Penn is Making History -- every day

Penn Alumni: Our Signature in the World

Penn alumni -- and their genius for collaborative invention -- have been making headlines recently:

Penn alumnus George E. Smith (C'55) [right] was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics, in recognition for his invention (along with Willard S. Boyle) of an integrated circuit that converts light into an electronic charge -- a technology that has improved medical diagnostics, allowed humankind to see the surface of Mars, and is found today in every digital camera and cell phone.

Aakash Mathur, a 2009 Wharton alumnus, and Jay Parekh, a 2009 Engineering alumnus, are developing the prototype of the reusable Hydros Bottle. The bottle purifies water within about 20 seconds of being filled -- helping to address the global water crisis and reduce the use of disposable water bottles.

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It's So Easy Being Green at Penn

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Lessons of A Robot: Building Smarter Engineering at Penn

You have to see it to believe it:

A robot, puttering along, gets clobbered -- its parts scattering in all directions -- and then begins to reassemble itself.

     watch on YouTube | nytimes.com

This ability -- to design something that reassembles itself, on the fly, in order to do the best job -- is a specialty of Mark Yim, the Gabel Family Term Junior Professor in Penn's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. It's also a product of Penn's GRASP Lab (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception Lab), a truly interdisciplinary research center focused on robotics, vision, perception, control, automation and learning.

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Penn Nursing Science: A Leader for Change in U.S. Healthcare

Penn Nursing is making history -- with a new model of patient care (based on nurse-conducted research) that will impact the nation's healthcare and budget.

      listen to story [5 min 57 sec]

From National Public Radio:

Here's a number that tells you a lot about what's wrong with the American health care system: When older patients get discharged from a hospital, 1 out of 5 of them will go right back within a month. Medicare pays $17 billion a year on these hospital readmissions. And in many cases, coming back should have been avoidable.

Mary Naylor is trying to change that. She started the Transitional Care Model at the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia. A nurse with advanced training in geriatrics is assigned to an elderly patient while he is in the hospital and then follows the patient, with frequent visits and contact, over two or three months to help him manage his own care.

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Young Penn Alum, Helen Lu, Receives Presidential Honor

Penn people are making history -- again.

This time, it's a young Penn alumna, Helen H. Lu, who received her BSE, MSE, and PhD from Penn and who is now an associate professor at Columbia University's Department of Biomedical Engineering.

From Columbia's website:

Helen H. Lu has received the nation’s highest honor for young scientists.

Associate Professor Helen H. Lu of the Department of Biomedical Engineering has been selected to receive the nation’s highest honor for scientists at the outset of their professional careers. She is one of 12 National Institutes of Health-nominated winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

In announcing the awards, President Barack Obama said, "These extraordinarily gifted young scientists and engineers represent the best in our country. With their talent, creativity, and dedication, I am confident that they will lead their fields in new breakthroughs and discoveries and help us use science and technology to lift up our nation and our world."

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