Michele W. Berger

Edda Fields-Black, GR’01, who earned her PhD from the Department of History and is today a professor at Carnegie Mellon, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her account of the Combahee River Raid, which she argues was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.

Universities today face incredible challenges. Throughout the Spring/Summer 2025 issue—through stories about democracy, fundamental science, and much more—we aim to address those head on.

Over three days, ceremonies celebrated the more than 2,400 degree recipients from the College of Arts & Sciences, Graduate Division, and College of Liberal & Professional Studies.

We share recent findings from four Penn Arts & Sciences faculty, including one who used physics to make a delicious cup of coffee with fewer beans and another studying behavioral health practices to improve math scores.

The team, which includes Joseph Kroll, Evelyn Thomson, Elliot Lipeles, Dylan Rankin, and Brig Williams from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of an expansive collaboration studying high-energy collisions from the Large Hadron Collider.

Ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Library Company, and 1838 Black Metropolis collaborated on a conference about Black Philadelphia in the 18th and 19th centuries.

TED-style talks on crowdfunding in ancient Greece, gender gaps in political tolerance, shyness, opera singers and language, and how to know what you don’t know, took home the day’s top prizes.

Using archival documents and primary source material in Philadelphia and Scotland, Catherine Sorrentino, C’25, uncovered what happened to society’s most vulnerable with the rise of “anatomical medicine.”

Ben Talks NYC, which took place this year at the Times Center in front of a crowd of 270 people, featured Jeffrey Green and Michele Margolis of Political Science, Donovan Schaefer of Religious Studies, and Sophia Rosenfeld of History.

The film, which Jackman produced, has been nominated for Best Picture and seven other Oscars. (It already took home Best Picture at the BAFTAs.) Fellow Penn Arts & Sciences alums Fred Berger, C’03, and Marc Platt, C’79, also received Best Picture bids for “A Complete Unknown” and “Wicked,” respectively.

With the Philadelphia Eagles set to compete for the ultimate prize at Super Bowl LIX, Megan Robb, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, has noticed a “buzz of collective effervescence” in her Religion and Sports class, a space where students discuss ritual and ceremony, debate where sports and religion intersect—even meet the Eagles chaplain.

In a recent Knowledge by the Slice, Professor Justin McDaniel discusses the experiences from two of his Penn courses in which students take on “monastic” challenges and how unplugging from distractions can lead to unexpected breakthroughs and moments of clarity.