The University Scholars Faculty Council is a committee of faculty dedicated to supporting independent undergraduate research in the University Scholars Program. The committee is charged with reviewing applications and performing interviews for entry into the program, reviewing funding applications within the program, and being a resource to explore research ideas and assist in navigating the research enterprise at Penn. These faculty are a valuable resource to UScholars in addition to those available from CURF and its staff. The Council and the Scholars together form the University Scholars community, a community of diverse interests, with a unified vision of intellectually oriented, curiosity-driven inquiry.
Sarah H. Kagan
As Professor in the Clinician-Educator standing faculty track, Dr. Kagan’s research and teaching are closely connected to her clinical practice. Her qualitative research focuses on understanding patient perspectives and experiences to improve clinician knowledge and care delivery. Her current research in Supportive Cancer Care Research is a collaborative effort led by Dr. Kagan, Dr. Jane Evered, Dr. Clare Whitney, and leadership team members from the Abramson Cancer Center.
Zhaolan (Joe) Zhou
Zhaolan (Joe) Zhou received his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University. His research program focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of genetic disorders that afflict brain function. He currently chairs the Graduate Program in Genetics and Epigenetics as a part of the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group at the Perelman School of Medicine, and co-directs a graduate level course of Neuroepigenetics. As a member of the University Scholars Faculty Council, he helps identify motivated and talented undergraduates and supports them to conduct research in all areas of science.
Michael Lampson
Michael Lampson is a cell biologist with a research program spanning mechanisms of cell division, epigenetic inheritance, reproductive biology, molecular evolution, and development of chemical optogenetic tools to manipulate living cells. He teaches a large introductory biology course and a seminar course on topics related to chromosomes and the cell cycle.
Heath D. Schmidt
Dr. Heath D. Schmidt is the Killebrew-Censits Chair of Undergraduate Education and a Professor of Neuroscience & Pharmacology in the Schools of Nursing and Medicine at Penn. As a neuropharmacologist and director of the Laboratory of Neuropsychopharmacology, Dr. Schmidt approaches research on drugs of abuse in several ways: to understand drug addiction as a disease of the brain, to develop new pharmacotherapies to treat addiction, and to better understand how the brain works. Dr. Schmidt also explores how food, especially the Western diet consisting of foods high in sugar and fat, changes the brain to produce aberrant food-seeking behaviors that can lead to obesity.
Charlie Johnson
Charlie Johnson has a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from Harvard University. His research interests are in the area of experimental nanoscience and nanotechnology, ranging from synthesis of new single atomic layer materials (graphene and the like), property measurement, to applications in chemical detection and other areas.
Theodore Schurr
Theodore Schurr is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology, a Consulting Curator in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, and the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. For over thirty years, he has investigated the genetic prehistory of Asia and the Americas through studies of mtDNA, Y-chromosome and autosomal DNA variationin Asian, Siberian and Native American populations. His current projects include studies of genetic diversity in indigenous populations of Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. His research group is also exploring the population history of Georgia (Caucasus), Pakistan and Kazakhstan through our collaborative genetic studies in those countries.
Ann Kuttner
A member of the Department of History of Art, Ann Kuttner received her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley from the Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. Her research and teaching look at archeology, art, objects, architecture and landscape architecture, as well as at history and literature, in a world that Greeks, Romans, and many other peoples shared from the 9th c. BCE Greek period to the 8th c. CE in the early Islamic and Byzantine eras. Kuttner's courses include Greek and Roman art and artifact surveys, special lecture topics, and undergraduate and graduate seminars across her fields. She works to foster interdisciplinary student research on things and texts, culture and histories across the humanities and social sciences, and to put the deep past in dialogue with its futures. She is core faculty in the Graduate Groups in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World and in Ancient History, adjunct in the Departments of Classical Studies and of Religious Studies, and consulting scholar in the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.
Catherine Schrand
Catherine Schrand received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994 and her BBA from the University of Michigan. Her research primarily focuses on earnings quality, risk management, and disclosure. 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 also moderates a course for Wharton students (any concentration) who are writing an undergraduate thesis. 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.