News

• September 14, 2020

  Penn Museum Features Objects From the Rarely Seen Oceanian Collection

  In the sixth year of the annual student-led exhibition internship, 2020 graduates Ashleigh David and Erin Spicola and senior Kia DaSilva spent last fall working alongside Museum staff to select a project that would connect to both the Provost’s “Year of Data” 2019-20 academic theme as well as the Oceanian collections. Together, the students and staff selected 13 objects from the Museum’s Oceanian collections, which encompasses nearly 28,000 objects, most of which are kept in storage, where the light, temperature, and humidity are controlled.

• September 14, 2020

  First-of-its-kind Virtual Summer Design Studio for High School Students

  As a large number of summer activities moved online due to COVID-19, the Stuart Weitzman School of Design partnered with the nonprofit organization, The Fresh Air Fund to launch a first-of-its-kind virtual studio. Led by Penn Praxis Design fellows, Fresh Air Everywhere was an intensive seven-week program that provided high school students with an introduction to architecture and landscape architecture while fostering skills in communication and community engagement.

• September 3, 2020

  Saachi Datta is Combining Her Passion for Religion and Science

  Saachi Datta, wants to be a physician. Her religious studies and biology majors prepare her for that, while also deepening lifelong passions. Recently, she co-authored a peer-reviewed article that combined her interests and found that in patients with neurodegenerative diseases, positive religious coping behaviors correlate with better health outcomes than those experienced by patients with coping behaviors negatively influenced by religion (e.g. holding a punitive view of religion) as well as those with nonreligious coping behaviors.

• September 3, 2020

  Radio Magic with Sophomore Leanna Tilitei

  As a summer intern for ‘World Cafe,’ sophomore Leanna Tilitei worked remotely as a member of the programming team helping to produce the ‘nation’s most listened-to-public radio music program.’ “I was very pleased that I had a lot of responsibilities, not just tasks but work that was essential to have the show air,” says Tilitei, who participated in the internship from her family’s home in Yonkers, New York. “I was busy the whole time.”

• September 3, 2020

  Joseph Earl Thomas’ Memoir Draws On Family and Fantasy Fiction

  Joseph Earl Thomas a Ph.D. student in the English department in the School of Arts & Sciences. Thomas explores his childhood in a memoir-in-progress, written in the third person, called “Reality Marble.” An excerpt from the book won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize, which recognizes an emerging writer’s single work of short fiction or nonfiction.