Penn Engineering’s GRASP Lab Helps Lead $5M Effort to Accelerate Robotics Research News / June 27, 2023 Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science are partnering with investigators at Oregon State University (OSU), as well as Semio, a Los Angeles-based software company that specializes in robotics applications, on a $5 million National Science Foundation effort to accelerate human-robotic-interface research by designing a... Read More
Metamaterials to Reduce Drag and Enhance Maneuverability in Aircraft News / June 6, 2023 Mechanical metamaterials are engineered structures that have unique properties that are not possible with natural materials. Now, they are being applied to aircraft to reduce drag and enhance maneuverability, feats that would decrease energy requirements in the field of air vehicle operation. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the University... Read More
Why COVID Misinformation Continues to Spread News / February 17, 2023 For the better part of three years now, COVID-19 has dominated news cycles, with pandemic-related information showing up in social media as much as—or sometimes more—than in traditional media. Anish Agarwal, a Perelman School of Medicine emergency physician and deputy director of the school’s Center for Digital Health, experienced firsthand how this affects health... Read More
ASSET Center Inaugural Seed Grants Will Fund Trustworthy AI Research in Healthcare News / January 13, 2023 Penn Engineering’s newly established ASSET Center aims to make AI-enabled systems more “safe, explainable and trustworthy” by studying the fundamentals of the artificial neural networks that organize and interpret data to solve problems. ASSET’s first funding collaboration is with Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) and the Penn Institute for... Read More
Penn Awarded Grant to Promote STEM Teaching and Learning News / December 1, 2022 Penn has received a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) aimed at increasing inclusivity in teaching and learning in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. The funding is part of HHMI’s Inclusive Excellence 3 (IE3) initiative, which invited select colleges and universities in the United States to “substantially and... Read More
Research on Fluorine-free Fuel Cells Receives 2.2 Million From the Department of Energy News / October 4, 2022 Fuel cells are becoming an increasingly important technology for electrical energy, especially for long-haul trucks and as backup power sources for homes. They convert hydrogen, which is increasingly produced using renewable energy sources with low greenhouse gas emissions, into electrical energy without emitting carbon dioxide. However, that does not mean... Read More
Konrad Kording’s CENTER is Part of a New NIH Education Initiative on Scientific Rigor News / September 9, 2022 In 2005, John Ioannidis published a bombshell paper titled “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” In it, Ioannidis argued that a lack of scientific rigor in biomedical research — such as poor study design, small sample sizes and improper assessment of the significance of data— meant that a large percentage of... Read More
Training the Next Generation of Scientists on Soft Materials, Machine Learning and Science Policy News / September 7, 2022 The National Science Foundation’s Research Traineeship Program aims to support graduate students, educate the STEM leaders of tomorrow and strengthen the national research infrastructure. The program’s latest series of grants are going toward university programs focused on artificial intelligence and quantum information science and engineering – two areas of high... Read More
Linh Thi Xuan Phan Joins NSF Project on Cyber-Physical Systems for Transportation Technology News / June 30, 2022 As self-driving cars gain the technical and legal ability to autonomously operate in more places, they will face new obstacles and more significant consequences while navigating them. Engineers tasked with ensuring vehicles’ safety will need to guarantee that their sensors correctly assess their surroundings, that their software makes the right... Read More
Penn Receives $2.4M for Research on Turning Buildings into Carbon Storage Structures News / June 21, 2022 The University of Pennsylvania has been selected to receive $2.4M in funding from the US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is part of the ARPA-E HESTIA program, which prioritizes overcoming barriers associated with carbon-storing buildings, including scarce, expensive and geographically limited building materials. The goal... Read More
