Sunflower Spirals and Raspberry Beads: A Nature-Inspired Leap in Water Harvesting Technology News / August 18, 2025 Tackling large socio-environmental issues like climate change and global freshwater scarcity takes bold, interdisciplinary experts with an eye for natural solutions. Shu Yang, Joseph Bordogna Professor and Chair of Materials Science and Engineering, has already leveraged both her engineering expertise and biomimicry approach to develop kirigami-inspired fog collectors and dehydrating... Read More
New Funding Supports Milestone Initiative to Advance Solar Energy Research News / August 10, 2020 Researchers in the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology have been awarded a Department of Energy grant focused on the production of fuels from sunlight. As a partner institution with the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE), the $40 million grant, awarded over five years, will... Read More
Navigating ‘Information Pollution’ With the Help of Artificial Intelligence News / July 20, 2020 There’s still a lot that’s not known about the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, the disease it causes. What leads some people to have mild symptoms and others to end up in the hospital? Do masks help stop the spread? What are the economic and political implications of the pandemic?... Read More
Penn Engineering Students Help Recreate Campus in Minecraft During Quarantine News / May 13, 2020 When it was announced that Penn’s campus would be closing due to the COVID-19 outbreak, thousands of students returned home feeling confused and anxious. While some students have adjusted to this change by searching for funny Zoom backgrounds or hosting virtual dinner parties, others are taking a different approach. Across... Read More
Penn Engineers Demonstrate ‘Fundamental Nature’ of Ubiquitous Atomic-scale Defects in Materials News / May 12, 2020 At the core of materials science is the study of material structure on the atomic scale. To understand how to build the next generation of cellphones or sustainable batteries for electric cars, materials science engineers zoom in on metals, polymers and other substances to understand how their component atoms and... Read More
To Err is Human, to Learn, Divine News / May 11, 2020 The human brain is a highly advanced information processor composed of more than 86 billion neurons. Humans are adept at recognizing patterns from complex networks, such as languages, without any formal instruction. Previously, cognitive scientists tried to explain this ability by depicting the brain as a highly optimized computer, but... Read More
En Garde! News / May 8, 2020 What were the chances? Captivated by a fencing demonstration at his elementary school in St. Louis, MO, an American-born son of French parentage went straight home and announced his desire to learn the sport. Meanwhile, an internationally recognized fencer, who had once coached the Egyptian National team, had settled in... Read More
Celebrating Penn Engineering’s 2020 Graduates News / May 7, 2020 A message from Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean: Now that the semester’s course instruction has concluded, I would like to reach out to the Penn Engineering community to share the School’s plans for the recognition and celebration of the graduates of 2020. It is very important that we take the... Read More
Headway, a Communication Device for Minimally Invasive Surgery, Wins 2020 Pennvention Grand Prize News / May 6, 2020 Now in its fifteenth year, Pennvention prides itself on being the sole Penn entrepreneurship competition with a primary focus on technological innovation. Over the course of the competition, entrants pitch an idea, develop a product, receive help from mentors and enter to win over $20,000 in prizes. This year’s winner... Read More
Junior Alexa Spagnola on Building Technology to Confront COVID-19 News / May 5, 2020 Alexa Spagnola is a junior studying electrical engineering. Last month, she and her team took first place in the NYU Abu Dhabi Hackathon for Social Good in the Arab World. This highly selective, invitational competition puts 60 top computer science and engineering students from around the world into teams and... Read More
