Sienna Cristal Bañuelos (left) and Erina Chowdhury spent the summer studying Indigenous medicinal practices with Sebastián Gil-Riaño, associate professor in the History & Sociology of Science Department.
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Konstantinos Raptis and Olivia Livingston are pictured during the decompression stage of a dive, during ascent.
(Image: Courtesy of Konstantinos Raptis)
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Using AI tools, Naomi Blau (left) and Moaz Elgeziry—pictured in the High Bay Laboratory on Penn’s campus—spent the summer collaborating to modernize the coding language behind a powerful radio camera at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, which astronomers worldwide use to study how the universe behaves and evolves.
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Image: theasis via Getty Images
Image: Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography
For mechanical engineer Igor Bargatin, space exploration is all about light-shaping ultrathin materials that fly, orient, and even accelerate on nothing but sunlight and lasers. Bargatin explains how his lab is testing featherweight fliers in the near-empty mesosphere, designing self-orienting satellite chains to power AI from orbit, and building the sails meant to carry a probe toward Alpha Centauri (illustrated).
(Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Robert Hurt (Caltech/IPAC))
Penn Engineers are exploring whether the same principles that are used to design new materials could explain how natural soils acquire their remarkable properties.
(Image: Courtesy of Penn Engineering)
Humpback whales, like the one pictured here off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts, are routinely located by analyzing when their calls reach underwater microphones. In a recent paper, oceanographer John Spiesberger and a colleague identified a theoretical wave-interference effect that can make energy from sound waves outrun fundamental speed limits without violating the laws of physics. Their findings could improve whale tracking.
(Image: Courtesy of Bryce Flynn / Getty)