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Dr. Kimberly Bowes

Professor Kim Bowes is the director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program. She is a Roman archaeologist and historian, with a special interest in the lives of working and poor people. In her work, she integrates archaeological and scientific data, anthropological theory and historical economics. 

From 2009 to 2015, Professor Bowes co-directed the Roman Peasant Project with colleagues from Penn and Italy and beyond - archaeologists, geoarchaeologists, historians, and bioarchaeologists. The Project was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Loeb Foundation, and the Penn Museum.  She recently finished a book on poor economics for the Roman Empire. Entitled Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the 90%, the book unearths the economic lives of working people. Using both new ancient data and new work on the modern poor, the book workers-eye view of an ancient economy, one that speaks to the challenges of workers today, surviving in an unforgiving, global world. She is also starting a new project on the impact of Roman industrial-scale brick production on local workers, environments and economies.

She has developed new research directions through teaching, particularly in the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program, including team-teaching with economists and historians. Professor Bowes teaches an Integrated Studies course on food and a BFS Seminar on ancient economic history. Her work has been supported by the American Academy in Rome, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Loeb Foundation, the 1984 Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 2012 to 2014, she was the Mellon Professor of the American Academy in Rome; from 2014-2017, she was the 22nd Director of the American Academy in Rome. At Penn, she is also the undergraduate chair of classical studies.

Contact Email: kimberlybowes@gmail.com

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Dr. Paulo Arratia

Prof. Paulo Arratia is the Eduardo D. Glandt Distinguished Scholar and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics (MEAM) and Chemical & Biological Engineering (CBE) at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a PhD from Rutgers University in 2003 and was a postdoc in the Department of Physics at Haverford College (2003-2005) and then at the University of Pennsylvania (2005-2007). Paulo is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the American Chemical Society New Investigation Award, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). He is also the recipient of the Milton Van Dike Award (APS-DFD), Gallery of Fluid Motion Award (APS -DFD/GNSP), the Rutgers University Early Career Distinction Award, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Ford Motor Company Award for Faculty Advising, and the Penn Health Pioneer Award. Paulo’s research focuses on the dynamics of complex fluids, dead or alive, from viscoelastic flows, rheology of dense colloidal suspensions & granular materials to swimming of microorganisms and active matter. 

Contact Email: parratia@seas.upenn.edu.

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Dr. Sarah Kagan

Prof. Sarah Hope Kagan, is the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing at Penn and Gerontological Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Joan Karnell Supportive Care Program for the Abramson Cancer Center at the Pennsylvania Hospital. She holds honorary international appointments in Nursing and in Public Health. These appointments, like her primary appointments at the University of Pennsylvania entail analysis and synthesis of considerations for aged populations, health, and well-being in later life, and improving clinical practice in health and social care to the benefit of older people and their families. Professor Kagan is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Older People Nursing. She serves on the Editorial Boards of four other journals – Cancer Nursing, Cancer Care Research Online, Geriatric Nursing, and Research in Gerontological Nursing.  Professor Kagan’s education and training includes a Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Science from the University of Chicago; a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Rush University in Chicago; and a Master of Science in Nursing degree with a specialty as a Gerontological Clinical Nurse Specialist and PhD from the University of California San Francisco.  Professor Kagan was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow in October 2003 and received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Oxford Brookes University in June 2013. 

Contact Email: skagan@nursing.upenn.edu.

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Dr. Benjamin Nathans

Prof. Benjamin Nathans is the director of the Integrated Studies Program and the Alan Charles Kors Associate Professor of History. He teaches and writes about Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, modern European Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His most recent book is To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.  He is the author of Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia, which won the Koret Prize in Jewish History, the Vucinich Prize in Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, the Lincoln Prize in Russian History, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in History. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Booksand the Times Literary Supplement and an occasional commentator on current Russian affairs. From 2008 to 2012 he worked as a consultant for Ralph Appelbaum Associates, a leading museum design firm, chairing an international committee of scholars that helped design the content for the Museum of Jewish History in Moscow.

Contact Email: bnathans@history.upenn.edu.

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Dr. Catherine Schrand

Prof. Catherine M. Schrand is Celia Z. Moh Professor of Accounting and Director of the Joseph Wharton Scholars Program in Wharton. Professor Catherine Schrand’s research primarily focuses on risk management and disclosure. Her research has been published in top-tier academic journals including Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, and Contemporary Accounting Research. She is an associate editor of Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, and Journal of Financial Services Research. She is the author (along with Patricia Dechow) of Earnings Quality, and of Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences (with Weili Ge and Patricia Dechow). In addition to doctoral level courses, she teaches an undergraduate elective on Financial Accounting. She has been actively involved in the accounting standard setting process through her past service on the Financial Accounting Standards Committee of the American Accounting Association and her involvement with the AAA/FASB Financial Reporting Issues Conference. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994 and her BBA from the University of Michigan. Before attending graduate school, Professor Schrand was a staff auditor and audit manager at KPMG Peat Marwick in Chicago and she is a Certified Public Accountant in Illinois.

Office hours: 1316 Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, Mondays 3:30-5:00 pm.

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