The Ethical Algorithm: 2021 AAP PROSE Award Winner

Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth's book "The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design" was announced as a 2021 PROSE Physical Science and Mathematics Category Winner in Computing & Information Sciences.

Computer and Information Science

Social Norms for Algorithms

The outlook for science under the Biden-Harris administration

Penn Today spoke with experts in various areas of science and environmental policy, including Warren Center affiliate Cary Coglianese, about what they anticipate will shift now that President Biden has assumed the nation’s leadership.

Law
Political Science

Ubiquity of Data

The state of U.S. democracy

On the eve of a presidential inauguration following a historic election and its aftermath, experts from across Penn, including Warren Center affiliate Ezekiel Dixon-Román, weigh in on where we stand as a country.

Social Policy

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Damon Centola Publishes New Book on Behavior Change

How do you create the change you want to see in the world? Damon Centola’s newest book, Change: How to Make Big Things Happen, aims to answer that question by drawing on his research rooted in the fields of sociology and communication

Communication
Sociology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Penn to Develop New Turing Tests, Investigate How AI Can Become More Like Biological Intelligence

Despite their tiny brains, honey bees are intelligent and capable of solving complex, novel problems. AI researchers led by Konrad Kording aim to better understand this kind of biological intelligence in order to make artificially intelligent systems better able to learn and adapt.

Bioengineering
Computer and Information Science
Neuroscience

Evolution, Emergence and the Brain

The influence and importance of language

Labels for what happened Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol were very different from those used to describe the Black Lives Matter movement or the 2020 election results. Diana Mutz discusses how much weight individual words actually have.

Communication
Political Science

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Dark Energy Survey makes public catalog of nearly 700 million astronomical objects

With the goal of understanding dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe, DES released six years of data, representing one of the largest galaxy surveys published to date. Here at Penn, DES research efforts are led by Bhuvnesh Jain and others in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Physics and Astronomy

Ubiquity of Data

Money matters to happiness—perhaps more than previously thought

Research from Matthew Killingsworth shows that contrary to previous influential work, there’s no dollar-value plateau at which money’s importance lessens. One potential reason: Higher earners feel an increased sense of control over life.

People Analytics

Ubiquity of Data

New Study Finds that Delivering the News with Humor Makes Young Adults More Likely to Remember and Share

New research suggests that humor may help keep people informed about politics. A study from Emily Falk and collaborators found that, when compared to non-humorous news clips, viewers are not only more likely to share humorously-presented news, but they are also more likely to remember the content from these segments.

Communication
Marketing
Psychology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Why Independent Cultures Think Alike When It Comes to Categories: It’s Not in the Brain

The dominant hypothesis is that people are born with categories already in their brains, but a new study from Damon Centola has discovered a novel explanation. His results challenge many long-held ideas about culture and how it forms.

Communication
Sociology

Consensus and Contagion in Society