Over the next 25 years, the world’s population, currently hovering around 7.8 billion, is expected to grow by nearly 25% to 9.7 billion people. Existing global problems such as food, energy and water security are only going to become more acute. IoT4Ag, Penn’s first NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) is leveraging its collaborative expertise to produce new technologies aimed at creating the farm of the future.

The past year has been exceptional for Penn Engineering. When welcoming our new students to campus at the beginning of the semester, I was proud to note that they have joined the School at the most exciting time in its history.

While Matthew Campbell, Research Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), was working to develop highly reflective, lightweight films for laser-powered interstellar travel, the image you see here was created, albeit by accident.

A team of researchers, led by Michael Mitchell, Associate Professor in Bioengineering, and Kelsey Swingle, lead author and doctoral student in the Mitchell Lab, is hoping to close a longstanding gap in reproductive health care with targeted RNA, which could one day address the lack of therapeutics to stop or slow the progression of pre-eclampsia once it is diagnosed.

While apprehensions about employment and schools dominate headlines, the truth is that the effects of large-scale language models such as ChatGPT will touch virtually every corner of our lives. A team of researchers, led by Chris Callison-Burch, is seeking to empower tech users to learn to spot the difference between machine-generated and human-written text.

More than 34 million Americans suffer from pulmonary diseases like asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. While medical treatments can keep these ailments in check, there are currently no cures. Part of the reason, notes Dan Huh, is that it’s incredibly hard to study how these diseases actually work.

Modern life involves nearly constant interaction with devices and technology. For users, not only is an understanding of how to perform these interactions with confidence and security important, but an awareness of how those interactions affect us and our communities is critical.

For Penn Engineering students, finding ways to volunteer and make a difference in the communities around Penn’s campus is now easier than ever. The Penn Engineering Student Learning and Engagement (PESTLE) program is an online resource that helps connect them to a variety of volunteer activities.

Penn Engineering continues to enhance physical spaces in the School to ensure that they reflect a more balanced and truthful picture of the past while also inspiring and empowering future innovators, leaders and problem-solvers. In breaking down gatekeeping-based measurements of scientific impact and significance, the School can honor its history while acknowledging that there is still more to be done.

Penn Engineering’s Fall 2023 News reflects a season of bold growth and achievement, including launching the new Penn QUIEST quantum technology center, faculty winning top awards, advancing robotics via a $5M NSF partnership and celebrating major construction milestones in Amy Gutmann Hall and VLEST.

Over the last year, Penn Engineering welcomed 16 new faculty across Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Computer and Information Science, Electrical and Systems Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.

Remembering the Honorable Harold Berger, Cynthia Buoni, Kenneth R. Laker, Charles J. McMahon, Alan Myers and Jay Zemel.

Paul S. Angello (EE’72) is a retired partner of Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from Penn, he went on to earn a J.D. from the University of Southern California in 1981 and joined Stoel Rives in 1985, where he founded and built the firm’s patent practice.