worker of the Year by the Philadelphia Division of the National Association of Social Workers (Almanac May 3, 1988), and a decade later, he was named chair of the National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education (Almanac January 25, 2000). 

In 2011, he received a Friend of Life Award from ActionAIDS, a Philadelphia organization he co-founded in 1986, and in 2017, when he retired as director of the LGBT Center, the building was renamed the Robert Schoenberg Carriage House in his honor (Almanac October 3, 2017). 

“We mourn the loss of a beloved Penn pathbreaker,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “To be the first of anything takes enormous bravery and resilient pride. Bob was among the very first staff members at any U.S. college or university to be devoted entirely to LGBTQ support and advocacy. We at Penn loved Bob and Bob loved Penn, always pushing Penn to be better. He was so very proud of the diverse and inclusive Penn that he helped to create. His legacy will live on always.”

“Bob truly was a pioneer,” said Erin Cross, current director of Penn’s LGBT Center. “He helped create the LGBTQ+ student services field, laying the foundation for the over 200 LGBTQ+ campus centers across North America. His legacy will live on through all who use their services, but especially those who are part of the Penn LGBT Center’s family.” 

Dr. Schoenberg is survived by his brother Leonard Schoenberg (Roberta) and his sister, Susan Forman (Jeffrey). Memorial donations can be made in Dr. Schoenberg’s honor to Penn’s LGBT Center; Action Wellness; the John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives located at the William Way LGBT Community Center; Lambda Legal; the LGBT Elder Initiative; and the Donald Millinger/Gary Clinton LGBTQ Endowed Fund at the University of Rochester.

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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.

However, notices of alumni deaths should be directed to the Alumni Records Office at Suite 300, 2929 Walnut St., (215) 898-8136 or email record@ben.dev.upenn.edu.

The Policy on Secular and Religious Holidays guides instructors and students in those circumstances when significant observances occur during the period that classes are in session. Anyone with further questions or concerns is encouraged to contact the Office of the Chaplain, which serves as an important resource for all members of the Penn community and can help if any student’s observance seems to conflict with academic expectations.

As a reminder, Jewish holidays begin at sunset. This year, Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on Monday, September 6 and ends in the evening on Wednesday, September 8. Yom Kippur begins at sunset on Wednesday, September 15 and ends in the evening on Thursday, September 16.

––Beth A. Winkelstein, Interim Provost

1. The University recognizes/observes the following secular holidays: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, July 4, Thanksgiving and the day after, Labor Day, and New Year’s Day.

2. The University also recognizes that there are several religious holidays that affect large numbers of University community members, including Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the first two days of Passover, and Good Friday. In consideration of their significance for many students, no examinations may be given and no assigned work may be required on these days. Students who observe these holidays will be given an opportunity to make up missed work in both laboratories and lecture courses. If an examination is given on the first class day after one of these holidays, it must not cover material introduced in class on that holiday.

Faculty should realize that Jewish holidays begin at sundown on the evening before the published date of the holiday. Late afternoon exams should be avoided on these days. Also, no examinations may be held on Saturdays or Sundays in the undergraduate schools unless they are also available on other days. Nor should seminars or other regular classes be scheduled on Saturdays or Sundays unless they are also available at other times.

3. The University recognizes that there are other holidays, both religious and secular, which are of importance to some individuals and groups on campus. Such occasions include, but are not limited to, Sukkot, the last two days of Passover, Shavuot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, Chinese New Year, the Muslim New Year, Diwali, Navaratri, Rama Navami, Paryushan, and the Islamic holidays Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha. Students who wish to observe such holidays must inform their instructors within the first two weeks of each semester of their intent to observe the holiday, even when the exact date of the holiday will not be known until later, so that alternative arrangements convenient to both students and faculty can be made at the earliest opportunity. Students who make such arrangements will not be required to attend classes or take examinations on the designated days, and faculty must provide reasonable opportunities for such students to make up missed work and examinations. For this reason it is desirable that faculty inform students of all examination dates at the start of each semester. Exceptions to the requirement of a make-up examination must be approved in advance by the undergraduate dean of the school in which the course is offered.

Editor’s Note: For a list of 2021-2022 Secular and Religious Holidays, visit https://chaplain.upenn.edu/worship/holidays/.

Robert Carpick, John Henry Towne Professor in the department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at Penn Engineering, has received the Nanotechnology Recognition Award from the Nanoscale Science and Technology Division (NSTD) of AVS, an interdisciplinary professional society centered on the fields of materials, interfaces, and processing.

The Nanotechnology Recognition Award “recognizes members of NSTD for outstanding scientific and technical contributions in the science of fabrication, characterization, and fundamental research employing nanometer-scale structures, scanning probe microscopy, technology transfer involving nanometer-scale structures, and/or the promotion and dissemination of knowledge and development in these areas.”

Dr. Carpick, who also has an appointment in the department of materials science and engineering, is an internationally recognized expert in the field of tribology, the study of how surfaces behave as they move against one another. Dr. Carpick’s research group is particularly interested in nanotribology, which investigates the fundamental mechanisms of friction, adhesion, wear, and lubrication at the smallest scales. 

The award, along with a cash prize and certificate, will be presented at the AVS International Symposium in October. Dr. Carpick will also deliver a keynote lecture, “Seeing the Hidden Interface: Revealing Nanoscale Mechanisms of Contact, Adhesion, and Friction by in situ Experiments,” at the symposium.

Ram Cnaan, director of Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice Program for Religion and Social Policy Research, and Femida Handy, professor and director of the PhD program in social welfare at SP2, were awarded a $179,602 grant from the Giving USA Foundation’s Generosity Commission to study COVID-19 and Philanthropy: Changes in Giving and Volunteering. 

The study will investigate the decline in the number of Americans who give and volunteer and examine five hypotheses on the subject. The study will use a comprehensive literature review, focus groups and a survey to gather data and address the Generosity Commission’s core mission by providing new insights into potential reasons for a reported decline in volunteering and giving in the United States.

Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, which collaborated earlier this year to launch the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry (CiPD), recently awarded the center’s first IDEA (Innovation in Dental Medicine and Engineering to Advance Oral Health) Prize. Henry Daniell, W.D. Miller Professor and vice chair in the department of basic & translational sciences in Penn Dental Medicine, and his collaborator, Daeyeon Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in Penn Engineering, are the inaugural recipients, awarded the prize for a project titled “Engineered Chewing Gum for Debulking Biofilm and Oral SARS-CoV-2.”

“The IDEA Prize was created to support the Penn Dental and Penn Engineering collaboration, and this project exemplifies the transformative potential of this interface to develop new solutions to treat oral diseases,” said Michel Koo, professor in the department of orthodontics and divisions of pediatric dentistry and community oral health at Penn Dental Medicine and co-director of the CiPD.

“The prize is an exciting opportunity to unite Drs. Lee and Daniell and their vision to bring together state-of-the-art functional materials and drug-delivery platforms,” added Kathleen Stebe, CiPD co-director and Goodwin Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Penn Engineering.

Open to faculty from Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, the IDEA Prize, which will be awarded annually, supports collaborative teams investigating novel ideas using engineering approaches to kickstart competitive proposals for federal funding and/or private sector/industry for commercialization. Awardees are selected based on originality and novelty, the impact of the proposed innovation of oral/craniofacial health, and the team composition with complementary expertise. The project of Drs. Daniell and Lee reflects all three.

The collaborative proposal combines Dr. Daniell’s novel plant-based drug development/delivery platform with Dr. Lee’s novel polymeric structures to create an affordable, long-lasting way to reduce dental biofilms (plaque) and oral SARS-CoV-2 transmission using a uniquely consumer-friendly delivery system—chewing gum.

“Oral diseases afflict 3.5 billion people worldwide, and many of these conditions are caused by microbes that accumulate on teeth, forming difficult to treat biofilms,” said Dr. Daniell. “In addition, saliva is a source of pathogenic microbes and aerosolized particles transmit disease, including COVID-19, so there is an urgent need to develop new methods to debulk pathogens in the saliva and decrease their aerosol transmission.”

With collaborators from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, Penn Vet, and Penn Dental Medicine, as well as Fraunhofer for commercial scale production, the Daniell laboratory investigators have already created chewing gum containing the ACE2 enzyme, demonstrating that ACE2 could trap SARS-CoV-2 virus in the chewing gum and prevent entry into human cells. 

In addition, Dr. Daniell’s lab, in collaboration with Dr. Koo’s lab, has been conducting studies that show promise in disrupting biofilms and reducing bacterial/fungal accumulation in the dental plaque, using his plant-based platform to produce lipase, dextranase, and mutanase to debulk biofilms and chewing gum as the delivery system. This work was published recently in Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Dr. Daniell has employed his innovative platform to grow biomedically important proteins and enzymes of many kinds in the leaves of plants. The system works by physically bombarding plant tissue with the genes of interest, prompting chloroplasts into taking up genes and then stably expressing that protein or enzyme. The plants can then be grown, harvested, dried, and processed, resulting in a powder that can be placed in a capsule, or in this case, a chewing gum.

“One of the key challenges in delivering bioactive substances such as enzymes in the oral cavity is that they are cleared rather rapidly; thus, repeated and frequent applications are often necessary to reap the benefit of the actives,” explained Dr. Lee. “One of the major aims of this work will be formulating chewing gum with novel polymeric structures to enhance the retention of the enzymes in the oral cavity.”

“There is an urgent need to develop precise and affordable, over-the-counter therapeutic solutions,” added Dr. Daniell. “We are excited by the potential for these revolutionary affordable solutions for long-lasting, at-home oral healthcare and prevention.”

The chairman, directors, and officers of the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) have announced that Judd Kessler, associate professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has won the 2021 Vernon L. Smith Ascending Scholar Prize.

Named after Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith and made possible through the generosity of the Rasmuson Foundation and other contributors, the Smith Prize seeks to inspire early-career scholars to emulate Dr. Smith’s zeal for scientific discovery. Set this year at $50,000, the Smith Prize is a “budding genius” award that recipients may use flexibly to advance social science in whatever manner they choose.

Dr. Kessler has emerged as one of the leading young scholars in applying experimental methods to real-world problems in public goods, particularly charitable giving and worker effort. He has also made important contributions in mechanism design, such as priority systems for organ donation.

The Foundation for the Advancement of Diversity in Intellectual Property has awarded Alicia Lai, L’21, the prestigious Jan Jancin Award, which recognizes students from diverse backgrounds who have made exceptional contributions to the intellectual property (IP) sector and intend to continue to pursue a career in the field.

Sponsored by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Intellectual Property Law, the Jan Jancin Award is specifically geared toward furthering diversity in IP law and is awarded to a student who has exemplified excellence in IP academic studies, written or published IP-related papers, and demonstrated leadership and contributions to IP organizations. Each year, law schools may nominate one student who they believe embodies the excellence the award aims to celebrate. In addition to an honorarium, the winner is also invited to be recognized at the AIPLA annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Alicia Lai, who also holds an AB in neuroscience from Princeton University, has written and published a number of legal articles that analyze some of the most cutting-edge topics in the sector. During her time at Penn Law, she worked closely with Christopher Yoo, the John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science, as co-author of an article on Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation. Ms. Lai has also co-authored four forthcoming pieces alongside Cary Coglianese, the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and professor of political science, on algorithmic decision-making and public administration. Additionally, she collaborated with Penn Law Board of Overseers Chair Osagie Imasogie, GL’85, to publish a National Law Journal op-ed regarding COVID-19 vaccine patents.

Penn Dental Medicine faculty member Yuan Liu and postdoctoral fellow Zhi Ren have been recognized for their excellence in research, recently receiving top awards from the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) and the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). The awards were presented as part of the AADOCR/IADR/Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR) General Session, held virtually in July. 

IADR Joseph Lister Award for New Investigators

Yuan Liu, a research associate in the division of restorative dentistry, is the 2021 recipient of the IADR Joseph Lister Award for New Investigators. An annual IADR award supported by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., this award recognizes young investigators with original research in oral disease prevention or oral health promotion.

Through her research as part of the lab of Michel Koo in the department of orthodontics and divisions of community oral health and pediatric dentistry, Dr. Liu is working to understand caries etiopathology and develop novel anti-caries approaches. Among her recent areas of study is a new bi-functional nanotechnology (termed nanohybrid) combining natural enzymes with catalytic nanoparticles that can precisely disrupt cariogenic biofilms and prevent caries onset.

“Through this nanohybrid system, we would like to introduce a concept of exploiting the natural settings found in pathological conditions (high sugar and acidic pH) to trigger self-generating chemical weapons used by commensals to fight against pathogenic bacteria to deter cariogenic biofilm establishment,” said Dr. Liu.

2021 AADOCR and IADR Hatton Awards

Zhi Ren has the unique distinction of being a double winner of the 2021 Hatton Awards in the AADOCR and the IADR. The Hatton Awards are IADR’s longest-running and the most competitive award that recognizes outstanding young dental researcher talents. The IADR Hatton Competition is designed to provide an opportunity for the best junior investigators from all IADR divisions and sections around the globe to present their research at the annual IADR General Session. Dr. Ren was one of the winners of the AADOCR Hatton Award, which qualified him to compete against worldwide competitors at the IADR Hatton Competition, where he won again, representing the IADR American Division (AADOCR).

As a dentist-scientist, Dr. Ren joined the lab of Michel Koo at Penn Dental Medicine in 2019 as a postdoctoral fellow. His research focuses on understanding how bacterial and fungal pathogens interact in the oral cavity to form a sticky plaque (biofilm) on teeth, which gives rise to early childhood caries (ECC), severe tooth decay that affects millions of children worldwide. In his recent project, for which he received the AADOCR and IADR Hatton Awards, Dr. Ren discovered a new microbial consortium naturally present in the saliva of children who have ECC, where the fungi and bacteria behave as a single unit, acting in concert to protect themselves from antimicrobials and to strengthen their ability to initiate disease-causing biofilms.

“It is incredibly difficult to win both the AADOCR and the IADR Hatton Awards; [Dr. Ren] may be the first postdoc fellow from Penn Dental Medicine to achieve this,” said Dr. Koo. “Kudos to Zhi for his creative mind, hard-work, and great presentation skills.”

Penn Nursing’s Mary Naylor and Heather Kelley-Thompson will both be honored by the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (Sigma). The 2021 International Awards for Nursing Excellence, Board Awards, and Honorary Membership will be presented during Sigma’s 46th Biennial Convention, which will be held from November 6-10, 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dr. Naylor, the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health, will receive the Nell J. Watts Lifetime Achievement in Nursing Award. This is one of the most prestigious honors bestowed by Sigma. It is given to a Sigma member who has demonstrated exemplary achievements in nursing throughout their career. Dr. Naylor is being recognized as a pioneer in the design, evaluation, and spread of healthcare innovations, most notably the transitional care model (TCM). Decades of funded research have demonstrated that advanced practice nurses implementing the TCM have significantly improved the outcomes of at-risk older adults and their family caregivers, while decreasing the use of costly healthcare services. Dr. Naylor is a leader in building the evidence linking nursing to quality of care. “Using evidence generated through rigorous science is paramount to making real change in healthcare,” she said. “Nurses are at the center of assuring equitable, high-quality care.”

Ms. Kelley-Thompson, the deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars Program and director and deputy administrator of Penn Nursing’s Biobehavioral Health Sciences Department, will be inducted into Sigma as an honorary member. This honor is conferred by Sigma’s Board of Directors on individuals throughout the world who are not eligible for regular membership but have demonstrated sustained achievements that have contributed to the advancement of nursing and healthcare at the national or global levels. Among her accomplishments, Ms. Kelley-Thompson established innovative and creative programming to support emerging nurse scientists as catalysts in transforming healthcare.

Sigma’s International Awards for Nursing Excellence reflect the organization’s dedication to fostering high professional nursing standards, recognizing superior achievement, developing leadership, and encouraging creative work.

Nicholas L. Balderston, a research assistant professor of psychiatry with the Center for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress, has been honored by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation with the 2021 Klerman Prize for Exceptional Clinical Research. The annual award recognizes exceptional clinical and basic research in mental illness. Dr. Balderston’s lab uses experimental design, psychophysiology, neuroimaging, and neuromodulation to explore the mechanisms that mediate the expression and regulation of anxiety. The ultimate aim of his research is to provide the foundation for novel neuromodulatory treatments for individuals suffering from severe anxiety.

Alexander C. Huang, an assistant professor of medicine, has been named the Damon Runyon-Doris Duke Clinical Investigator by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Huang, who studies T-cell responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors and their role in efficacy and toxicity, is one of six early-career physician-scientists working to develop new cancer therapies under the mentorship of a leading scientist to receive the recognition. Each awardee receives a total of $600,000, and the foundation will retire up to $100,000 of medical school debt owed by the awardee. Dr. Huang’s mentor is Gerald P. Linette, a professor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine.

Denise LaMarra, director of Penn Medicine’s Standardized Patient Program, received an Outstanding Educator of the Year award from the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE). Ms. LaMarra, who has served as director since 2006, helps the Standardized Patient Program serve thousands of learners across professions and at all levels of learning at Penn Medicine. Ms. LaMarra led the creation of a Standardized Patient Management System (SPMS), which several other medical schools in the U.S. and Canada have acquired to facilitate hiring, scheduling, managing expenses, and other related administrative tasks.

Meghan Brooks Lane-Fall, the David E. Longnecker Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and an associate professor of biostatistics, epidemiology, and informatics, has been chosen by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine as a member of its 2021-2023 New Voices cohort of 22 early-career leaders from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Lane-Fall and other new members are rising stars in their fields and have been selected through a competitive review process out of nearly 300 applicants. NASEM launched the New Voices program in 2018 to bring diverse perspectives from early-career U.S. leaders to important dialogues around how science, engineering, and medicine are shaping the future. 

Sally Nijim, a Perelman School of Medicine student, placed first, along with her team of four other aspiring physician-innovators, in a national pitch competition hosted by MD++.Through the innovation pitch competition, teams of medical students from across the United States came together to develop and propose solutions for improving health systems or for enhancing current health practices. Ms. Nijim and her team developed the concept for iKidney. The proposal surrounded creating personalized kidney care for patients with chronic kidney disease that brings together hardware (blood pressure and kidney function analysis in real time) with personalized software and coaching.

Christoph A. Thaiss, an assistant professor of microbiology, is among a multidisciplinary group of early-career researchers selected to address the global threat to human health from animal-borne infectious diseases as part of a new initiative, Scialog: Mitigating Zoonotic Threats. Sponsored by Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the three-year initiative will fund selected projects aimed at transforming the detection, prevention, and treatment of new and emerging pathogens. As part of his work at Penn Medicine, Dr. Thaiss uses state-of-the-art sequencing-based technologies to decipher the impact of environmental factors, including microbial pathogens, on systemic physiology.

Neha Vapiwala, a professor of radiation oncology and vice chair of education in radiation oncology, and Amit Maity, the Morton M. Kligerman Professor and executive vice chair of radiation oncology, have been named among the 28 fellows of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The ASTRO Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to radiation oncology through research, education, patient care, and/or service to the field. Drs. Vapiwala and Maity will be recognized in October during the organization’s 63rd annual meeting in Chicago.

Annenberg School Lecturer Carlin Romano recently received two first place awards from the American Jewish Press Association’s 40th annual Simon Rockower Awards.

Mr. Romano’s article, “Italian Jews: Rome, the Renaissance and Beyond,” appeared in the winter 2020 issue of Moment, a bimonthly Washington D.C. magazine about Jewish culture co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. A critical analysis of the new “National Museum of Italian Jewry and the Shoah” in Ferrara, Italy, it won for “Excellence in Arts and Criticism News and Features” and “Excellence in Writing About Jewish Heritage and Jewish Peoplehood in Europe.”

Judges described the article by Mr. Romano, critic-at-large of Moment, as “an incredible job weaving the backstory of Italy and the Jews through history with the modern story of creating a museum about the entire Italian Jewish experience....riveting.”

I have traveled up and down Locust Walk thousands of times over my twenty-five years connected to our University. However, my recent late-summer journeys through our beautiful campus have found me holding feelings that I have not felt here at Penn before. Or rather—it’s not that the feelings are new—it is the presence of these multiple emotions simultaneously that is new.

My old mentor Ralph Ciampa, the longtime director of Pastoral Care in Penn Medicine, used to often remind me that “humans are complex.” And this is true. It allows us to feel multiple things even over the course of the same day. Indeed, we can sometimes feel multiple emotions in the same moment. 

I wonder if you are feeling like I am. There’s a part of me that is so excited to see students and colleagues return to campus. I so very much enjoy this vocation because of the opportunity I am given to pour into the next generation of students at my alma mater, just like mentors and professors and advisers and coaches poured into me. I love affirming their dreams, wrestling through hard questions with them, going to their shows and games, cheering for them at Convocation and Hey Day and Commencement, then seeing them come back to campus as proud alumni. 

And I so very much love my colleagues. Bumping into them near the Love Statue or the Compass, having tea or grabbing lunch, developing programs and courses, being present with them through the challenges of life, officiating their weddings, going to their book readings, crying with and celebrating them at their retirement parties.  

Walking around campus lately has reminded me just how much I missed everyone and I feel so much excitement about the return of our students and my colleagues to campus this fall.  

I also feel nervous. 

Somewhere between uncomfortable and anxious. I don’t think I need to articulate all of the reasons and possible scenarios. You already know them. 

Some days are better than others and I find myself riding my bike really fast to get to campus and be with folks. Other days I’m really hesitant, and after commuting in, I sneak upstairs to my office, close the door and pull the blinds down.  

I’m both excited and nervous. And happy. And sad.  

I wonder if this is how members of the Penn community felt at the beginning of the school year after the World Wars. A joy at things “returning to normal.” But also a just under-the-surface grief and sadness at all that was lost…and who was lost.  

It doesn’t take much to make me cry nowadays. Both happy and sad tears. When we had Commencement in Franklin Field this past May, even though it was not our full celebration, seeing our seniors in their robes and mortarboards and then to see them pull their Hey Day hats and canes out…tears fell out of my eyes, down my cheeks, and onto my mask. I felt joy because of their joy. But also sadness because they didn’t get to have a normal Hey Day. Gratitude that they at least got this. Sadness at the weight and strain making these major decisions was and is on administrators.   

And now, walking through campus seeing more and more students come back to campus. I tear up and whisper under my breath, “We missed you so much.” I cry tears of joy and gratitude that they are back. And then two steps later, I feel sad again thinking that we all have to wear masks around our buildings. And I’m glad we do. It’s the right thing. But I wish we could smile at each other and shake hands without fearing that we are passing along or catching a virus.  

It’s a lot. 

This moment is a lot. I think what I’m trying to get at is that maybe we should try to show each other a little more grace this year. 

These remain very hard times. President Gutmann described this as a generational event.

And in addition to the pandemic, we’re still navigating some intense political divisions, there are still painful reminders of the presence of bigotry, there are catastrophes around the world, and our University is preparing to go through some major transitions and changes of our own, bringing their own set of mixed emotions. And who can even speak of the personal challenges we each are carrying with our families, scheduling, other health or financial concerns, and more? 

I keep thinking on that old quote; “Be Kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Yes, we are. 

Let’s try to be gentle and patient with one another. And gentle and patient with ourselves. We’re all doing the best we can. May the spaces we share be spaces of grace. 

There will be days that some of us won’t be contributing much that is helpful in meetings or won’t be very productive at work. We might need an extra day to get a report in. Let’s show each other grace.   

And there might be times where a friend may not be up to going out and might need some downtime. Or might be a little more needy. Or might not be as strong as they were two years ago. Or may have changed somehow since you last saw them. Let’s extend grace to each other and try to remember that we’re navigating life through a major crisis. Crises, actually. 

You are allowed to feel everything right now. You’re allowed to need help. In fact, I’d encourage you to reach out to all the support spaces on campus, including CAPS and the wide range of other professional and peer resources here at Penn. You don’t have to have it all together right now. You can be excited for this new beginning. And also terrified at the same time. You are complex. Let others be complex, too. And let’s try to show them grace in their complexity.  

One of the beautiful ironies of the last year was that while we were distant from one another, we also pulled together as a world to make it through.  

I’m praying that we can help each other make it through this new season for our University too. And not just survive it, but to enjoy it, finding moments of light amidst the darkness. To be cautious, but to have fun too. To be careful and brave. To be human. To be Penn. 

—Charles Howard, University Chaplain, Vice President For Social Equity and Community

Download the September AT PENN calendar as a PDF or visit the online version at https://almanac.upenn.edu/at-penn-calendar/september-at-penn-2021.

The clothing, accessories, and decorations we put on our bodies tell stories about who we are. They shape how others see us and how we see ourselves. The Stories We Wear, an exhibit in the Merle-Smith Galleries on the lower level of Penn Museum, will be on display from September 25, 2021–June 12, 2022.

Showcasing 2,500 years of style and adornment through approximately 250 remarkable objects, The Stories We Wear reveals how clothing and accessories offer powerful expressions of identity—examining the purpose and meaning behind what we wear. Discover a spectacular array of attire, jewelry, uniforms, regalia, and tattoos. Explore common threads woven throughout stories that transcend language, culture, and time. Now and in the ancient past, close to home and far away, the stories we wear connect us.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://www.penn.museum/on-view/galleries-exhibitions/the-stories-we-wear.

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 August 16-22, 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 August 16-22, 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: 10 incidents (5 assaults, 2 indecent assaults, 2 robberies, and 1 aggravated assault) were reported for August 16-22, 2021 by the 18^th District, covering the Schuylkill River to 49th St & Market St to Woodland Avenue.

August 24, 2021

We are very pleased to inform you of an important enhancement to Workday. Penn faculty and staff members now have the option to self-identify their sexual orientation and gender identity in their personal profile. Sharing this information is completely voluntary. The aggregate data collected will be used to report on the diversity of the University’s faculty and staff more fully. This information will also assist the University in more effectively planning for benefits administration, policy development, and other administrative purposes. 

To voluntarily self-identify your sexual orientation and/or gender identity, please: 

• Log into Workday at https://www.myworkday.com/upenn/login.htmld
• From your homepage, in Applications, select Personal Information.
• Under Change, select Personal Information. 
• Under Gender Identity and/or Sexual Orientation, click on the pencil icon at the right side of the page to make any changes.
• Select Submit to save your changes.

Only a small group of senior University-level Workday administrators and staff in the division of Human Resources who are trained on data confidentiality will be able to view an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation information. Only the employee associated with the record may add, change, or delete their information. Additional information about these changes is available in the Guidance for Reporting Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation.

This is also an opportune time to ensure that all the information in your personal profile is up to date, including your home address, phone number, and emergency contact information. If you have questions or need additional information about updating or modifying your personal profile in Workday, please contact the Penn Employee Solution Center at solutioncenter@upenn.edu or use the Self-Service-Modify Your Personal Information tip sheet for step-by-step instructions.

Penn is committed to providing a safe and inclusive work environment. These changes are one small and important step to demonstrate our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

—Joann Mitchell, Senior Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer
—Jack Heuer, Vice President for Human Resources
—Laura Perna, Vice Provost for Faculty

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

The Office of Information Security (OIS) and Information Systems and Computing (ISC) welcome you back to the 2021–2022 academic year. Whether you are back on campus or working remotely, OIS recommends taking simple yet critical steps to secure your computer and the data you handle.

Back up your data. This ensures access to the information if your computing device is compromised or lost. With the increase in ransomware attacks, regularly backing up your data becomes an essential task.

• Keep backups on separate devices and store them offline to help prevent data corruption.
• Regularly test backup functionality.
• Use two-factor authentication to secure backups.
• Ensure your backups will permit you to restore to a new device, if necessary.
• Document the type of data contained in the backup and its overall size. This makes it easier to retrieve and update.

Close security holes. Fix software bugs, and prevent hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities.

• Use Symantec Endpoint Protection to check for and remove known computer viruses from hard drives, removable media, and email attachments. Penn offers Symantec Endpoint Protection at no cost to eligible, active faculty, staff, and students.
• Run software updates promptly. If your computing device is not managed by your school/center, it is important to request notification when software updates are available for your operating system and any applications, and to install them in a timely manner.
• Use a unique password for your PennKey. Do not reuse your PennKey password for any other accounts or systems. Reuse of your PennKey password elsewhere opens that password to additional avenues of attack and compromise.

For additional information, contact your IT support staff and visit:

• Secure backup best practices: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/backup
• Information Security Tips for staff: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/staff
• Symantec Endpoint Protection: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/how-to/symantec-endpoint-protection

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

The University Club will remain closed this upcoming fall 2021 semester, with hopes to reopen in spring 2022. For updates, visit https://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/universityclub/ or email universityclub@upenn.edu.