Jay Gottfried: Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor
Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price are pleased to announce the appointment of Jay Gottfried as the University of Pennsylvania’s eighteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor (PIK), effective July 1, 2017.
A world-renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Gottfried will be the Arthur H. Rubenstein University Professor, with joint faculty appointments in the department of neurology in the Perelman School of Medicine and the department of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences.
“Jay Gottfried is a pioneer in research that is unlocking mysteries of our sense of smell. His pathbreaking work already has brought important new insights into the neuroscience of smell by taking a boldly interdisciplinary approach to understand the broad range of physical and psychological dimensions of the phenomenon,” said President Gutmann.
“Jay’s research has tremendously exciting implications across many disciplines, not only within the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences, where he will hold faculty appointments, but extending also to Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Annenberg School for Communication. This kind of integrated knowledge and discovery defines the work of our PIK University Professors. We are delighted to welcome Jay back to Penn, where he previously served a noteworthy residency in adult neurology,” Dr. Gutmann continued.
Dr. Gottfried’s research studies how the human brain translates perceptions into smells (e.g., the smell of a rose or a wet dog). He brings together a wide range of approaches and techniques–including physiological recordings, multivariate pattern analysis and computational modeling–to understand how the brain encodes and stores odor information and how emotion, learning and experience affect this perceptual and neural information.
Dr. Gottfried is currently professor of neurology at the Feinberg School of Medicine and an affiliated faculty member of the department of psychology in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, where he has taught since 2004. His award-winning work has been supported by multiple ongoing grants from the National Institutes of Health (among others) and published across such leading journals as Science, Neuron and the Journal of Neuroscience.
He held a three-year neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania from 1998 to 2001, followed by a prestigious three-year fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at University College London, where he began his research in olfactory neuroscience and human neuroimaging. He earned an MD and PhD (1997) from New York University and an AB in molecular biology magna cum laude (1989) from Princeton University.
“Jay Gottfried is a dynamic teacher, mentor and collaborator who is strongly committed to innovative and translational research,” said Provost Price. “At the forefront of new approaches in neuroscience, he works closely with colleagues across multiple disciplines and is dedicated to training new generations of students, who will lead the scientific and medical advances of the future. I am confident that he will be a galvanizing force for neuroscience research across our campus in the years ahead.”
The Penn Integrates Knowledge program was launched by President Gutmann in 2005 as a University-wide initiative to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines and who are appointed in at least two Schools at Penn.
The Arthur H. Rubenstein University Professorship honors Arthur H. Rubenstein for his exemplary service as the executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine from September 2001 to July 2011. Dr. Rubenstein, now professor of medicine at the Perelman School, is an internationally prominent endocrinologist recognized for clinical expertise and groundbreaking research in diabetes. Well-known for his inspired teaching, Dr. Rubenstein has authored more than 350 publications and received numerous professional awards, including the highest honor of the Association of American Physicians, the George M. Kober Medal; the highest honor of the Association of Professors of Medicine, the Robert Williams Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award; and the Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Jim Wilson: Rose H. Weiss Orphan Disease Center Director’s Professor
Jim Wilson has been named the inaugural Rose H. Weiss Orphan Disease Center Director’s Professor. He is also the director of the Gene Therapy Program at Penn Medicine. Dr. Wilson joined the Perelman School of Medicine in 1993 and has since created the first and largest academic-based program in gene therapy.
“As a researcher and director of the Orphan Disease Center, Dr. Wilson has made significant contributions to the field,” said J. Larry Jameson, dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and executive vice president for the Health System. “He has forged international partnerships with some of the world’s foremost experts in rare diseases and built programs of excellence that provide a framework for advancing the science toward better treatments and possible cures.” The chair was made possible through the vision and generosity of Penn philanthropist George Weiss, W’65, HON’14, PAR’89, PAR’93.
Throughout his career, Dr. Wilson has studied rare and inherited diseases, including cystic fibrosis, dyslipidemias and metabolic disorders. He has published more than 550 papers, reviews, commentaries and editorials in the peer-reviewed literature and is an inventor on more than 117 patents. Dr. Wilson earned a BA in chemistry from Albion College, and both an MD and PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan Medical School.
Dr. Wilson began his work in gene therapy during his graduate studies at the University of Michigan more than 30 years ago. He has helped shape this emerging therapeutic area from its inception. Dr. Wilson’s laboratory recently discovered a novel and highly effective platform for gene transfer. The founder of several biotechnology companies, Dr. Wilson is currently leading a national dialogue on commercializing this potentially life-saving advancement.
A Wharton graduate and one of the University’s major benefactors, Mr. Weiss also plays a central leadership role, serving in a number of capacities, including as an emeritus member of the Penn Board of Trustees, a member of the Penn Medicine Board of Trustees, chair of the Penn Medicine Development Leadership Cabinet, as well as former chair of Making History: The Campaign for Penn. Mr. Weiss helped found the Orphan Disease Center at Penn in 2011. The center’s mission is to improve the quality of life of those afflicted with rare diseases—defined as a single disease affecting 200,000 or fewer people in the United States—and ensure that patients worldwide have access to the latest novel therapies.
Mr. Weiss made the gift in honor of his late mother, Rose H. Weiss. Born in Vienna, in 1908, she fled Austria with her family two weeks before Hitler invaded. She was a gifted businesswoman, and known to be especially generous to those in need of help. So too is Mr. Weiss, whose philanthropy and leadership have created scholarships, professorships, innovative programs and facilities that enhance many aspects of university life including athletics, technology and residential living. He received an Honorary Degree from Penn in 2014.
From the Office of the Provost: Seven Professors: Penn Fellows
Provost Vincent Price and Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen are pleased to announce the appointment of the ninth cohort of Penn Fellows.
The Penn Fellows program, begun in 2009, provides leadership development to select Penn faculty members in mid-career. It includes opportunities to build cross-campus alliances, meet distinguished academic leaders, think strategically about universities and university governance and consult with Penn’s senior administrators.
Ezekiel Dixon-Román, associate professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice, rethinks the use of quantitative methods from a critical theoretical lens, particularly for the study of social reproduction in human learning and development, such as inheritance and the social reproduction of “difference” and critical inquiry on social policies that seek to address issues of inequality, social mobility and education.
Daniel Gillion, Presidential Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Arts & Sciences, studies racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public policy and the American presidency, including the role of protest and how political dialogue on race alters the public policy process and shapes societal and cultural norms to improve the lives of racial and ethnic minorities.
Carolina Lopez, associate professor of microbiology and immunology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, studies the signals that turn on and regulate the immune system during infections with common respiratory viruses (such as the influenza virus or the respiratory syncytial virus), aiming to better understand the factors that modulate virus pathogenesis and develop better vaccines and antiviral therapies.
Christopher Marcinkoski, associate professor of landscape architecture in the School of Design, is a licensed architect and urban design consultant who studies “speculative urbanization”–the implications of urbanization activities that are out-of-sync with economic and demographic realities, most recently projects in Africa emulating speculative building in places such as Spain, Ireland, Dubai and China.
Katherine Nathanson, professor of medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies the genetics of human cancer, both germline changes which confer susceptibility to cancer and somatic genetic changes associated with outcome, including germline genetic changes associated with breast cancer susceptibility, genetic changes associated with testicular cancer susceptibility and somatic genetic markers in melanoma as determinants of response to therapy.
Sandra Ryeom, associate professor of cancer biology in the Perelman School of Medicine, studies the molecular mechanisms that regulate the tumor microenvironment, with a particular focus on the vasculature, and how the tumor microenvironment is assembled and maintained, with particular focus on the generation and maintenance of the tumor blood supply (tumor angiogenesis), a dynamic process involving continuous elaboration and remodeling of blood vessels.
Maurice Schweitzer, Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions in the Wharton School, studies emotions, ethical decision-making and the negotiation process, with a focus on trust and deception, including the recent co-authored Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both, which examines how to maximize success by navigating between cooperation and competition.
Interdisciplinary Arts Fund
The Interdisciplinary Arts Fund, awarded by the Provost’s Arts Advisory Council, supports art and culture initiatives at Penn that are collaborative and directly engage students. It aims to advance the role of art and culture in student and academic life, as well as the development of interdisciplinary, cross-campus and community partnerships.
Offered since 2010, the Arts Fund will complement grants made possible by the exciting new Sachs Program for Arts Innovation (Almanac October 18, 2016).
Proposals to the existing Arts Fund should be for major events, projects, or programs that engage a diverse range of students and bring together multiple groups, especially collaborations among Penn art and culture organizations and academic departments or centers. The Fund may provide seed money to develop large new cross-disciplinary initiatives and/or projects that already exist or are being planned.
Proposals should consist of a project narrative (no more than three pages) and a detailed budget. The narrative section should address how the project will engage a diverse group of students, foster cross-campus partnerships, engage one or more of Penn’s art and culture centers, and impact the Penn and/or Philadelphia communities.
Projects may be funded in whole or in part; the Fund will ideally award up to eight grants of between $2,000-$10,000.
Questions can be addressed to Leo Charney in the Office of the Provost at lcharney@upenn.edu
Proposals are due no later than February 24, submitted by email to provost-fac@upenn.edu
Applicants will be notified of award decisions before the end of the spring semester.
New Digital Portal Provides Public with Ease of Access to Penn Museum Collections, Scholarship and Programs
It was a bitter cold night in Philadelphia on January 8, 2014, but Dr. Steve Tinney, deputy director and associate curator-in-charge of the Babylonian Section, still drew a crowd of several hundred people to the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) to hear his talk, Gilgamesh: Journeys to the End of the World. Gilgamesh was a popular subject in the popular: the “Great Voyages” lecture series that each month promised a different armchair journey to a different time and place.
Since that night, more than 20,000 people have watched the talk—and the number continues to grow.
Gilgamesh: Journeys to the End of the World, the complete “Great Voyages” lecture series, and almost 200 other lectures, symposia and special programs, have been recorded, and occasionally live-streamed for Penn Museum audiences with internet access since 2010. Now, with the launch of The Digital Penn Museum, the Museum’s rich programmatic offerings join its online collections database and an extensive archive of scholarly and popular articles, websites, and blogposts, which are easily accessible and even “collectable,” making a virtual visit to the Penn Museum an adventurous, multifaceted experience.
Online Door to Cultures of the World
The Digital Penn Museum (www.penn.museum/collections/)—a dramatic new way to explore the digital content on the Museum’s website—was conceived as a portal to the rich and growing array of digital content developed by the Museum, its staff,and scholars. On the site, guests can now build their personalized online experience, searching the collections database (now featuring almost 900,000 objects and more than 180,000 images), browsing over 1,100 videos and archival films, then watching or saving materials of interest via the MyFinds feature.
In addition, the portal links directly to the Museum’s Expedition magazine archive, featuring articles on archaeology and anthropology going back to the first issue in 1958. Guests can also enter the Museum blog, and discover more than 800 posts authored by dozens of Museum staff and Penn students. Finally, a set of more than 40 “legacy” websites invites guests to explore online exhibitions, past physical exhibition online content, follow international research projects, and even try a few interactive experiences, including the popular opportunity to “write” your name in Cuneiform.
“The Museum’s mission—to transform understanding of the human experience—carries with it the obligation to provide access to our rich international collections, high-quality programs, and ongoing research, both in the laboratories and around the world,” noted Julian Siggers, the Museum’s Williams Director. “The Digital Penn Museum provides us with the platform to do just that.”
Jim Mathieu, the Museum’s head of collections, publications and digital media, noted that these popular online resources are designed for diverse audiences, from scholars seeking specific data on an area in their field, to more casual visitors looking to learn about world cultures—and find out what the Museum has to offer. “Our ‘curated’ highlights pages are designed with the new or casual visitor in mind. The Highlights pages pull together a wide range of digital resources about some of our key objects, like the colossal Sphinx from Memphis, the Ram-in-the-Thicket from Ur, or the Hasanlu ‘Lovers’—visitors can discover rich content throughout this new platform, and have an engaging experience as they do so.”
Now launched, The Digital Penn Museum will continue to grow, and guests interested in archaeology, anthropology, and world cultures, can expect to discover new content with each visit in the years to come.
Explore the Digital Penn Museum—a new online portal to collections, research, film, talks & more at the Penn Museum: http://bit.ly/2hclsDj
Call for College House Fellows
The Offices of the Provost and of College Houses and Academic Services invite applications for service as a College House Fellow. This is a residentially-based position that carries a two-year term.
Faculty applicants from all 12 schools within the University are welcome to apply. The most important qualification is an enthusiastic interest in mentoring and engaging undergraduate students within the residential setting. Members of the University’s faculty and full-time administrative staff in academic or student affairs who will be in their positions for at least two years are welcome to apply.
College House Fellows play a key role in connecting the Houses to the larger academic community at Penn.
Fellows are responsible for working with the Faculty Directors to develop each College House as an educational resource that encourages intellectual inquiry, promotes academic programs in residence, fosters faculty and student interaction and builds strong, supportive House communities. Specific responsibilities will differ from House to House, but the general time commitment is approximately 10 hours per week.
Although there are 24 Fellow positions in the College House system, the number of openings rarely exceeds six. For these highly-sought-after positions, the selection process can be quite competitive. Applicants are reviewed by the Undergraduate Deans, the Office of College Houses, and the individual House community members, including the Faculty Director, House Dean and student residents.
Information about each College House, the Fellow positions and application process may be found at www.collegehouses.upenn.edu Please explore the “join us” section of the website for position information. If you have any questions please contact Marty Redman, executive director of College Houses and Academic Services, at mredman@upenn.edu