Alumni Archive

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan, C’85, was the guest speaker at this year’s graduation ceremony for the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, held on May 14. Egan’s most recent novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. She is the author of four other books and numerous stories, and has also received honors for her nonfiction writing.

We speak with a diverse group of alums, including Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC and Chair of the Penn Arts and Sciences Board of Overseers Andrea Mitchell, CW'67, about their unique Penn experiences.

Let us know what’s new with you.

Penn's poets include some old favorites and emerging stars.

Ivan Sandoval will be student speaker.

Gabriele Marcotti, C’95, is a European-based sports journalist, sports author, and radio-television presenter who is regularly featured on the ESPN channel and website and in widely read publications like "The Times" in London.

Documentary filmmaker Erika Frankel, C’00, is currently riding a wave of critical acclaim for "King Georges," which chronicles the final chapter of Chef Georges Perrier’s iconic Philadelphia restaurant Le Bec-Fin.

How does an organization develop complete buy-in from its members? In order to answer that question, Amanda Barrett Cox, CGS’04, GED’09, GR’18, conducted and published a study about how organizations that make significant physical, emotional, and intellectual demands foster commitment and loyalty from voluntary participants—and as a result, thrive.

As we travel about an environment like a city, we instinctively learn how to get from one location to another and form a “mental map” of our surroundings. How do we do it? And why are some people great navigators while others are frequently disoriented?

Their story reads like a film treatment: Three college students—all politics junkies—meet through their involvement in campus politics and hit it off.

When graduation time rolled around, Josephine Shin, C’01, started getting a lot of advice—not all of it good. “Everyone told me how women’s studies majors don’t generally put in for finance jobs,” says Shin. “But instead of limiting my options, it’s what made me stand out.”

The institute will bring together world-class researchers to solve scientific and technological problems related to alternative sources of energy and energy use and storage.

A mutual friend brought Monique Péan and Stephen Glass, both C’03, together senior year. Thirteen years later, the two are partners in marriage and business. After a post-Penn stint at Goldman Sachs, Péan started an eponymous fine jewelry company in Manhattan; Glass, leaving behind a career in real estate private equity, joined her a few years later. Launched in 2006, MONIQUE PÉAN now employs 17 people.

Bill Shore, C’77, founder and CEO of Share Our Strength, and Laura Sorice, C’16.

Jean Lee, C ’09, arrived at Penn wanting to be a lawyer and left a burgeoning filmmaker. The moviemaking bug bit senior year, when, for her thesis project, she created an award-winning documentary—We Do Not Exist—about Philadelphia’s sex-trafficking industry. After Penn, she earned an M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Asia, and she has had projects at Sundance, Film Independent, and the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women.

Kimberly “Max” Brown, GR’04, has never been afraid to try something new. She was the first person in her family to go to college. Later, she became the second African American in the country to earn a doctorate in Mediterranean archaeology. Then, setting her sights on public service, she started a career as an administrator with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion.

Three 2014 College grads are finishing their movie with money they raised on Kickstarter.

This past February, current Mexican Senate President Ernesto Cordero, G’98, GR’04, visited campus to deliver a lecture on the state of the Mexican economy.

The worldwide hub of advanced Judaic studies looks back—and forward.

Students organize the biggest-ever Winter Reading Project.