Jeffrey Kallberg Named Interim Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences

Kallberg, Deputy Dean and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music, will step into the role as of January 1, 2025. Josephine Park, School of Arts and Sciences President’s Distinguished Professor of English, will succeed Kallberg as Associate Dean for Arts and Letters.

A representation of an "artificial" person standing in line with real people.

There’s more hype than ever around artificial intelligence, but Assistant Professor of Sociology Benjamin Shestakofsky says it’s important to fully examine how the new technology fits into broader society.

World globe

Emergency Response

Solving the complex challenge that is climate change requires breadth in approach. Penn Arts & Sciences is positioned to lead.

Tova Tachau

Tachau entered Penn as a biochemistry and biophysics double-major, but a class in 20th-century Russian literature inspired her academic journey, which now includes a major in Russian and East European Studies.

Building New Worlds

Bing Chen, C’09, discusses his vital role in shaping the YouTube content creation ecosystem, his Pan-Asian cultural investment companies, and his dream of becoming a 21st-century Walt Disney.

A First-of-its-Kind Master’s Program for Police Leaders

The new graduate degree from the Department of Criminology and the College of Liberal & Professional Studies will begin next fall. It aims to teach evidence-based research to foster more equitable practices.

How Do You Authenticate a Long-Lost Chopin Waltz?

Jeffrey Kallberg, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music and incoming Interim Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences, recently helped verify the first major manuscript from the famous composer since the 1930s. Kallberg explains the intricate process.

Omnia Podcast: Democracy and Decision 2024 Episode Six (Audio)

In our final episode of the season, PORES Executive Director Stephanie Perry speaks with Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Political Science, about what a second Trump presidency means.

Hungry in America

Penn Arts & Sciences alums are taking on the challenge of food insecurity locally and on a national scale.

Fall/Winter 2024

Omnia FW24 Cover

This issue features leaders in the climate change fight, a look at the storied career of David Wallace and the evolution of Penn Arts & Sciences under Dean Fluharty, Quaker Quotes, a “genius grant,” and so much more.

Penn Arts & Sciences in the News

The New York Times

The Science That Makes Baseball Mud ‘Magical’

November 4, 2024

“This is the magical thing: It spreads like face cream and grips like sandpaper,” says Douglas Jerolmack, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, about mud that has coated all the balls used in Major League Baseball for decades. In a new study, Jerolmack and colleagues found what they consider to be remarkable mechanical properties of this mud.

The New York Times

Behind a Wall of Trees, Archaeologists Discover a Maya City

November 2, 2024

Simon Martin, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and a curator at the Penn Museum, comments on the discovery of a previously unknown Maya complex in Mexico. “It is fascinating,” he says. “This demonstrates, to a high degree of confidence, that the landscape was heavily populated everywhere.”
 

The Conversation

International Election Monitors Can Help Boost People’s Trust in the Electoral Process—But Not All Work the Same Way

November 1, 2024

In a piece Sarah Bush, Associate Professor of Political Science, wrote with colleague Lauren Prather of the University of California, San Diego, the pair argue that giving greater access and paying more attention to credible, nonpartisan election monitors in the U.S. could increase public confidence in elections.

NPR

Unknown Chopin Waltz Identified at Morgan Library and Museum in New York

October 31, 2024

Jeffrey Kallberg, Deputy Dean and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music, helped verify the authenticity of a recently discovered unknown work by the famous composer. “The way that Chopin writes clefs, the way that he writes noteheads and stems, the way that he writes dynamics, the color of the ink—all of those immediately said Chopin,” Kallberg says.