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EnglishHow to Find News and Research on the University of Pennsylvania Website
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The University of Pennsylvania website (upenn.edu) is the university's official home online, and its news and research content is gathered mainly through Penn Today, the university's news outlet. If you want current stories rather than static department pages, start at the news sections linked from the homepage and browse by topic. The site organizes coverage into clear categories, so you can move directly to the subject you care about instead of scrolling through everything.
Where the news lives
Penn Today is the primary aggregation point for university news. From the site's news area you can reach:
- Featured stories — a rotating set of highlighted items across disciplines
- Topic categories — Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, Business & Law, Natural Sciences, Technology, Health & Medicine, Campus & Community, and Global
- A newsletter sign-up — "Sign up for the Penn Today Newsletter" is offered on the news pages for updates by email
- "More news via Penn Today" links that lead to the full news site
The homepage itself surfaces a selection of recent items, so it works as a quick scan before you commit to a deeper browse.
Browsing by topic
Each category collects stories of a similar kind, which makes targeted reading faster than searching. Examples drawn from the site's own listings:
| Category | Sample story topics |
|---|---|
| Health & Medicine | The human body in space; a $25M gift establishing the Smilow Center for Precision Therapeutics at Penn Medicine |
| Technology | How a Penn-based consortium has shaped modern AI |
| Natural Sciences | What "pristine relics" at the edge of the solar system reveal about planet formation; mapping Lenape plant knowledge |
| Arts & Humanities | A creative approach to learning biology; using AI to integrate design and finance |
| Social Sciences | Nerdiness, race, and perceptions of precision; studying the building blocks of early math learning |
| Business & Law | Golkin Family Foundation gift for law and technology at Penn Carey Law; how trust shapes retirement security |
If your interest is a single field, going straight to that category is the fastest route. If you are exploring, the featured block and the homepage mix disciplines for you.
Space and health coverage specifically
Stories that combine space and health do appear. One example on the site is "The human body in space," featuring sleep and chronobiology expert Mathias Basner on what keeps astronauts up at night and why the road to Mars runs through Antarctica. Space-related research also shows up under Natural Sciences, including a World Space Week story roundup and a piece on "pristine relics" at the edge of the solar system. These are readable news features aimed at a general audience, not paywalled journal articles, based on what the site presents.
Practical steps
- Open upenn.edu and look for the news links on the homepage.
- Choose a topic category that matches your interest, or use the featured stories as a starting point.
- Follow "More news via Penn Today" to reach the full news site for a wider list.
- If you want ongoing updates, use the Penn Today newsletter sign-up offered on the news pages.
What to expect and what to watch for
The site is a news and information hub, not a searchable academic database. It highlights selected stories rather than every paper or project, so a specific study may not appear unless Penn has written about it. Coverage is in English. The site does not present pricing or login requirements for reading news, and nothing in the available material indicates that news access is restricted — but treat that as "no restriction shown," not a guarantee about every page. For a quick answer to "what is happening at Penn right now," the homepage and Penn Today are the right entry points; for a deep dive into one field, the topic categories will get you there faster.