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Recent Events

October 6, 2023 - Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration & Penn Resource Panel

About the Event

October 6 | 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT

Location: Huntsman F36, 3730 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Event Website: Register Here

September 26, 2023 - Machine Learning: How To Do It Well

About the Event

Everyone is talking about machine learning these days. ChatGPT answers our questions. Midjourney paints much nicer pictures than me, and reinforcement learning algorithms power robots doing some things that look much better than they looked a few years ago.

However, as machine learning moves into real world application, solving data problems across science and industry, we must ask what it means to use machine learning well. Most problems do not occur as part of the algorithms, but as part of the systems that we build around the machine learning algorithms. Join PIK Professor Konrad Kording for an overview of various problems that occur in that process and highlights on how to fix it.

About the Speaker

Konrad Kording

Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Joint appointments in the Department of Neuroscience in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and in the Department of Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science

Research Interests:

Dr. Kording’s research has one single focus, data that matters. Early research in the lab focused on computational neuroscience and in particular movement. But as the approaches matured, the focus has more been on discovering ways in which new data sources as well as emerging data analysis can enable awesome possibilities. The current focus is on Causality in Data science applications – how do we know how things work if we can not randomize? Our style of working is transdisciplinary, we collaborate on virtually every project.

VIRTUAL EVENT

Event Website: Eventbrite

May 10, 2023 - Silicon Dragon to Silicon Heartland

About the Event

Remote industrial regions in the American Midwest that were nearly forgotten when money and power shifted to Silicon Valley and to China are now being rebooted and reenergized. What has been known as the Rust Belt is developing the shine of a Tech Belt. This comeback bodes well for the nation’s economy and global competitiveness.

Based on Rebecca’s 150+ interviews and 8,000 road trip miles in her Honda Element during Covid, Silicon Heartland takes readers on an investigative tour of a new frontier through hi-tech innovation. It’s a counterpoint to China’s technology drive and increasing US-China frictions and decoupling of tech ecosystems.

The book has been endorsed by several thought leaders, including VCs Jim Breyer and Steve Case as well as Cisco ex-chairman John Chambers and Congressman Ro Khanna.

About the speaker:

Rebecca A. Fannin is a CNBC contributor, author of a newly published book Silicon Heartland, and a media entrepreneur.

Her research and writing about Asia’s entrepreneurial boom led to three prior books that have been published in multiple languages: Silicon Dragon (2008), Startup Asia (2011), and Tech Titans of China (2019). A guest on BBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and NPR, and a quoted expert in the New York Times, she also has spoken at the Brookings Institution, Asia Society, and many universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Oxford.

 

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May 8, 2023 - Banking on Deposits

About the Event

Deposits are at the core of the business of banking. We will discuss the business of deposit taking and how it is influenced by monetary policy. We then discuss how deposits allow banks to do maturity transformation–turning short-term deposits into long-term loans—without necessarily exposing themselves to interest rate risk. Clearly, this did not work well for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and we look at the ways in which SVB’s combination of deposits and asset differed from, and were similar to, other banks. Finally, we discuss the concerns that SVB’s failure raised for the US banking system going forward.

About the Speaker

Itamar Drechsler

Ervin Miller-Arthur M. Freedman Professor; Professor of Finance, Co-Director, Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research, The Wharton School

 

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April 3, 2023 - Quantum Computer Engineering: Challenges and Opportunities

About the Event

The second quantum revolution, the transition from quantum theory to quantum engineering, is leading us toward practical quantum computing. However, there are still many obstacles hindering practical quantum computing. In this talk, Dr. Gushu Li will briefly review the challenges and research opportunities in the state-of-the-art quantum computing engineering technology stacks, including quantum computing devices, peripheral control hardware architecture, compiler design/optimization, programming language design, etc. Then, Dr. Gushu Li will briefly introduce his recent works in tackling some of these challenges from multiple technology stacks.

 

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February 28, 2023 - Webs of Wellness: Connections Between Mind, Body, and Community for Making Change

About the Event

Virtual event featuring Prof. Emily Falk,  Associate Dean for Research at the Annenberg School for Communication.

VIRTUAL EVENT

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January 12, 2023 - Head vs. Heart: Facebook Language Reveals the Differences Between Loneliness and Depression

About the Event

Joint virtual program with WWBP Postdoc Research Fellow Tingting Liu at the Positive Psychology Center.

VIRTUAL EVENT

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December 19, 2022 - Cut or No Cut-Learn How Kirigami Structures Can Be Changed Into Different 3D Structures From the Same 2D Sheet

About the Event

December 19 | 9:00 PM – 10 PM ET

Part of the Penn Engineering Emerging Research Virtual Series, with Prof. Shu Yang, moderated by Prof. Boon Thau Loo.

VIRTUAL EVENT

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November 30, 2022 - Workshop: Job Search for International Students

About the Event

November 30 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM ET

Join members of Penn Career Services and ISSS for a virtual workshop all about how to search for jobs as an international student.

VIRTUAL EVENT

Event Website: Register Here

November 8, 2022 - International Research and Internships with Penn Abroad

About the Event

Want to spend your summer interning or conducting research abroad? Then the Global Research & Internship Program (GRIP) might be for you!

Attend this session, led by Penn Abroad, to learn more about GRIP, which offers Penn students the chance to gain professional work and research experience for eight to twelve weeks over the summer, while immersing themselves in another culture and country.

Event Website: WeChat

November 2, 2022 - The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity

About the Event

Wharton Professor Peter Fader will discuss his new book, The Customer-Base-Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity (Wharton School Press). First, he will explain the connections between this book and his other research/teaching/consulting activities (including his two previous books and the two companies he co-founded). Then he will take a deeper dive into some f the primary concepts/frameworks from the book, and will lead a discussion about its implications for global executives.

More information about The Customer-Base Audit can be found at: https://whr.tn/Customer-BaseAudit

About the Speaker

Peter Fader
Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Peter Fader is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His expertise centers around the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities. He works with firms from a wide range of industries, such as telecommunications, financial services, gaming/entertainment, retailing, and pharmaceuticals. Managerial applications focus on topics such as customer relationship management, lifetime value of the customer, and sales forecasting for new products. Much of his research highlights the consistent (but often surprising) behavioral patterns that exist across these industries and other seemingly different domains.

In addition to his various roles and responsibilities at Wharton, Professor Fader co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded (and continues to run) Theta to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation.”

Fader is the author of Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage (2020) and co-authored The Customer Centricity Playbook with Sarah Toms (2018). A third book, The Customer-Base Audit, will be published in Fall 2022.

He has won many awards for his research and teaching accomplishments. Among these achievements, he was named by Advertising Age as one of its inaugural “25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers” in 2017, and was the only academic on the list.

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October 24, 2022 - Turbulence Ahead: The Impact of the Pandemic and Financial Pressures on the Airline Industry

About the Event

The economic carnage and social disruption wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected virtually every part of the economy, but few sectors have suffered as much as aviation. As the air transportation sector — and the world — is recovering, the air transportation industry is facing numerous overlapping crises. Airlines are facing workforce shortages, supply chain issues, uncertain demand, and increasing competitive pressure. Passengers are facing excessive delays and skyrocketing prices as they look to get back to travel after years of disruption. In this talk, I will explore the history of our air transportation system, the crises facing the aviation industry today and going forward, and how the aviation system can meet these overlapping challenges and emerge stronger and more sustainable.

About the Speaker

Megan Ryerson
UPS Foundation Chair of Transportation and Professor of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania; Associate Dean for Research, Weitzman School

Professor Megan S. Ryerson is the UPS Foundation Chair of Transportation and Professor of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ryerson is an internationally respected expert on the national and global air transportation system. Her pathbreaking research in airport competition and air service incentives, intercity multimodal transportation system design and optimization, and air transportation environmental emissions and environmental justice has both opened new areas of inquiry for scholars and helped airlines, airports, universities, and institutions, and local, national, and international governments become more efficient, sustainable, and accessible. Dr. Ryerson is the Associate Dean for Research at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design where she has grown awarded grants by nearly 300% in three years. She has published 56 peer-reviewed publications, won numerous awards, and delivered lectures and appeared in media across the globe.

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October 20, 2022 - The Global Monkeypox Virus Outbreak: A Public Health Emergency of International Concern

About the Event

Historically, monkeypox virus caused a rare zoonotic disease in humans in countries of central and western Africa. The first widespread monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa occurred in 2003 in the United States. That outbreak was due to the importation of exotic animals from Africa and the accidental infection of prairie dogs that were distributed as pets and infected humans. The current global outbreak of monkeypox virus was first recognized in May of 2022.

The lecture will discuss the history of monkeypox and the epidemiology of the current global outbreak, poxvirology, and the available therapeutics and vaccines being used to help control the current outbreak.

About the Speaker

Stuart N. Isaacs, MD
Associate Dean for Animal Research, Perelman School of Medicine; Associate Professor of Medicine

Dr. Isaacs is an infectious disease specialist and a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine and completed his residency at Temple University Hospital. He did a research fellowship in molecular virology studying poxviruses at the NIH in the Laboratory of Viral Diseases and completed a clinical ID fellowship at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.

Dr. Isaacs has been a poxvirologist for over 30 years. His laboratory has focused on using poxviruses as a model system to study viral proteins that are involved in viral pathogenesis, dissemination, and evasion of the host immune response. The laboratory has also been pursuing future generation subunit poxvirus vaccines using protein/adjuvant and mRNA/lipid nanoparticle platforms. Dr. Isaacs previously served as the poxvirus program project leader for the NIH-funded Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases and organized the last International Poxvirus Symposium in July 2021.

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October 3, 2022 - Penn Chinese Student Gathering: Resources and Advices

About the Event

Penn Chinese student: join us for connecting with more Chinese Penn community members, learn more about how to leverage Penn resources, and receive advice from faculty, staff, and student panelists. This is a hybrid event, in-person and over Zoom.

Event Website: The Global Quaker

September 29, 2022 - Networked Systems in the Age of Really Fast Networks

About the Event

Computer networks have come a long way, from the 10 Mbps Ethernet standard of the 1980s to the 100s of Gbps (and soon to be Tbps) of today’s networks. For application developers, the benefits of growth are clear: higher bandwidth leads to faster network transfers and, thus, to better application performance. For network architects and operators, however, higher bandwidth is a double-edged sword and can lead to both additional challenges and additional opportunities. In this talk, I will discuss a few of the ways in which my lab and I have been exploring these issues. To that end, I will discuss our efforts to characterize the challenges of measuring modern networks and techniques to overcome those challenges.

About the Speaker

Vincent Liu
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania

Vincent Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he leads the PennNetworks group and is a member of the Distributed Systems Lab (DSL). His research interests are in the areas of distributed systems and networking and have been recognized by an NSF CAREER Award, a VMWare Early Career Faculty Award, a Facebook Faculty Research Award, and several best paper awards at SIGCOMM and NSDI. He received his PhD from the University of Washington while advised by Tom Anderson and Arvind Krishnamurthy.

About the Moderator

Boon Thau Loo
RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, University of Pennsylvania

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) department. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all academic and admissions operations for doctoral, master’s, and professional programs at Penn Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research team, and is also currently the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), an inter-disciplinary systems research lab bringing together researchers in networking, distributed systems, and security. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006. Prior to his PhD, he received his MS degree from Stanford University in 2000, and his BS degree with highest honors from University of California-Berkeley in 1999.

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September 27, 2022 - The Future of the World’s Water

About the Event

This past summer saw a series of record-breaking heatwaves around the world. And while these pushed the mercury sky-high, they also showed the extent to which water scarcity and variability can present significant challenges for energy, the environment, and the economy. This talk will draw on the expertise of The Water Center at Penn, a leading center for applied research on water security and resilience, to present solutions for global water challenges. These include making cities more resilient to urban flooding and water scarcity, advancing water equity and affordability, and using nature-based solutions to improve water quality at lower cost while improving livability.

About the Speaker

Howard Neukrug
Executive Director, the Water Center at Penn; Professor of Practice, University of Pennsylvania; Board Certified Professional Engineer; Board Certified Environmental Engineer; Honorary Diplomat in Water Resources Engineering

Howard Neukrug is the former Commissioner and CEO of Philadelphia Water, where he was responsible for all aspects of utility operations, environmental compliance, engineering, financing, budgeting, capital and strategic planning, customer service, human resources, and legal and policy decisions for its drinking water/wastewater/stormwater system serving 2.3 million people. At Penn, he is the director of the Water Center and teaches courses on the water industry and the role of water in urban sustainability and resiliency. He is also a Principal with CASE Environmental, LLC, where he provides consulting services to cities and utilities in urban planning, systems design, sustainability, organizational development, strategic planning, and trends and innovations in the global water industry.

About the Moderator

Scott Moore
Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives, Penn Global

Scott Moore is the Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives at Penn Global. Scott is a political scientist whose interests center on environmental sustainability, technology, and international relations. His first book, Subnational Hydropolitics: Conflict, Cooperation, and Institution-Building in Shared River Basins (Oxford University Press, 2018), examines how climate change and other pressures affect the likelihood of conflict over water within countries. Prior to Penn, Dr. Moore was a Young Professional and Water Resources Management Specialist at the World Bank Group, and Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer for China at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked extensively on the Paris Agreement on climate change. Prior to entering public service, Dr. Moore was Giorgio Ruffolo Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Scott’s research and commentary on a wide range of environmental and international affairs issues has appeared in a range of leading scholarly journals and media outlets, including Nature, The China Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, and The New York Times. Dr. Moore holds doctoral and master’s degrees from Oxford University and an undergraduate degree from Princeton.

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September 22, 2022 - The Future of Education Innovation, Leadership, and College Admissions

About the Event

Join us to learn about some of the newest professional learning programs from the Penn Graduate School of Education. Dr. Zachary Herrmann, the Penn GSE Executive Director of the Center for Professional Learning, will discuss some major trends in education and how Penn GSE works to support educators, leaders, entrepreneurs and others through advanced professional learning programs such as the Global Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation certificate program, the Strategic Leadership in Education certificate program, and the International College Advising certificate program.

About the Speaker

Zachary Herrmann
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Division; Executive Director, Center for Professional Learning; Director, Strategic Leadership in Education Certificate Program; Co-Director, Project-Based Learning Certificate Program

Zachary Herrmann is the Executive Director of the Center for Professional Learning. In this role, he leads the school’s strategy to design and deliver professional learning opportunities for learners across the globe. Dr. Herrmann also serves as the director of the Strategic Leadership in Education Certificate Program, and the co-director of the Project-Based Learning Certificate Program. Dr. Herrmann leads professional learning focused on teacher and leader development, team effectiveness, innovation, and creative problem solving. Dr. Herrmann taught high school mathematics for several years, during which time he developed a collaborative professional development network of schools dedicated to improving teaching and learning with a focus on complex tasks, collaborative learning, and equity.

Dr. Herrmann also serves as a member of the professional faculty at Penn GSE, where he teaches within several of the school’s master’s and doctoral programs. The new courses he has designed and teaches at Penn GSE are “Collaboration & Conflict,” which engages students in an interdisciplinary exploration of how people work together to solve complex problems, and “Teaching and Learning in Student-Centered Classrooms,” which explores student-centered approaches to teaching and learning. He also teaches negotiation within the MBA program at the Wharton School.

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September 20, 2022 - Chewing Gums Trap COVID-19 and Flu Viruses – Clinical Trial Launched at Penn

About the Event

This past summer saw a series of record-breaking heatwaves around the world. And while these pushed the mercury sky-high, they also showed the extent to which water scarcity and variability can present significant challenges for energy, the environment, and the economy. This talk will draw on the expertise of The Water Center at Penn, a leading center for applied research on water security and resilience, to present solutions for global water challenges. These include making cities more resilient to urban flooding and water scarcity, advancing water equity and affordability, and using nature-based solutions to improve water quality at lower cost while improving livability.

About the Speaker

Dr. Henry Daniell
W.D. Miller Professor, Vice Chair, Basic and Translational Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine

Dr. Daniell is the W.D. Miller Professor, Vice Chair, Basic and Translational Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007) and 14th American member of the National Academy of Sciences, Italy in 240 years (Ben Franklin is the first American member of this oldest national academy). He is the Editor in Chief of the Plant Biotechnology Journal, Oxford, UK, and the recipient of several awards including the American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Bayer Hemophilia global award, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award for outstanding contributions to lower the cost of biopharmaceuticals. He pioneered chloroplast genetic engineering technology to produce and deliver affordable biopharmaceuticals to treat major metabolic or genetic disorders, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, hypertension, hemophilia and retinopathy. Booster vaccines are developed in chloroplasts to prevent global infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, anthrax, plague, polio and more recently COVID-19. Studies with FDA and CDC funded by the Gates Foundation, NIH SMARTT program or major pharmaceutical companies facilitated advancement of these innovations to the clinic. More recently, viral trap proteins in chewing gum to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection/transmission is advanced to Phase I/II clinical trial, after receiving FDA approval of IND. He has published >300 peered reviewed articles (H-index 73, Google Scholar 92) and >100 patents. Details are available on Google Scholar.

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August 18, 2022 - The Metaverse Economy

About the Event

Will the immersive and persistent virtual experiences of the Metaverse transform the way we live, work, and interact in the coming years? Join the faculty and industry experts leading the new Wharton Executive Education program, “Business in the Metaverse Economy,” to learn about the potential and risks in emergent virtual spaces.

About the Moderator

Kevin Werbach
Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Liem Sioe Liong/First Pacific Company Professor, and Chairperson, Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Academic Director of the WEE “Business in the Metaverse Economy” Program

Professor Kevin Werbach is an expert on emerging technologies whose research addresses topics such as internet policy, ethics of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and gamification. He is the director of the Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project, and is the academic lead for Wharton’s Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets program. His books include The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust, For the Win: The Power of Gamification, and After the Digital Tornado: Networks, Algorithms, Humanity.
Professor Werbach earned his BA from University of California at Berkeley and his JD from Harvard Law School, where he served as publishing editor of the Harvard Law Review.

About the Speakers

Barbara Kahn
Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor, Professor of Marketing, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Professor Barbara Kahn is an expert in brand loyalty, product design, and consumer decision making. She co-hosts Wharton Marketing Matters, a podcast that has produced several segments discussing the future of marketing in the metaverse. She is president of both the Association for Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Research policy board and has been selected as an MSI trustee. She has also served as the vice dean of the Wharton undergraduate program.

Professor Kahn earned her BA from the University of Rochester and an MPhil, MBA, and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

John Paul MacDuffie
Professor of Management, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Professor John Paul MacDuffie is an expert in the global automotive industry. He teaches Work and Technology: Choices and Outcomes, a course focused on how emerging technologies and artificial intelligence will continue to impact the future of the workplace. He serves as the director of the Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation at Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management. He is a founding board member of the Industry Studies Association and an Automotive Experts Group member at the Federal Reserve Bank.

Professor MacDuffie earned his BA from Harvard and his Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Americus Reed
The Whitney M. Young Jr. Professor, Professor of Marketing, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Professor Americus Reed is an expert in the areas of brand identity and social influence. He co-hosts the podcast Wharton Marketing Matters, known for its segments regarding branding in the metaverse. He teaches Dynamic Marketing Strategy, as well as courses in the areas of consumer behavior, marketing research and management, and social psychology. His research has been published in multiple academic journals including the Journal of Consumer Research.

Professor Reed earned his BS and MS from Georgia State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida.

Cathy Barrera, PhD
Partner and Founding Economist, Prysm Group

Dr. Cathy Barrera is a partner and founding economist at Prysm Group, a leading economic consulting firm specializing in emerging technologies. Dr. Barrera’s work focuses on incentive design, monetization, and governance design for blockchain, digital assets, and the metaverse economy. She has led economic advisory projects for Fortune 500 companies and leading startups that have raised over $10B in capital. She is the industry lead for Wharton’s Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets program, an academic advisor to blockchain projects at the World Economic Forum, and a collaborator with the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab. She has been featured in outlets such as CBS News, CNBC, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, PBS, Politico, USA Today, Vox, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others. She is former tenure-track faculty at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and was the chief economist at ZipRecruiter.

Dr. Barrera received a BA in Communication Studies, Economics, and Mathematics from Northwestern University; an MSc in Applicable Mathematics from the London School of Economics; and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University, where she studied under Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart.

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July 27, 2022 - High-throughput Multi-dimensional T Cell Profiling Enabled Systems Immunology and Immune Engineering

About the Event

“T cells are important to the initiation, prevention, and cure of many diseases. In the past several years, we have developed several tools to profile the T cell repertoire from T cell receptor diversity to T cell receptor affinity to multi-dimensional profiling of single T cells in high-throughput. In this talk, I will first introduce these tools and then give examples on how we use them to answer some of the fundamental questions in systems immunology, which in turn help us design new approaches in immune engineering.” — Prof. Jenny Jiang

About the Moderator

Boon Thau Loo
RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, University of Pennsylvania

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) department. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all academic and admissions operations for doctoral, master’s, and professional programs at Penn Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research team, and is also currently the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), an inter-disciplinary systems research lab bringing together researchers in networking, distributed systems, and security. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006. Prior to his PhD, he received his MS degree from Stanford University in 2000, and his BS degree with highest honors from University of California-Berkeley in 1999.

About the Speaker

Jenny Jiang
Peter & Geri Skirkanich Associate Professor of Innovation, Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania

Jenny Jiang is Peter & Geri Skirkanich associate professor of innovation in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She obtained her PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology and did her postdoc training at Stanford University. Dr. Jiang’s lab focuses on systems immunology and immune engineering by developing technologies that enable the direct profiling of human immune systems in cancer, infection, and vaccination. Dr. Jiang is a recipient of the prestigious Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration award, one of National Academy of Medicine 2019 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars, and was recently recognized as one of the six 2021 Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR awardees. She is a fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

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June 27, 2022 - Are Retailers Losing Money on Loyalty Programs?

About the Event

Subscription programs are increasingly popular among a wide variety of retailers including Amazon (Prime), Barnes & Noble (B&N Membership), and Sephora (Flash). These types of programs give members access to a set of exclusive benefits for a fixed fee upfront, but what are the implications for subscription businesses and customer retention?

Using state-of-the-art machine learning methods, we find that the effect of subscription is economically significant, persistent over time, and heterogeneous across customers. Interestingly, only one-third of the effect on customer revenues is due to the economic benefit of the subscription program and the remaining two-thirds is attributed to the non-economic effect. Profitability analysis also shows that a large fraction of customers are not profitable for the retailer.

About the Speaker

Raghuram Iyengar
Miers-Busch, W’ 1885 Professor, Professor of Marketing; Faculty Director, Wharton Customer Analytics (WCA), The Wharton School

Raghuram Iyengar is a professor of marketing at the Wharton School and faculty director of Wharton Customer Analytics, the world’s preeminent academic research center focusing on the practice of data-driven business decision-making. Professor Iyengar’s research interests are in the area of pricing and social networks and his teaching interests are in market research and analytics. In the area of pricing, his work focuses on the impact of multi-part pricing schemes on consumer response.

He has an undergraduate degree in engineering from I.I.T. Kanpur, India, and a PhD in marketing from Columbia University. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Marketing Science.

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June 15, 2022 - Are We Facing the End of Globalization?

About the Event

Many experts are predicting the end of globalization. This seems to make sense given the 2008 financial crisis, the increase in economic nationalism, the COVID pandemic, the disruption of supply chains, and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. But should we really expect globalization to decline? Using the latest facts, Professor Hernandez will argue that these shocks only cause temporary dips in cross-border exchange. In the medium to long run, the evidence suggests that global business will continue to thrive. But the winners and losers will change, as they always do.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready.

PWCC’s virtual speaker series, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Click here to register.

About the Speaker

Exequiel (Zeke) Hernandez
Max and Bernice Garchik Family Presidential Associate Professor at Wharton

Exequiel (Zeke) Hernandez is the Max and Bernice Garchik Family Presidential Associate Professor at Wharton. He studies how global networks created by human migration and corporate partnerships affect the innovation, internationalization, and performance of organizations. He has won an unprecedented three Emerging Scholar awards from the most prestigious academic associations in his field, plus several best paper prizes for his research. He’s one of the most highly rated professors at Wharton by both MBA and undergraduate students, and he frequently trains executives from leading companies across multiple industries. He consistently wins teaching excellence awards and was selected by Poets & Quants as one of the Best 40 Under 40 business professors in the world.

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June 9, 2022 - 2022 Penn Engineering Emerging Research Virtual Series: Compliant, Dynamical Robots

About the Event

Recent years have seen a large interest in soft robotic systems, which provide new opportunities for machines that are flexible, adaptable, safe, and robust. These systems have been highly successful in a broad range of applications, including manipulation, locomotion, human-robot interaction, and more, but they present challenging design and control problems. In this talk, Penn Engineering Prof. Cynthia Sung will share efforts from her group to expand the capabilities of compliant and origami robots to dynamical tasks. She will show how the compliance of a mechanism can be designed to produce a particular mechanical response, how her group can leverage these designs for better performance and simpler control, and how they approach these problems computationally to design new compliant robots with new capabilities such as hopping, swimming, and flight.

Event Information

Click here to register.

About the Speaker

Cynthia Sung
Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

Cynthia Sung is the Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) and a member of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) lab at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2016 and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University in 2011. Her research interests are computational methods for design automation of robotic systems, with a particular focus on origami-inspired and compliant robots. She is the recipient of a 2021 ICRA best paper in mechanisms and design, a 2020 Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholars Award, 2019 NSF CAREER award, and a 2017 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award.

About the Moderator

Boon Thau Loo
RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) department. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all academic and admissions operations for doctoral, master’s and professional programs at Penn Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research team, and is also currently the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), an inter-disciplinary systems research lab bringing together researchers in networking, distributed systems, and security. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006. Prior to his Ph.D., he received his M.S. degree from Stanford University in 2000, and his B.S. degree with highest honors from University of California-Berkeley in 1999.

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May 18, 2022 - Cancer Care @ Home: 5 Steps to Pioneer What Was Previously Impossible

About the Event

Penn Medicine launched the Cancer Care at Home (CC@H) program in November 2019 to demonstrate that many infused or injected cancer drugs could be delivered safely at home, in addition to hospital or outpatient settings. At-home administration of cancer drugs remains uncommon in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic propelled Penn Medicine to accelerate CC@H with three goals: continue cancer treatment for immunocompromised patients while keeping them out of health care facilities, decrease density in infusion suites, and increase hospital capacity for COVID-19 and other patients. Over a seven-week period in late March and April 2020, CC@H saw a 700% increase in home infusion referrals for patients with cancer. In 2022, over 3,000 patients with cancer seen at Penn Medicine receive care at home. Our experience shows that, for appropriate cancer drugs and patient populations, home administration of cancer drugs can replace inpatient or outpatient administration.

Event Information

Click here to register.

About the Speaker

Justin E. Bekelman
Founding Director of the Penn Center for Center Care Innovation, Abramson Cancer Center; Professor of Radiation Oncology, Medicine, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Justin E. Bekelman, M.D., is Founding Director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation at the Abramson Cancer Center, Professor of Radiation Oncology, Medicine, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine, Faculty in the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, and Senior Fellow at the Penn Center for Precision Medicine and the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, all at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bekelman leads research programs to improve the length and quality of life for patients with cancer. His research focuses on health care delivery, payment reform and cancer care transformation, integrating methods from the fields of innovation, digital health, epidemiology, clinical trials, behavioral and health economics and public policy. Dr. Bekelman’s research has appeared in high-impact scientific journals and has been featured by media outlets in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has been awarded over $30 million in research funding by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, industry and other funders. He has served as an advisor to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on cancer care payment reform and innovation. Dr. Bekelman is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Bekelman completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and his medical training at Yale University, Johns Hopkins, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Previously, he was a management consultant at the Kalchas Group in London and New York, advising senior executives of health care and insurance clients on corporate strategy. Dr. Bekelman also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense in the US Department of Defense. He is a board-certified radiation oncologist and practicing physician at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

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April 27, 2022 - Population Aging in the U.S. & China: A Comparative Discussion

About the Event

As the growing aging population poses new challenges and opportunities to employment, retirement, and welfare state institutions around the globe, we invite scholars from China and the U.S. to have a comparative discussion.

Event Information

  • April 27th, 2022 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 PM, China Standard Time
  • April 27th, 2022 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time

Opening Remarks

Yijia Jing
Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, Co-Director of LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy, Fudan University

Prof. Yijia Jing is a Chang Jiang Scholar, Seaker Chan Chair Professor in Public Management, Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, and Professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He is founding editor-in-chief of the journal Global Public Policy and Governance and co-editor of International Public Management Journal. He is the founding co-editor of the Palgrave book series, Governing China in the 21 Century.

About the Moderator

Dan Guttman
Professor, Tianjin University Law School; Adjunct Professor, Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Affiliated Scholar, New York University U.S. Asia Law Institute, U.S. National Academy of Public Administration Fellow, Of Counsel at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks

Dan Guttman is a teacher, lawyer, and has been a public servant. Following 2004-6 years as a China Fulbright scholar he has worked with China and US colleagues teaching and developing programs in comparative governance, and practices law in the U.S. He served as Executive Director of a Presidential Advisory Commission on bioethics, was a Commissioner of the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission, directed U.S. Senate investigations on government use of private expertise, and was UNDP and EU China “foreign expert advisor” on environmental law. He is the author and coauthor of many books and articles. He has testified/spoken before the US Congress and many other public bodies, shared in journalism awards and is a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration. Dan was graduated from the University of Rochester and Yale Law School.

About the Panelists

Xizhe Peng
Professor of Population and Development, Director of the Institute of Population and Development Policy Studies and the Institute of Aging Studies, Fudan University

Peng Xizhe is currently a Professor of Population and Development at Fudan University, China, and is the Director of Institute of Population and Development Policy Studies, and the Institute of Aging Studies. Dr. Peng received his MSc and PhD degrees in Population Studies from London School of Economics and Political Sciences in 1983 and 1988 respectively.

His research activities covered a wide range of population-related issues, including population dynamics and policy in China, social development and social policy, aging and gender studies, etc. He is the author (or editor) for more than 18 books and 150 journal articles, served in scientific committees of various academic associations, and provides policy consultations to government agencies and institutions.

Zhen Zhang
Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Center of Population and Development Policy Studies, Fudan University

Zhang Zhen is currently an Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the Center of Population and Development Policy Studies at Fudan University. Zhen received his MA in Demography at Sun Yat-Sen University and his PhD in Demography at Peking University. Before moving to Fudan University in 2013, Zhen held a position as Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.

His research expertise and interest include survival and longevity, population aging, formal demography, social demography. Zhen’s recent research includes how the abnormally high sex ratio at birth accelerates population aging in China and other affected countries. His earlier publications include Population Aging Caused by a Rise in the Sex Ratio at Birth, The Ratio of Expansion to Compression: A New Measure of Lifespan Disparity, Impact of Demographic Uncertainty on Population Projection and Policymaking: The Case of China.

Hans-Peter Kohler
Co-Director, Population Aging Research Center; Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography; Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Prof. Kohler is a social and economic demographer whose current research focuses on health and health-related behaviors in developing and developed countries. He is the Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography, Professor of Sociology, and Co-director of the Population Aging Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

His primary research focuses on fertility and health in developing and developed countries. A key characteristic of this research is the attempt to integrate demographic, economic, sociological, and biological approaches in empirical and theoretical models of demographic behavior. For example, Kohler has been investigating the bio-social determinants of fertility, the causes of low- and lowest-low fertility in Southern and Eastern Europe, the causal effects of education on health, the interrelations between marriage and sexual relations in developing countries, the role of subjective expectations and risk assessments for understanding demographic outcomes, the importance of social interaction processes for fertility and AIDS-related behaviors, and demographic methods for measuring and forecasting fertility trends. Prof. Kohler is the 2005 recipient of PAA’s Clifford C. Clogg Award for Early Career Achievement and has been a recent fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Science. His research has received extensive funding through the National Institutes of Health (USA) and other institutions. He is author of a book on fertility and social interaction, has co-edited books on the biodemography of human reproduction and fertility and on causal inferences in population studies. Kohler has widely published on topics related to fertility, health, social and sexual networks, HIV/AIDS, biodemography and well-being in leading scientific journals, and his work has had substantial influence on policy and media discussions related to demographic change.

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April 9, 2022 - Building Modern China

About the Event

The most prominent members of the first generation of Chinese architects, like Fan Wenzhao, Yang Tingbao, Liang Sicheng, Tung Chuin, and Chen Chih, were educated in the architecture program of the University of Pennsylvania. They were very active in architectural design, architecture education, academic research, and many other fields after returning to China. They are an integral part of the Chinese modern movement and are credited for founding and promoting Chinese modern architecture. This lecture, which will reassess the developing process of Chinese modern architecture, will introduce the First Generation of Chinese Architects trained at Penn and their illustrious careers after returning to China, analyze how the architectural education they received contributed to their success, and demonstrate the value of this foundation to contemporary Chinese architecture.

Event Information

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on April 8. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while registering. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

About the Speaker

Tong Ming is an architectural and urban design professor at the Southeast University, Nanjing, focusing on both theoretical research and practical work in architecture and urban planning, participating actively in various communication programs of international teaching and research work. He is also the principal architect of a Shanghai-based architectural office, TM Studio. Tong Ming acted as the chief curator for the exhibitions, Foundation (2017), The Rise of the Modernity (2018), Accomplishment (2019), Building in China (2022) for introducing the first Chinese architects educated at Penn around the 1920s-1930s.

About the Moderator

Dr. Zhongjie Lin is Associate Professor and Director of Urban Design concentration, University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Dr. Zhongjie Lin is a scholar and practitioner of urbanism and a co-founder of Futurepolis. Before returning to the faculty at Penn, he was professor and director of Master of Urban Design program at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a fellow of Social Science Research Council, the Kissinger Institute on China and the US at the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Japan Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He has author or co-authored several books including Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement, Vertical Urbanism, Rio de Janeiro, Urban Design in the Global Perspective, and The Making of a Chinese Model New Town. He is recipient of 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship.

About the Panelists

Dr. Zhang Tong is Professor and Dean of School of Architecture at Southeast University. He is mainly engaged in architectural design creation, relevant theoretical research and teaching, and has won more than 20 international and domestic important awards, including the Asian Construction Association Architectural Design Gold Award, the International Construction Association Architectural Education Innovation Award and so on. Design works and teaching and research achievements have participated in many high-level exhibitions, including Venice International Architecture Biennale, International Association for construction conference architectural design exhibition and so on. He has published 15 works and more than 70 papers.

Ms. Xiahong Hua is a professor and doctoral advisor from College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Chinese First Class Registered Architect, visiting fellow in School of Architecture, Yale University (2014-2015). She is also the academic advisor for Atelier Archmixing and a part-time editor for Time+Architecture Magazine. Her academic interests include “Chinese Architects and Their Practices in Modern and Contemporary Times”, “Contemporary Architecture in Consumer Culture” and “Everyday Urban Research and Regeneration Design Strategies for Ordinary Buildings”. She has co-authored Change is More: Architectural Thinking by Atelier Archmixing (2020), Sixty-year History of Tongji University Architectural Design Institute (2018) and Shanghai Hudec Architecture (2013) and contributed chapters in The Oral History of Chinese Architecture Series (2018,2019), The History of Chinese Modern Architecture (2016), The Analysis and Inherence of Chinese Traditional Architecture (Shanghai volume) (2017) and The Green House (2015), etc.

Liyang Ding is an Assistant Professor at Marywood University School of Architecture. He teaches architectural history and theory and design studios. Liyang will be receiving his Ph.D. in Architecture at Stuart Weitzman School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania, in May 2022. Liyang’s research centers on modern architecture and urban culture in Germany and China, with a focus on the topics of space, representation, and phenomenology. Liyang has published many articles in both Chinese and English.

Jiawei Jiang is Assistant Professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University. He was granted doctoral degree in architectural history and theory from Tongji University in 2019. He served as visiting researcher at Yale University, TU Wien, Pusan National University.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6Do2ZXwgSxV6hszUOxk1Xg

April 7, 2022 - Under Pressure: The Future of Urban Housing

About the Event

Hina Jamelle, author of Under Pressure: Essays on Urban Housing, joins Mark Willis, Martha Kelley, and Simone Tarantino to discuss the future of urban housing in this joint event with the Weitzman School of Design.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. Launched by PWCC, the “Penn at Work — Making Your Future” series covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

  • April 7th, 2022 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 PM, China Standard Time
  • April 7th, 2022 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time

Click here to register.

Opening Remarks

Frederick Steiner
Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Frederick Steiner is Dean and Paley Professor, and co-executive director of the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He has written, edited, or co-edited 21 books, including Design with Nature Now (LincolnInstitute for Land Policy, also forthcoming Megaregions and America’s Future).

 

About the Moderator & Her Book

Hina Jamelle

Hina Jamelle teaches final year Graduate Option Studios and directs the Graduate Program’s Urban Housing Studios at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. She has held the Visiting Schaffer Practice Professorship at the University of Michigan. Jamelle is the co-director of the New York and Shanghai-based architectural firm Contemporary Architecture Practice and has co-edited issues of Architectural Design AD titled IMPACT (2020) as well as Elegance (2007). Hina Jamelle’s book UNDER PRESSURE on Urban Housing was published in 2021. Founded in 1999, Contemporary Architecture Practice [CAP] is known for futuristic designs using digital techniques and the latest technologies for the design and manufacturing of architecture. Projects include commissions by The Museum of Modern Art [New York]; Reebok Shanghai, Lijia Smart Park, Chongqing, Wenjin Hotels, Beijing, NJCTTQ Pharmaceuticals, Nanjing, AMEC Technologies, Nanchang [China]; Samsung, Seoul [South Korea]; and IWI Orthodontics Clinic, Tokyo [Japan]. Contemporary Architecture Practice’s projects have been exhibited extensively at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the London, Beijing, and Shanghai Biennales; and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among others. They also have been featured in more than 250 major publications around the world. Co-Directors Rahim and Jamelle have won the Architectural Record Design Vanguard Award and were featured in Phaidon’s 10x10x2 as one of the world’s top 100 emerging architects. Their project, IWI Orthodontics in Tokyo, Japan was featured in Phaidon’s ROOM 100 as one of the most creative interior design projects of the century. In 2015 Jamelle was recognized as 50 Under 50 Innovators of the 21st Century by a distinguished jury.

UNDER PRESSURE is about instigation and design in urban housing. Urban housing is a bellwether for economic, social, and political change. It varies widely in quality, typology, and audience and lies between the formal systems of urban infrastructure and the informal systems of daily life. Housing’s complexity offers unique and exciting opportunities to architects. Its entwinement with private equity and public agencies presents important challenges amplified by urbanization. This book gathers and contextualizes relevant conversations in urban housing unfolding today across architecture through four topics: Learning from History, Changing Domesticities, Housing Finance and Policy, and Design and Material Innovation. The result is a multi-disciplinary amalgam of research and design intelligence from thought leaders in the fields of architecture, real estate, economics, policy, material design, and finance.

About the Panelists

Mark A. Willis

Mark A. Willis is the Senior Policy Fellow at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Before joining Furman, Dr. Willis was a Visiting Scholar at the Ford Foundation following a 19-year career developing and overseeing JPMorgan Chase’s programs and products to help strengthen low- and moderate-income communities. Before joining Chase, Dr. Willis held various positions with the City of New York in housing, economic development, and tax policy and was an urban economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He serves on the boards of a wide range of banking and community-oriented organizations. He is a frequent participant on panels at academic, industry, and government conferences/convenings, and his recent publications have focused on affordable housing, national housing finance reform, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Dr. Willis has taught Housing and Community Development Policy at New York University’s Law and Wagner Schools. He has a JD degree from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. degree in urban economics and industrial organization from Yale University.

Martha Kelley

Martha is a Managing Director in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs, which serves as the private investing arm of the bank. Her group has invested in real estate assets totaling over $50 billion in equity across more than 800 investments. In the housing space, the team is currently active in multifamily development and acquisitions, and is also building several luxury condo projects in major urban markets. Martha has led investments across the residential, retail, office, hospitality, and self-storage sectors in her time at Goldman Sachs, and is currently leading the Northeast investing platform. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Martha worked in the investment banking sector. She has an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Simone Tarantino

With more than 25 years of entrepreneurial and business experience, Simone started his career with companies like Intel and Acer. In 2001, he launched a management consulting and marketing advisory company focused on creating new intersections between technology and the workplace to create smarter and more efficient ways to conduct business (then sold it to a bigger conglomerate). His entrepreneurial path included raising money and founding InspectManager, a cloud-based testing infrastructure, and AudioBox.fm, one of the most advanced media platforms in the cloud. Recently he invested and expanded the disruptive co-living concept of StartupHome from the UK to the US, refocusing it towards underrepresented founders and ImpactMentors, a path to funding for minority entrepreneurs. He launched a B2B Podcast company, and EdTech nonprofit for adult literacy, and other successful ventures. He is a Global Partner at the ERA Global accelerator in NY, a consultant for the Italian Trade Agency, and Senior Advisor to several international startups.

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March 22, 2022 - The Future of Global Food Security

About the Event

Penn Vet School Faculty members will discuss challenges and opportunities surrounding global food security for now and in the future. How do we balance agricultural productivity, efficiency, and sustainability? How does this look different in different geographic contexts? Southeast Asia, and in particular, China’s effort to ensure food security for its people continue to have global impact on the supply, demand, and prices of agricultural commodities critical to producing food for people. Recent unexpected perturbations from infectious diseases in both pigs and humans highlight the complexity and fragility of our global food supply. However, in the decades to come the focus on global food security will likely shift to the African continent where population growth will be most dramatic, impact of anthropogenic climate change on agriculture promises to be most severe, and farming practices are still largely based on small holder models. This panel will examine challenges and trade-offs in our interconnected global food system and speculate about opportunities for increased sustainability and equity as we strive to achieve global food security.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready.

PWCC launched a virtual speaker series entitled “Penn at Work — Making Your Future”. The series covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 8:00 AM–9:00 AM ET.

Click here to register.

About the Speakers

Thomas D. Parsons
Professor of Swine Production Medicine, Director of Swine Teaching Research Farm, Director of Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine

Dr. Parsons is faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Veterinary Medicine and serves as both Director of their Swine Teaching Research Farm and a new Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security. This center has the overarching objective to shape a forward-looking vision for farming that positions animal agriculture part of a solution for a livable future. He was raised on a family farm in western Massachusetts where my nephew, Christopher, is the 12th generation of Parsons to work land deeded from King George of England. Dr. Parsons received his veterinary degree and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Following postdoctoral training in Heidelberg, Germany, he returned to Penn as a faculty member and built one of the largest research groups working on farm animal welfare in North America. Dr. Parsons is a charter diplomat of American College of Animal Welfare, sits on numerous corporate and non-profit welfare advisory board, consult nationally and internationally on socially acceptable animal husbandry practices, and was recently appointed to the Marie A. Moore Endowed Chair in Animal Welfare and Behavior. He also has received awards from the New York Farmers for distinguished service to agriculture and from the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association for animal welfare advocacy. As a practicing veterinarian, Dr. Parsons has experience with the control of infectious diseases, helped farmers establish new value-added production systems, and have pioneered educational programs for both farmers and veterinarians across the globe. He has established an executive training program in conjunction with Penn’s Wharton School for the Chinese pork producers, a global education program on swine health and productivity for young veterinarians and has been instrumental in developing an on-line post-graduate training program for working professionals focused on animal welfare and behavior. Dr. Parsons has extensive experience as an educator, a consultant, and as an individual who has devoted his life to helping farmers retain their competitiveness by evolving to more socially acceptable models of agriculture.

Brianna Parsons
Lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture, Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine-New Bolton Center

Dr. Brianna Parsons is a Lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture with the new Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security at The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, New Bolton Center. She received her undergraduate degree in biology and neuroscience & behavior at Wesleyan University in 2014, her veterinary degree from Penn Vet in 2018, and her MSEd in Education Entrepreneurship from Penn’s Graduate School of Education in 2020.

In 2016, Dr. Parsons co-founded Gambia Goat Dairy, a social-entrepreneurial pilot-project that researches and employs sustainable agricultural practices to improve community health and wellbeing and support inclusive economic development. Brianna is interested in impact-driven research examining the effect of productive livestock systems on livelihoods, food sovereignty and the environment. She is keenly interested in the role of animal-source foods in improving diet quality and health outcomes.

Dr. Parsons’ residency provided broad training in clinical food animal medicine and ruminant nutrition. She has created novel training opportunities for undergraduate and veterinary students through her work with Gambia Goat Dairy, which merge topics in social entrepreneurship, food sovereignty and veterinary medicine. She has research interests in leveraging sustainable agricultural production to support environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

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March 17, 2022 - Toward Environmentally Sustainable Datacenters

About the Event

Sharing datacenter infrastructure improves energy efficiency, but whether strategic users participate in consolidated systems depends on management policies. Users who dislike allocations or perform poorly may deploy private, less-efficient systems. We address these challenges by combining insight in system architecture with methods in game theory and statistical learning. We illustrate this perspective for several fundamental challenges in datacenters such as stable power delivery, fair resource allocation, and performance analysis. Finally, we discuss future directions in environmentally sustainable computing.

About the Series

The 2022 Penn Engineering Emerging Research Virtual Series is a virtual talk series featuring Penn Engineering faculty presenting emerging research.

Event Information

Thursday, March 17, 2022, 9:00 PM–10:00 PM ET.

Click here to register.

Opening Remarks

Boon Thau Loo
RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, University of Pennsylvania

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) department. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all academic and admissions operations for doctoral, master’s and professional programs at Penn Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research team, and is also currently the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), an inter-disciplinary systems research lab bringing together researchers in networking, distributed systems, and security. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006. Prior to his PhD, he received his MS degree from Stanford University in 2000, and his BS degree with highest honors from University of California-Berkeley in 1999.

About the Speaker

Benjamin C. Lee, PhD
Professor, Electrical and Systems Engineering; Professor, Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania

Benjamin C. Lee is a Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering and of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Visiting Research Scientist at Meta / Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on computer architecture, energy efficiency, and security. He builds interdisciplinary links to machine learning and algorithmic game theory to better design and manage computer systems.

Dr. Lee was an Assistant and then Associate Professor at Duke University. He received his post-doctorate in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, PhD in Computer Science from Harvard University, and B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley. He has also held visiting positions at Microsoft Research, Intel Labs, and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Dr. Lee received the NSF Computing Innovation Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, and Google Faculty Research Award. He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist and IEEE Senior Member.

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March 15, 2022 - The Ukrainian Dilemma: What's at Stake?

About the Event

Rudra Sil (Professor of Political Science) joins Kevin M.F. Platt (Professor of Russian & East European Studies) in a conversation about the current crisis in Ukraine. They will consider the broader historical context within which the conflict emerged along with the various factors that may contribute to de-escalation and a lasting peace in the region.

Event Information

Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 9:00 PM–10:00 PM ET.

Click here to register.

About the Speakers

Rudra Sil

Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Department of Political Science; Director of the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business, School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

Rudra Sil is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He also serves as the School of Arts & Sceinces’ Director of the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business. His research and teaching interests encompass Russian/post-communist studies, Asian studies, comparative labor politics, international development, qualitative methodology and philosophy of social science. He has authored, coauthored or coedited seven books and has published articles have appeared in a wide range of journals, including International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, Current History, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Europe-Asia Studies. He is currently working on two books, Fate of a Former Superpower: Post-Soviet Russia in Comparative-Historical Perspective (under contract, Cambridge University Press) and Pathways of the Post-communist Proletariat: The Evolution of Labor Politics in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe.

Kevin M.F. Platt

Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities; Professor and Graduate Chair of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Kevin M. F. Platt is Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor and Graduate Chair of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been the recipient of grants from IREX, NCEEER, Fulbright-Hays, and other programs, and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2011-12. He works on representations of Russian history, Russian historiography, history, and memory in Russia and Eastern Europe, lyric poetry, and global post-Soviet Russian cultures. He is the author of Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths (Cornell UP, 2011) and History in a Grotesque Key: Russian Literature and the Idea of Revolution (Stanford, 1997; Russian edition 2006). He is the editor of Global Russian Cultures (Wisconsin UP, 2018) and the co-editor (with David Brandenberger) of Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda (Wisconsin UP, 2006). His current projects include a study of contemporary Russian culture in Latvia, tentatively titled Border Conditions: Russian Latvians Between World Orders, a study of history and memory in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, and a study of global cultural exchange in the twentieth century.

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March 10, 2022 - Next Gen Learning with Wharton Interactive’s Games-based Courses

About the Event

Wharton Interactive is on a mission to radically transform and democratize education with the most innovative educational games on the planet.

Come and hear from cofounders Professor Ethan Mollick and executive director Sarah Toms about Alternate Reality Courses (ARCs), entire courses delivered in a highly engaging game. Tens of thousands globally have already completed a Wharton ARC, including students in higher-ed and those already in the business world.

Traditional education doesn’t tackle the complexity of real life or provide ample opportunity to practice in-class lessons in the real world. But in the right kind of game—an ARC game—learners get to play the starring role in their educational journey. Immersed in a realistic narrative where non-player characters pose challenges, players are guided through making complex decisions. ARCs provide individualized analytical feedback to the learner every step of the way on how well they are performing. Mollick & Toms have also built an ecosystem where learners and educators can easily gain access to Wharton Interactive’s advanced experiential learning catalog.

Wharton Interactive is experiencing explosive growth because their ARCs deliver a giant leap forward in next gen learning.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready.

PWCC launched a virtual speaker series entitled “Penn at Work — Making Your Future”. The series covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Thursday, March 10, 2022, 7:00 AM–8:00 AM ET.

Click here to register.

About the Speakers

Ethan Mollick

Co-Founder and Faculty Director, Wharton Interactive

Professor Ethan Mollick is Faculty Director and Co-Founder of Wharton Interactive. He studies innovation and entrepreneurship and has published award-winning papers in top academic journals on topics ranging from crowdfunding to entrepreneurial strategy. He also co-authored Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, which was named one of the American Library Association’s top ten business books of the year. He has studied the way that games can be used to motivate performance and to educate. His award-winning entrepreneurship simulations and games are used globally.

Sarah Toms

Co-Founder and Executive Director, Wharton Interactive

She is a serious games expert and demonstrated thought leader in the educational technology field, fueled by a passion to find and develop innovative ways to make every learning environment active, engaging, more meaningful, and learner-centered.

Her drive to modernize, transform, and democratize education led Sarah and her team to co-invent Simpl.world, an open-source simulation framework. She has spent more than twenty years as a leader in the technology sphere, and was an entrepreneur for over a decade, founding companies that built global CRM, product development, productivity management, and financial systems. In addition, Sarah is coauthor of The Customer Centricity Playbook, the Digital Book Awards 2019 Best Business Book. And she is dedicated to supporting women and girls in the technology field, cofounding WIT@Penn, and through her work with the Women in Tech Summit and techgirlz.org.

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January 28, 2022 - Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture

About the Event

“Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture” features a symposium, lecture, and two-part exhibition at the Fisher Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania.

About the Exhibition

“Building in China” investigates significant moments in the continuing architectural dialogue between China and the West, between different generations of architects, and among contemporary designers in China.

Read more about the exhibition here.

Event Information

Click here to register for the opening of the exhibition.

January 13, 2022 - Real Estate Taxes: A Comparative Discussion — China’s New Pilot Rollout and the U.S. Experience

About the Event

This is the second event of the Penn-Fudan Virtual Series on Global Issues and Governance jointly organized by the Penn Wharton China Center and the Institute for Global Public Policy at Fudan University.

As China plans to significantly enlarge the pilot application of real estate taxes, we invite scholars from China and the U.S. to have a comparative discussion.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • January 14th, 2022 | Friday, 9–10:30 AM, China Standard Time
    January 13th, 2022 | Thursday, 8–9:30 PM, Eastern Standard Time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on January 13th. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

Opening Remarks

Yijia Jing
Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, Professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University

Prof. Yijia Jing is a Chang Jiang Scholar, Seaker Chan Chair Professor in Public Management, Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, and Professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He is founding editor-in-chief of the journal Global Public Policy and Governance and co-editor of International Public Management Journal. He is the founding co-editor of the Palgrave book series, Governing China in the 21 Century.

About the Moderator

Dan Guttman
Professor, Tianjin University Law School; Adjunct Professor, Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Affiliated Scholar, New York University US Asia Law Institute

Dan Guttman is a teacher, lawyer, and has been a public servant. Following 2004-6 years as a China Fulbright scholar he has worked with China and US colleagues teaching and developing programs in comparative governance, and practices law in the U.S. He served as Executive Director of a Presidential Advisory Commission on bioethics, was a Commissioner of the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission, directed U.S. Senate investigations on government use of private expertise, and was UNDP and EU China “foreign expert advisor” on environmental law. He is the author and coauthor of many books and articles. He has testified/spoken before the US Congress and many other public bodies, shared in journalism awards and is a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration. Dan was graduated from the University of Rochester and Yale Law School.

About the Speakers

Ping Zhang
Assistant Dean, the Institute for Global Public Policy; Associate Professor, the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University

Dr. Ping Zhang is an Associate Professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. He got his BA in Geophysics from Nanjing University, MA in Economics from Tsinghua, and Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy from the University of Georgia. His research focuses on property taxation, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and local governance. He has published one sole-authored and two co-authored books on property tax reform in China. His recent articles appear in journals including China Economic Review, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Public Administration, and Development and Journal of Contemporary China. He is also a recipient of Pu Shan Award for policy research.

Qiang Ren
Professor, the School of Public Finance and Taxation, Central University of Finance and Economics

Professor Qiang Ren is the Director of Center for Fiscal Research and Professor at the School of Public Finance and Taxation, Central University of Finance and Economics. His research interests include intergovernmental fiscal relations, property taxation and local government finance. He is the co-author of the books Development, Governance, and Real Property Tax in China and The Property Tax in China: History, Pilots, and Prospects. He has published many articles in journals such as Journal of World Economy, Finance & Trade Economics, Public Finance Research and Taxation Research.

Maisy Wong
James T. Riady Associate Professor of Real Estate, The Wharton School

Maisy Wong is the James T. Riady Associate Professor of Real Estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include labor mobility, urbanization, and real estate finance. At Wharton, she has taught courses on Real Estate Investments and Global Real Estate markets to undergraduate and MBA students, and has several Excellence in Teaching Awards. Dr. Wong is a Research Associate at the NBER, on the editorial board of the Journal of Urban Economics, and a former board member of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA). Dr. Wong earned her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Thomas H. Stanton
Former President of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM), Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University

Mr. Stanton is an attorney who has dedicated his career to strengthening design and management of government programs that deliver public services. He is a former member of the federal Senior Executive Service. Mr. Stanton is a former President of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM), an organization dedicated to improving risk management in federal agencies and programs. In 2018 AFERM awarded him its Hall of Fame Award. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). In 2017 NAPA awarded him its George Graham Award for Exceptional Service to the Academy. Mr. Stanton teaches as an adjunct faculty member at the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he received the award for Excellence in Teaching. He teaches the program’s core course for the MBA/MA in Government and for the Public Management program. Mr. Stanton has been an invited witness before many congressional committees and subcommittees, and in 2020 taught a course at the Yale Alumni College based on his book, American Race Relations and the Legacy of British Colonialism (Routledge, 2020). Mr. Stanton’s book, Why Some Firms Thrive While Others Fail: Governance and Management Lessons from the Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2012), builds on his service with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, where he interviewed numerous CEOs, bankers, traders, risk officers, regulators and policymakers. That book was also published in China (企业生死之谜:经济危机的治理与管理教训). Other books include Managing Risk and Performance: A Guide for Government Decision Makers (John Wiley & Sons, 2014), co-edited with Douglas Webster, and Public Sector Enterprise Risk Management: Advancing Beyond the Basics (Routledge, 2019), co-edited with Kenneth Fletcher.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/l0JCiut5iA4zPam6668Xkg

January 12, 2022 - Perspectives on Social Sustainability and Responsibility in China

About the Event

As the second-largest global economy, it is critical that China engage in sustainable and responsible action to preserve the planet and improve quality of life for the Chinese people. While social responsibility activity is still relatively new in China, the government, corporations, and individuals have a role in tackling these issues.

Join us for a discussion with a panel of alumni for an inside view on what is happening on the ground in China and how the government, companies, investors, and individuals are taking socially responsible action to ensure a sustainable future. Co-sponsored with the Penn Wharton China Center.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • January 13th, 2022 | Thursday, 9-10 AM, China Standard Time
  • January 12th, 2022 | Wednesday, 8-9 PM, Eastern Standard Time

Click “Read More” to register.

About the Speakers

Amy Cheng, WG’10
Formerly China Development Lead at Impossible Foods

Until recently, Amy Cheng was the China Development Lead at Impossible Foods. Prior to Impossible Foods, Amy launched and led Global Service Business Planning at Tesla. She was also the business manager for Tiny Prints (Shutterfly). After Wharton/Lauder, Amy spent over 3 years in China helping to build consumer-related businesses. Prior to business school, Amy worked in consulting, specializing in planning and operations. Currently, Amy is on Google’s Cloud Platform Strategy and Operations team. Amy completed her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley with degrees in Business Administration and Chinese.

Ming Khor, WG’16
Founder of Keru

Ming Khor is the founder and CEO of Keru, a social enterprise that organized professionals and students to do meaningful projects in the social sector. Ming grew up in Maryland and went to the University of Toronto, majoring in International Relations. After graduating, he followed his passion to make an impact in education and taught English in Hunan province with WorldTeach, a volunteer organization run out of the Harvard Center for International Development. Ming continued his journey in education with the non-profit Teach For China as a program manager, and spent two years in Yunnan. He later attended the University of Pennsylvania through a dual degree program at the Wharton School of Business and the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies with the desire of making social impact through business. He started Keru in 2016 and moved to Shanghai.

Chang Sun, WG’89
Managing Director of TPG China

Chang Sun China Managing Partner, TPG Chang is TPG’s Managing Partner for China. Prior to joining TPG, he was Chairman and founder of Black Soil Group, an agriculture investment holding company. From 1995 to 2015, Mr. Sun was a partner at Warburg Pincus Asia and served as chairman of Asia Pacific for the firm and a member of the firm’s Executive Management Group. Mr. Sun has also worked as an Executive Director in the Investment Banking Division and the Principal Investment Area of Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., at Lepercq, de Neuflize & Co as an investment banking associate, and at the United Nations as a translator. Chang is the founder and current honorary chairman of the China Venture Capital Association (CVCA) and the founder and current Executive Vice Chairman of the China Real Estate Developers and Investors’ Association (CREDIA). He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School, and a board member of the China Entrepreneurs Club (CEC).

Dr. Regina Abrami
Moderator; Director of Global Program, The Lauder Institute

Dr. Regina M. Abrami is the Director of the Lauder Institute’s Global Program and Head of its International Studies faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds appointments in the Departments of Political Science and Management as Senior Lecturer and Senior Fellow, respectively. At the Lauder Institute, she is broadly responsible for interdisciplinary curricular development in support of the university’s joint-degree MBA-MA program in International Studies. At Wharton, she teaches the popular elective course, “Managing and Competing: The Case of China.” Dr. Abrami brings to the Lauder Institute a passion for, and expertise in international and comparative political economy, experiential education, intercultural group dynamics, and strategic foresight. Prior to Wharton, Dr. Abrami served on the faculty of Harvard Business School for 11 years in various capacities, serving as inaugural faculty chair of its international immersion program, faculty member in its “Business, Government, and International Economy” unit, and co-designer of its “Doing Business in China” course. HBS honors include appointment as a Hellman Faculty Fellow, awarded for distinction in research, and the Robert F. Greenhill Award, given in recognition of distinguished service. In 2017, she won an Aspen Institute “Ideas Worth Teaching” award for her Lauder Institute course on foresight strategy. Dr. Abrami has authored dozens of HBS case studies and continues work on the political economy of national innovation, economic development, and the geopolitics of national economic security, with special focus on China. In addition to media appearances, her published work has appeared in Comparative Politics, Journal of East Asian Studies, Harvard Business Review, Marketwatch (WSJ), the China Policy Institute, the Oxford Handbook of Asian Business Systems. In 2014, her book, Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth was published by Harvard Business Review Press. Dr. Abrami earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was both a Reinhard Bendix and John L. Simpson Memorial Fellow. She is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Phi Beta Kappa, and a former Fellow of the Social Science Research Council and the Fulbright-Hays Program. Her languages include Mandarin and Vietnamese.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/teJw-OHCBra4R98GZRjBtA

December 20, 2021 - Wharton Global Youth Program Information Session

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • December 20, 2021 | Monday, 9 – 10:30 PM, China Standard Time
  • December 20, 2021 | Monday, 8 – 9:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on December 20. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

About the Speakers

Lauren More
Director, High School Programs

An experienced program leader and advisor, Lauren’s first teaching experience was in Japan, where she served as English language instructor to elementary, junior high, and continuing education students. For twelve years she managed undergraduate and high school programming within Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. Now at Wharton, Lauren leads all summer programming. She has a vision for creating dynamic educational opportunities for high school students within Wharton classrooms and providing the chance for students to learn directly from Wharton’s world-class faculty. A native of Kentucky, Lauren now resides with her family in the Philadelphia suburbs, where she drinks a lot of coffee and reads a lot of Murakami.

Alaysha Suggs
Administrative Coordinator, Pre-Baccalaureate Program

With a passion for higher education, Alaysha focuses on coordinating administrative and logistical support for the success of the Wharton Pre-Baccalaureate Program and Wharton Global Youth Programming Team. Her involvement in higher education administration began as a work-study student in financial aid while attending Howard University in Washington, DC. Alaysha’s commitment to providing access and resources to underserved populations has resonated through her previous work as an after-school instructor for children with intellectual disabilities and volunteer public speaking coach for minority students between the ages of 7-18. She is enthusiastic about working with Wharton to provide high school scholars with the tools to better prepare them for their next chapter in academia. A New Jersey native by way of the Lehigh Valley, Alaysha now resides within the Greater Philadelphia Area. When not on Penn’s campus, she enjoys venturing out on local hiking and bike trails and is an avid gardener.

Allyson Vaughan
Coordinator, High School Programs

A first-gen college graduate and proud La Salle University alumna, Ally focuses on coordinating logistics and operations for Wharton Global Youth Summer High School Programs. Her interest in non-traditional education was formed while coaching girls travel soccer, teaching English to nursery school students in Kenya, and encouraging children to learn through play while working at Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse. When she’s not in Huntsman Hall during the summer or taking classes at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, she enjoys spending time with her rescue dog, traveling, and going to concerts.

Lizzie Sobel
Administrative Coordinator, High School Programs

As a member of the WGYP Programming Team, Lizzie helps to coordinate the planning through delivery of all Wharton Summer High School Programs. A former ESL and high school English teacher, she is passionate about bringing new and exciting opportunities to students in order to expand their minds and their worlds. A native of the Philadelphia suburbs, she‘s eager to bring the Wharton experience to students around the globe. Prior to her role at WGYP, she proudly lived as an expat in Munich, Germany and taught an incredible group of international students. She has spent a large part of the last 5 years backpacking to different corners of the world, embracing every opportunity to try new cuisines, meet new people and snap a photo.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/D3gxM4XMZ2dZerd0SR9cyA

December 15, 2021 - The Future of the Office

About the Event

The COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented experiment that reshaped white-collar work and turned remote work into a kind of “new normal.” Now comes the hard part.

Many employees want to continue that normal and keep working remotely, and most at least want the ability to work occasionally from home. But for employers, the benefits of employees working from home or hybrid approaches are not so obvious. What should both groups do?

In a prescient new book, The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli lays out the facts in an effort to provide everyone involved with a vision of their futures. Cappelli unveils the surprising tradeoffs both employers and employees may have to accept to get what they want.

Cappelli illustrates the challenges we face in drawing lessons from the pandemic and deciding what to do moving forward. Do we allow some workers to be permanently remote? Do we let others choose when to work from home? Do we get rid of their offices? What else has to change, depending on the approach we choose?

His research reveals there is no consensus among business leaders. Even the most high-profile and forward-thinking companies are taking divergent approaches:

Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies say many employees can work remotely on a permanent basis.

Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and others say it is important for everyone to come back to the office.

Ford is redoing its office space so that most employees can work from home at least part of the time, and GM is planning to let local managers work out arrangements on an ad-hoc basis.

As Cappelli examines, earlier research on other types of remote work, including telecommuting, offers some guidance as to what to expect when some people will be in the office and others work at home, and also what happened when employers tried to take back offices. Neither worked as expected.

In a call to action for both employers and employees, Cappelli explores how we should think about the choices going forward as well as who wins and who loses. As he implores, we have to choose soon.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • December 16th, 2021 | Thursday, 9 – 10:30 AM, China Standard Time
  • December 15th, 2021 | Wednesday, 8 – 9:30 PM, Eastern Standard Time
  • December 15th, 2021 | Wednesday, 5 – 6:30 PM, Pacific time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on December 15th. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

About the Speaker

Peter Cappelli
George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The Wharton School; Director, Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School; Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and since 2007, is a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore.

Cappelli’s recent research examines changes in employment relations in the United States and their implications. Cappelli writes a monthly column on workforce issues for Human Resource Executive Online and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review. His recent books include Fortune Makers: The Leaders Creating China’s Great Global Companies (with Michael Useem, Harbir Singh, and Neng Liang); Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It; The India Way: How India’s Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management (with Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh, and Michael Useem), and Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order (with Bill Novelli).

Cappelli has degrees in industrial relations from Cornell University and in labor economics from Oxford, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He has been a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, a German Marshall Fund Fellow, and a faculty member at MIT, the University of Illinois, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/hGI6EDLawpZL3ZEWXNMyvg

December 1, 2021 - AI and the Future of Labor and Business Competition

About the Event

Changing economics within the AI industry are shaping the future of AI-based competition, particularly with regards to how industries will compete to retain, develop and manage talent across various economic regions (i.e. Europe, US, and Asia). In this session, Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe, Associate Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions, will discuss these crucial changes with a focus on key inputs such as software, developers, capital (e.g. the cloud), and data.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • December 02, 2021 | Thursday, 9:00 – 10:30 AM, China Standard Time
  • December 01, 2021 | Wednesday, 8:00 – 9:30 PM, Eastern Standard Time
  • December 01, 2021 | Wednesday, 5:00 – 6:30 PM, Pacific time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on December 1st. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

 

About the Speaker

Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe
Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School, Faculty Co-Lead, Wharton AI for Business

Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe is an Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the economics of technology and labor. Some recent research projects focus on 1) understanding the labor market for AI skills and 2) how workers choose to specialize in technologies. He is also interested in the use of data science tools for HR analytics.

Much of this research uses Internet-scale data sources to measure skills and labor market activity at new levels of granularity. His published papers have analyzed data from online job sites, career platforms, and other labor market intermediaries that collect fine-grained information on workers’ skills and career paths and on employers’ job requirements. He is a co-author of “The Talent Equation: Big Data Lessons for Navigating the Skills Gap and Building a Competitive Workforce,” published by McGraw Hill in 2013.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/C5HNbU51ZgikhETsTER1tQ 

November 4, 2021 - Our Entrepreneurship Stories: Socially-minded Entrepreneurs

About the Event

What motivates entrepreneurship and innovation? One of the values that are inextricably entwined into the core of the businesses is positive social change and impact.

Three socially-minded entrepreneurs Peter Wang Hjemdahl, Rui Jing Jiang, and Tiffany Yao who are dedicated to making impactful changes will share their entrepreneurial insights. The discussion will be moderated by award-winning venture capitalist and Wharton alum Joe Tian, founding partner of DT Capital.

About the Series

University of Pennsylvania has one of the highest numbers of Forbes 400 Billionaire alumni. This event series highlights startups and entrepreneurs that came out of the Penn/Wharton innovation ecosystem. Panels of entrepreneurs will share their stories and experiences, moderated by well-known venture capitalists.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • November 4th, 2021 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 PM, China Standard Time
  • November 4th, 2021 | Thursday, 8 – 9:30 AM, Eastern Standard Time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on November 4th. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

About the Speakers

Peter Wang Hjemdahl
Co-Founder, Chief Advocacy Officer of rePurpose Global

Peter Wang Hjemdahl is a Chinese-Norwegian social entrepreneur and Co-Founder & Chief Advocacy Officer of rePurpose Global, the world’s leading Plastic Action Platform dedicated to making planetary action delightfully simple for purposeful people and companies of any size, anywhere. His platform accomplishes this by empowering anybody to go Plastic Neutral today by financing innovators on the frontlines of fighting for our planet’s future. Since its inception, rePurpose Global has worked with 100+ purposeful brands, ranging from SMEs to Fortune 500s, and as a result, rePurpose-certified products now retail in 155+ countries, millions of pounds of plastic waste are removed from nature every year, and the venture is positively impacting the lives of thousands of marginalized community members worldwide.

Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, Peter has strategized on growth and business model design for social ventures across 4 continents and 5 sectors (education, energy, sustainable cities, global health, homelessness). As a Dalberg consultant, Peter advised the World Bank and USAID on climate finance and community health infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. With a crisp understanding of the social impact ecosystem ranging from global strategy-setters to local implementers, he is passionate about building powerful movements that systematically solve climate change while empowering 500M+ members of the urban poor worldwide.

Peter has frequently spoken and commented on climate finance, purposeful business, and sustainability behavioral change for global publications and forums such as Ellen MacArthur Foundation, TEDx, Sustainable Packaging Coalition, Sustainable Brands, and United Nations. He is a proud graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has also been a recipient of the President’s Engagement Prize in 2018, Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee, Halcyon Fellow, St. Gallen Symposium Leader of Tomorrow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper. In Peter’s free time, he loves meditating, scuba diving, practicing yoga on the beach, and going to modern art biennales.

Rui Jing Jiang
Co-Founder and CEO, Avisi Technologies

Rui Jing Jiang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Avisi Technologies, Inc., a company developing a nanotechnology-enabled ocular implant called VisiPlate. VisiPlate is 20x thinner than a single human hair and aims to treat patients with glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Glaucoma is an irreversible and oftentimes asymptomatic disease, affecting over 100M people worldwide. There are over 20 million glaucoma patients in China and 4 million in the US today. VisiPlate has demonstrated competitive effectiveness and safety in pre-clinical animal models and is currently in clinical trial investigation.

Rui Jing has been an invited speaker at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Eyecelerator meeting, the Glaucoma Research Foundation New Horizons Forum, the American Diabetes Association Leaders Forum, Ophthalmology Technology Summit, Ophthalmology Innovation Source (OIS) Glaucoma, and the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia Economic Outlook Conference. Rui Jing is a proud member of AdvaMed (Advanced Medical Technology Association) and serves as a panel reviewer for the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Rui Jing has spearheaded Avisi’s growth since founding the company in 2017 and was recognized as one of Philadelphia’s Inno Under 25 by Philadelphia Business Journal. Rui Jing graduated from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics, Finance, and Strategic Management.

Avisi Technologies has been funded by investors including Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Quaker Capital, Grays Ferry Capital, the University of Pennsylvania, and the National Science Foundation (Phase I and Phase II SBIRs). Avisi is a Johnson & Johnson JLABS company, a MedTech Innovator Accelerator company, and a UCSF Rosenman Innovator. In 2018, Avisi was awarded the University of Pennsylvania President’s Innovation Prize. Since then, Avisi has been recognized as one of the ten most promising Philadelphia tech companies of the decade by Technical.ly’s RealLIST Startups, a Watchlist venture in Wharton Magazine, and a finalist at the 2019 SXSW Innovation Awards for Health, Med, and Biotech.

Tiffany Yau
Founder and CEO, Fulphil

Tiffany Yau is a dedicated social entrepreneur and community builder who cares about empowering individuals to realize their potential to make an impact on the world. She is a dual-degree graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BA, MS Sociology & Nonprofit Leadership) who has started nationally scaled companies in edtech and health tech.

Yau is the Founder & CEO of Fulphil, a nonprofit that teaches social entrepreneurship to under-represented youths to inspire them realize their ability to make an impact on their resilient, local communities and future careers. As recognized in Forbes and her TED talk, Fulphil as inspired ~3,000 youths to start their own companies, helping them get into college and even provide for their families. Yau has also co-founded Project Shields, an emergency COVID-response initiative that has mass-produced over 100,000 face shields for front-line workers.

Yau also has a background in venture capital through her work with Red & Blue Ventures as a fellow of Venture for America, an organization founded by 2020 Democratic Candidate Andrew Yang. On top of this, she also sits on the Advisory Board of George Washington University’s Digital Marketing Program and is a teaches part-time for a Master’s level course in Raising Philanthropic Capital at the University of Pennsylvania.

About the Moderator

Joe Tian
DT Capital Founding Partner

Joe Tian is a founding partner of DT Capital, a VC firm focused on China with 3 billion USD equ. AUM. He has served as the board of director of many publicly listed companies. His firm has been ranked one of the Top 10 VC firms in China. Joe was formerly the CIO and managing director at DragonTech Ventures. Prior to that, Joe was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch and J.P.Morgan. He also worked at McKinsey & Company in the U.S.

Joe has been awarded 11 times as “Best Venture Capitalist” by the Forbes China Midas List, Top 50 Capitalists by Chinese Venture in 2019,Top 50 Capitalist by YiCai in 2019, China’s Top 20 most Influential Capitalists by CVCRI in 2017&2018, China’s Top 10 Venture Capitalists by ChinaVenture CVawards in 2010, China’s Top 100 Venture Capitalists by ChinaVenture HuRun in 2016, China’s Top 50 Venture Capitalists by ChinaVenture CVawards in 2017 and Top 100 in 2018&19, Top Capital Investors at the 5th Top Capital Summit for Asia-Pacific in 2008, Top 10 Most Influential PE Investors at the China International High-Tech Expo in 2007. He was elected as Executive Chairman of China Council for International Investment Promotion Investment and Financing Committee in 2012.

Joe has served as President of Wharton Club of Shanghai for 7 years, Chairman of Organizing Committee of 53rd Wharton Global Forum (largest attendants ever in Wharton history), and currently member of Wharton’s Executive Board for Asia.

Joe received his MBA from the Wharton School and MS and BS degrees in engineering from Bradley University and Chongqing University respectively.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OjgNr5JJZSPS-HOLrfuWPQ

October 26, 2021 - The Future of Private Space Travel

About the Event

It is the dawn of a new space age. The race is currently on for the future of civilian space travel. Who will dominate the space tourism industry?

In July, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both flew to space in rockets (VSS Unity and New Shepard) designed by their companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. On September 15th, a rocket named Inspiration4 launched by SpaceX which is founded by Elon Musk, carried the first all-civilian crew on an adventure to orbit the Earth for three days. Blue Origin followed up with NS-18 launch on October 13th.

Virgin Galactic’s Chairman of Space Advisory Board and long-term CEO George Whitesides is invited to join Penn Engineering Dean Vijay Kumar to share his insights and projections of the industry and his upcoming space travel.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • October 27th, 2021 | Wednesday, 9 – 10:30 AM, China Standard Time
  • October 26th, 2021 | Tuesday, 9 – 10:30 PM, Eastern Standard Time
  • October 26th, 2021 | Tuesday, 6 – 7:30 PM, Pacific time

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 5 PM on October 26th. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

About the Speaker

George Whitesides
Chairman, Space Advisory Board, Virgin Galactic

George Whitesides is the Chairman of the Space Advisory Board for Virgin Galactic, the human spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson.

George was the first CEO of the company, growing the company over ten years from a small team to the global aerospace firm it is today.

Under George’s leadership, the company flew the first human spaceflight from US soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle, flew the first woman to space on a commercial vehicle, and took the company public via a SPAC on the New York Stock Exchange, in partnership with Branson and Chamath Palihapitiya.

George also oversaw the formation and growth of Virgin Orbit, a satellite launch company based in Long Beach, from its founding as a small team inside Galactic in 2011 to a 300 person operation that was spun out of Galactic in 2017.

Prior to Galactic, George worked on President Obama’s transition team in 2008 and subsequently served as NASA Chief of Staff for NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. George was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the agency’s highest honor, upon his departure in 2010.

George serves on a variety of philanthropic councils and boards, including Caltech’s Space Innovation Council, Princeton’s Advisory Council for Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Science Advisory Board for Caltech’s Space Solar Power Initiative. He helped start the BLAST scholarship program to mentor Black aerospace student-leaders in partnership with UNCF, and serves as a mentor for the Isakowitz Fellowship program. He did his undergraduate degree in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, an MPhil in GIS and Remote Sensing at Cambridge University, and a Fulbright Scholarship in Tunisia.

His focus now is on using technology to help solve societal problems. With Caltech and other organizations, he is strengthening efforts to increase innovation and government responsiveness to wildfires. With Gallaudet and Disabled American Veterans, he is opening spaceflight and space research to the disabled community. With organizations across Southern California, he has funded various efforts to fight against Covid, bringing together NASA, industry, and academia to bring new solutions to the field through the Antelope Valley Covid Task Force.

About the Moderator

Vijay Kumar
Nemirovsky Family Dean, Penn Engineering

Vijay Kumar is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor’s of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.

In addition to holding many administrative positions at Penn, Kumar has served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber-physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012 – 2013). His lab has founded many startups in robotics, and he is the founder of Exyn Technologies. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013 and the American Philosophical Society in 2018.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TbbZBgredExoa-IjohVymg

October 22, 2021 - Bringing Up the Boss: Practical Lessons for New Managers

About the Event

A new start-up comes on the scene filled with a team of talented people. The start-up grows, the team expands, and those early joiners all of a sudden are responsible for leading a team. Just a few years prior, these folks were barely able to figure out their own roles in their crazy, ever-changing company. Now, as managers, they are expected — often without any direction or role models — to know how to develop, coach, structure projects, review, and set expectations for a whole bunch of new, incredible people.
First-timers want to quickly learn what it takes to be a successful manager — like they learned how to code, how to design, how to sell — and put those learnings into practice. But what does it mean to manage, and how do you teach someone to be a good manager? Enter Rachel Pacheco, an expert at helping start-ups solve their management and culture challenges. Pacheco, a former chief people officer and founding team executive at multiple start-ups, conducts research on management and works with CEOs and their managers to build the skills necessary to navigate a rapidly scaling organization.

During this virtual event, Pacheco will share these skills, along with cutting-edge research, data, anecdotes, how-to exercises, and more, to help overwhelmed employees become expert managers followed by Q&A from the audience.

Complimentary Ebook giveaway will be available to the first three who ask questions during Q&A.

About the Series

The Penn Wharton China Center is delighted to host the Penn Wharton China Center Book Talk Series in collaboration with Wharton School Press. The series brings thought-leading book authors to a Chinese audience to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas in our increasingly interconnected global environment.

About the Author

Rachel Pacheco

Rachel Pacheco, Ph.D., is a management author, lecturer and researcher at The Wharton School. She is passionate about teaching people what it takes to be great managers and coaching executives and leaders on how to build thriving teams and organizations.

At Wharton, Rachel conducts research on management — specifically on power and conflict —and is a member of the teaching faculty. She is also a founding faculty member of the Entrepreneurship in Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches multiple courses for budding entrepreneurs that focus on the practical side of working in a small organization.

Rachel serves on the board of advisors for numerous start-ups, primarily in the digital health and wellness space. A former chief people officer, she was on the executive teams of start-ups in the healthcare and big data space. Rachel has also lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan, and thus has experienced the joy (and pain!) of leading and managing organizations across many distinct cultures.
She holds a Ph.D. and MBA from The Wharton School and a BS from Georgetown University.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_g8VaoVbWVqRvWyxn-zn7g

October 20, 2021 - The Leader's Checklist

About the Event

Based on the lessons from astonishing stories, solid research, and years of leadership development work with a wide array of companies and organizations in the United States and abroad, Useem presents today’s leaders with 16 guiding principles that form the core of the Leader’s Checklist, which will help you develop your ability to make good and timely decisions in unpredictable and stressful environments — for those moments when leadership really matters.

About the Series

The Penn Wharton China Center is delighted to host the Penn Wharton China Center Book Talk Series in collaboration with Wharton School Press. The series brings thought-leading book authors to a Chinese audience to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas in our increasingly interconnected global environment.

About the Author

Michael Useem
William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management, The Wharton School; Director, Center for Leadership and Change Management; Editor, Wharton Leadership Digest

Michael Useem is a professor in the Management Department and Faculty Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management and McNulty Leadership Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His university teaching includes MBA and executive-MBA courses on management and leadership, and he offers programs on leadership and governance for managers in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He works on leadership development with many companies and organizations in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

He is co-anchor for a weekly program “Leadership in Action” on SiriusXM Radio Channel 132 and co-director of the annual CEO Academy. He is the author of The Leader’s Checklist, The Strategic Leader’s Roadmap (with Harbir Singh), The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead—And the Lessons for Us All, Go Long: Why Long-Term Thinking Is Your Best Short-Term Strategy (with Dennis Carey, Brian Dumaine, and Rodney Zemmel), Mastering Catastrophic Risk (with Howard Kunreuther), Fortune Makers: The Leaders Creating China’s Great Global Companies (with Harbir Singh, Neng Liang, and Peter Cappelli), The India Way (with Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, and Jitendra Singh), and Boards That Lead (with Ram Charan and Dennis Carey).

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/hTpn5T0FxG6Btdp9dN2KfA

October 19, 2021 - Supply Chain Resilience and the World Post-COVID

About the Event

Prof. Gad Allon will discuss the current state of the global supply chain. He will analyze the current situation across different industries and countries and discuss how firms should prepare in the short and long term for what comes next.

About the Speaker

Gad Allon
Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions, The Wharton School; Director of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology

Gad Allon is the Jeffrey A. Keswin Professor and Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, and the director of the Management and Technology Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
He received his Ph.D. in Management Science from Columbia Business School in New York and holds a Bachelor and Master degree from the Israeli Institute of Technology.

His research interests include operations management in general, and service operations and operations strategy in particular. Professor Allon has been studying models of information sharing among firms and customers both in service and retail settings, as well as competition models in the service industry. His articles have appeared in leading journals, including Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and Operations Research. Professor Allon won the 2011 “Wickham Skinner Early-Career Research Award” of the Production and Operations Management Society. He is the Operations Management Department Editor of Management Science and serves on the editorial board of several journals.

Gad is an award-winning educator, teaching courses on scaling operations and operations strategy. He has also been an innovative leader in many educational technology initiatives. He is the co-founder of ForClass, a platform that enables professors to drive higher student engagement and accountability in their classrooms. Professor Allon regularly consults firms both on service strategy and operations strategy.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ouil03RGxIuXEb1pqsNiJg

October 14, 2021 - Why Is a Business Model Innovation Strategy a Strategic Imperative for Every Company in the Digital Age?

About the Event

The COVID-19 pandemic, a severe and multifaceted global health, economic and social crisis prompted companies in every sector of the global economy – large and small, public and private, for-profit and social — to reinvent and reimagine themselves to be able to survive and prosper. Executive leaders around the world are taking a hard look at how to do business in the post-COVID-19 era; They are reconceptualizing the design and implementation of their new customer-centric business models; that is, the activity system which their firm enables and which may span firm and industry boundaries by leveraging a broad range of digital technologies, and which facilitates the creation of value for all stakeholders while also enabling the focal firm to capture some of the value that the new business model creates. These developments will spur business model innovations, and thus heighten the need for corporate leaders to develop a business model innovation strategy.

The talk, which will be filed with examples and illustrations, will center on the development and implementation of a Business Model Innovation (BMI) strategy which has become a strategic imperative for every company. It complements the traditional strategic choices of companies that relate to corporate and business unit strategies. BMI strategy refers to the choices made by leaders with respect to: (i) the design of a new system of activities; (ii) the processes, including their antecedents, by which the new activity system is created and implemented; and (iii) the management and ongoing adaptation of the new activity system to ensure coherence (i.e., internal, external and strategic fit) with the objective of sustaining and improving the focal company’s competitive advantage.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • 8:00 AM Eastern time
  • 8:00 PM Beijing time

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 17:00 on October 14. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

About the Author

Raphael (“Raffi”) Amit
The Marie and Joseph Melone Professor and Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Raphael (“Raffi”) Amit is the Marie and Joseph Melone Professor and a Professor of Management at the Wharton School. Dr. Amit founded and leads the Wharton Global Family Alliance (WGFA), a unique academic-family business partnership established to enhance the marketplace advantage and the social wealth creation contributions of enterprising families through thought leadership, knowledge transfers and the sharing of ideas and best practices among influential global families. He has served as the Academic Director with overall responsibility for Wharton Entrepreneurship which encompasses all of Wharton’s entrepreneurial programs between 1999 and 2015.

Dr. Amit holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics, and received his Ph.D. in Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Dr. Amit’s current research and teaching interests center on family business management, governance, and finance, on Family wealth management, on venture capital and private equity investments, on entrepreneurship, on the design of innovative business models and on business strategy. He has published extensively in leading academic journals and is frequently quoted in a broad range of practitioner outlets.

Dr. Amit’s award winning research on family firms, which centers on issues that relate to ownership, management, control and governance of family businesses, on wealth management, and on family offices is widely cited. He has been working with substantial families around the world on such issues as creating governance systems for families and their businesses, succession, valuation, wealth management, the formation of a family office, and more. Overall, the work of Dr. Amit with families integrates the behavioral and emotional issues that characterize the life of each family, with the economic and financial issues that must be addressed to sustain family harmony and happiness alongside with the long-term prosperity of the family enterprises.

Professor Amit has held a range of management and Board of Directors positions in various companies. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Creo Products Inc. for 6 years. (NASDAQ: CREO until May 2005 when it was acquired by Kodak.) Professor Amit has helped form the Korean Global IT Fund, a $100 million VC fund and has served as the first Chairman of the KGIF Advisory Board. He has served on the Board of Directors of Alvarion Ltd. a wireless communication equipment company, and has been a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees of Alvarion. He has also served as the only external director of a private family owned and controlled firm in Hong Kong. Dr. Amit currently serves on the Board of Directors of a global family controlled firm and advises numerous private and publicly held family controlled businesses, on a broad range of strategic, governance and financial issues.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fI_J8K_k8s-12GRm1U7HGg

September 29, 2021 - The Future of Biometric Tech and Permission: Is It Possible

About the Event

Using various forms of artificial intelligence, companies are beginning to profile their customers through signals in their bodies. Facial profiling and voice profiling are two up-and-coming examples of such biometric technologies.

These head-turning developments sound exciting when some physicians and health care firms argue, for example, that that the sounds of a person’s voice may betray diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But the technologies are also very worrisome because as a society we engage a slippery slope when we start allowing facial reactions and voice sounds to personalize ads and offers based on profit motives. It could all seem like a small price to pay until you project out the use of this tech into the near-future: An apparel store clerk uses an analysis of your face or voice to determine the likelihood of whether you can be upsold on certain clothing. You call a fancy restaurant for a reservation, but its voice analysis system concludes that you don’t meet its definition of an acceptable diner and are refused. A school denies a student enrollment in a special course after facial analysis determines that the student was insincere about their interest.

Some urge that companies that want to use biometrics to profile their audiences should by law have to get explicit (“opt in”) permission. In the U.S. today, only a few states have biometric privacy laws that require a company to obtain explicit consent from users. The European Union demands opt-in consent, and it’s likely more states ultimately will adopt comparable laws.

But is “opt in” a good enough threshold when it comes to corporate use of biometric technologies for marketing purposes?  An evolving point of view in law journals (represented by Woodrow Hartzog) answers no when it comes to facial profiling. In my book The Voice Catchers, I argue “no” with regard to voice profiling. In this meeting, we will describe the technologies, present various ethical viewpoints and legal contexts, and open it up to the Zoom group for questions and opinions.

About the Series

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

Event Information

Date & Time:

  • Beijing Time: 20:00-21:30, September 29, 2021

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 17:00 on September 29. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

About the Speakers

Joseph Turow
Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems and Industries, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Joseph Turow is Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries at the Annenberg School for Communication. Turow is an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association and was presented with a Distinguished Scholar Award by the National Communication Association. A 2005 New York Times Magazine article referred to Turow as “probably the reigning academic expert on media fragmentation.” In 2010, the New York Times called him “the ranking wise man on some thorny new-media and marketing topics.” In 2012, the TRUSTe internet privacy-management organization designated him a “privacy pioneer” for his research and writing on marketing and digital-privacy.

He has authored twelve books, edited five, and written more than 160 articles on mass media industries. His most recent books are The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Emotions, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet (Yale, 2021), Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World (Routledge, 2020), and The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power (Yale, 2017). In 2011, Yale University Press published his book The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your World; a Turkish edition came out in 2015. In 2010, the University of Michigan Press published Playing Doctor: Television, Storytelling, and Medical Power, a history of prime time TV and the sociopolitics of medicine, and in 2013, it won the McGovern Health Communication Award from the University Of Texas College of Communication. Other books reflecting current interests are Niche Envy: Marketing Discrimination in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2006); Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World (University of Chicago Press, 1997; paperback, 1999; Chinese edition, 2004); and The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age (edited with Lokman Tsui, University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Turow’s continuing national surveys of the American public on issues relating to marketing, new media, and society have received a great deal of attention in the popular press, as well as in the research community. He has been interviewed widely about his research, including by NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, The Atlantic, the BBC, CBS News, and elsewhere. He has also written about media and advertising for the popular press, including the New York TimesThe Atlantic, American Demographics magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. His research has received financial support from the Digital Trust Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.

Turow was awarded a Lady Astor Lectureship by Oxford University. He has received several conference paper and book awards and has lectured widely. He was invited to give the McGovern Lecture at the University of Texas College of Communication, the Pockrass Distinguished Lecture at Penn State University, and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture at Louisiana State University. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, the International Journal of Communication, and Media Industries. He also has served as the elected chair of the Mass Communication Division of the International Communication Association.

Woodrow Hartzog
Professor of Law and Computer Science, Northeastern University School of Law

Professor Hartzog holds a joint appointment with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, where he teaches privacy and data protection issues. His research focuses on law and policy issues related to privacy, digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

Professor Hartzog’s work has been published in numerous scholarly publications such as the Yale Law JournalColumbia Law ReviewCalifornia Law Review and Michigan Law Review, and popular national publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic and The Nation. He has testified three times before Congress on privacy and data protection issues. His book, Privacy’s Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies (Harvard University Press, 2018), has been called “one of the most important books about privacy in our times.”

Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty in 2017, Professor Hartzog was the Starnes Professor of Law at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. He has also served as a visiting professor at Notre Dame Law School and the University of Maine School of Law. Professor Hartzog previously worked as an attorney in private practice and as a trademark attorney for the US Patent and Trademark Office. He also served as a clerk for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He holds a PhD in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an LLM in intellectual property from the George Washington University Law School and a JD from Samford University.

Brenda Leong
Senior Counsel and Director of Artificial Intelligence and Ethics at the Future of Privacy Forum, Adjunct Professor of Law at Penn State Law

Brenda oversees development of privacy analysis of AI and Machine Learning technologies, writes educational resource materials for privacy professionals around AI and Ethics, and manages the FPF portfolio on biometrics and digital identity, particularly facial recognition and facial analysis. She works on industry standards, governance guidance, and collaboration on privacy and responsible data management by partnering with stakeholders and advocates to reach practical solutions for consumer and commercial data uses. Prior to working at FPF, Brenda served in the U.S. Air Force, including policy and legislative affairs work from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State. She is a 2014 graduate of George Mason University School of Law.

September 22, 2021 - Wharton Global Youth Program Virtual Info Session

About the Event

The Wharton Global Youth Program is part of the vibrant community at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Global Youth delivers online and on-campus high school summer programs, Pre-Baccalaureate courses, an annual global investment competition, and content to introduce high school students to business education, which involves more than just finance. Join us and learn about how your high school-age student can study with Wharton this year. All programs award certificates and some offer undergraduate credit. This 45-minute session will be provided via video conference and include a question-and-answer session at the end. High School students, their parents, and teachers are encouraged to attend.

EVENT INFORMATION

Language: English

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 17:00 on September 22. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Eli Lesser
Executive Director, Wharton Global Youth Program

A career educator, Eli leads the Wharton Global Youth Program team and his work focuses on the strategic vision for programming and partnerships. Eli started his career teaching high school social studies, but transitioned to working in higher education full-time in 2006. He is committed to connecting the teaching and research of the Wharton faculty directly to high schools and pre-college age students. Originally from Miami Beach, Eli now lives with his family in Center City, Philadelphia and rides his bike to the office (when it is not too cold!).

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/4us8miNQflC_TtxdrYFZ_g

August 25, 2021 - The Evolution, Trends, and Future of Impact Investing

ABOUT THE EVENT

Join Katherine Klein, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Social Impact, and Rajith Sebastian, Director of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII), for a conversation about impact investing. Katherine and Raj will discuss the evolution of impact investing – investing with a goal of achieving financial returns and a positive impact in society and the environment. Why is this form of investing growing so rapidly? What kinds of companies, founders, industries, and countries are attracting impact investments? How can retail and institutional investors get involved? Katherine and Raj will answer these questions and yours.

ABOUT THE SERIES

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

EVENT INFORMATION

Date & Time:

  • Beijing Time: 20:00–21:30, August 25th, 2021

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 17:00 on August 25. If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Katherine J. Klein, PhD
Vice Dean, Wharton Social Impact Initiative; Edward H. Bowman Professor of Management

Katherine Klein is the Vice Dean for the Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII), whose mission is to build the talent pipeline and evidence base to support business and capital markets in creating sustainable solutions to social and environmental challenges around the world. As Vice Dean, she shapes WSII’s vision, strategy, research, partnerships, and faculty engagement.

Dr. Klein is the Edward H. Bowman Professor of Management at Wharton. An award-winning teacher and research scholar, she is a fellow of the Academy of Management, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.

She guides WSII’s groundbreaking research on the characteristics and effectiveness of impact investing. She has published widely on the topics of diversity, leadership, team effectiveness, and innovation and is currently studying the effects of leader succession on employee engagement and organizational performance.

Klein received her BA in Psychology from Yale University and her PhD in Community Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the board of directors of United Therapeutics and serves as an advisor to the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.

Rajith Sebastian
Director, Special Projects, Impact Investing, Wharton Social Impact Initiative

Rajith Sebastian is Director, Special Projects, Impact Investing, at the Wharton Social Impact Initiative. Rajith helped to create and co-manages the Penn Medicine – Wharton Fund for Health (Fund for Health), an experiential investing program that invests in companies that are strengthening the social determinants of health. He chairs the Fund for Health Investment Committee. Rajith also manages the Wharton Impact Venture Associates, which innovatively partners with crowdfunding platforms to invest in impactful startups. Prior to joining the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, Rajith worked in investment banking across Sub Saharan Africa, including roles as Regional Coverage Executive, East Africa, for Nedbank, and as a Director at Standard Chartered Bank. Before that, Rajith worked at Chinavest Private Equity in Shanghai, Macquarie Bank in Johannesburg, and the Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte) in London. He has a Bachelor of Business Science (Finance) degree from the University of Cape Town, an MBA from the Wharton School, and is a CFA Charterholder.

August 19, 2021 - The Future of Great Power Relations

ABOUT THE EVENT

Michael Brenes (Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History at Yale University) and Michael Franczak (Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Order at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House) will discuss the future of great power relations on August 19.

EVENT INFORMATION

Event Time:

  • Beijing Time: 20:00 – 21:30, Aug 19, 2021
  • Eastern Time: 08:00 – 09:30, Aug 19, 2021

Please click on “Read More” to register. The link will be sent through email at 17:00 on Aug 19. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

John Gans
Director of Communications and Research, Perry World House

John Gans is Director of Communications and Research of Perry World House at Penn. In addition to leading Perry World House’s Graduate Associates program, Gans teaches Penn undergraduate and graduate students. Prior to joining Perry World House, he was the chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at the Pentagon. In addition to leading the writing team at the Defense Department, Gans served as senior speechwriter for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.

In 2019, Gans published White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War, which the Wall Street Journal said was a “bottom-up history,” The New Republic called “enlightening,” and Lawfare concluded was “rollicking and compellingly told.” Gans earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Michael Brenes
Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program, Grand Strategy; Lecturer in History, Yale University

Michael Brenes is the Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History at Yale University. He is the author of “For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy.”

 

 

Michael Franczak
Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Order, Perry World House

Michael Franczak is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Order at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. His first book, Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s, is forthcoming in early 2022 from Cornell University Press. Michael’s next project asks how China and climate change shaped U.S. grand strategy in the 1990s and beyond.

August 6, 2021 - Our Entrepreneurship Stories: 30 Under 30 Panel Discussion

ABOUT THE EVENT

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NXhp4MSqfK10m2cjSQR1fA

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Lori Rosenkopf
Opening Remarks

Lori Rosenkopf is the Simon and Midge Palley Professor and Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Ph. D in Management of Organizations from Columbia University after working as a systems engineer for Eastman Kodak and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Prior to that, Lori earned her B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and her M.S in Operations Research from Stanford University.

Since joining the faculty in 1993, Lori has taught courses for undergraduates, MBAs, and doctoral students, as well as for executive education and online participants. She received the Hauck Award for distinguished teaching in the undergraduate program. Lori served two terms as the Vice Dean and Director of the Wharton Undergraduate Division from 2013-2019, where her accomplishments included introducing the new Wharton undergraduate curriculum, elevating alternative curricular and career pathways, and growing diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Lori’s research examines technological communities and social networks across several high-tech industries. She analyzes how and when knowledge may flow between technical professionals and between firms, mapping these flows in order to estimate when people, firms, and technologies are likely to learn, move, and succeed. Her research has been published in leading journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Lori has also served as a Senior Editor for the journal Organization Science and as a consultant for the National Academy of Sciences, and she has been elected a member of the Macro-Organizational Behavior Society and also to a term as the Chair of the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management.

Jason Gui

Jason Gui is the founder of Vigo Technologies, known for its two products: Vue, a pair of stylish smart glasses built for everyday use, and Vigo, a Bluetooth headset that helps drivers stay alert while driving. Vue raised over $2.2 million on Kickstarter, and sold $4 million in its first year of launch, becoming the top eyewear campaign of all time. Jason holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Marketing and Operations Management from the Wharton School. Prior to Vigo he founded Three Fellows, a video company producing shows that portrayed the lives of international students in the US that garnered tens of millions of views and partnerships with major TV stations such as CCTV and Phoenix TV, and Xinci.so, the Chinese Urban Dictionary. Jason has been building hardware and software devices ever since he built a dumpling-maker out of Lego as a kid. Jason is also a well-known blogger in China with readership of over half a million. He has lived in China, New Zealand, Australia and now resides in San Francisco. Jason was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list and MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific list.

Jiusi Yao

Jiusi Yao is founder and CEO of buds, and a partner at Fenrir Fund. Jiusi received her master’s degree from University of Pennsylvania. She serves as the Penn Club Beijing Director, and Penn Alumni interviewer. Jiusi has been honored as Forbes 30 Under 30 China, World Economic Forum Global Shaper, G20 Young Entrepreneurs, APEC Voices of the Future Judge, and Women’s Entrepreneurship Day World Ambassador.

 

Crysti Zinan Chen

Zinan (Crysti) Chen is the co-founder and managing partner at UniWill Ventures, a VC fund that invests across borders in the U.S. and China and pioneers as a millennial-led impact investment fund. UniWill Ventures funds tech startups that promote “health” and “happiness,” including cutting-edge technologies advancing AI, IoT, robotics, ag-tech, clean energy, fintech, and digital health. Since 2017, UniWill Ventures has had 2 IPOs, 2 acquisition exits, and 2 unicorns from the portfolios. Before VC, Crysti founded and ran World Youth Value Society, a nonprofit organization from 2009. Her work and passion for education access, gender equality, and poverty alleviation align with her investment thesis, Crysti has a vision in leveraging technological advancement to benefit the less fortunate population, therefore, to create a friendlier and more inclusive economy. Crysti recently graduated as a Schwarzman Scholar from Tsinghua University. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an MS.e.d. in Education Entrepreneurship and from the University of Washington with a B.A. in Political Economy and International Studies minor. Her academic footprints include exchange semesters at UIBE Beijing, UCL London, and NUS Singapore. Crysti received accolades as Mary Gates Leadership Scholar, China Oceanwide Fellow, Schwarzman Service Award, Hurun Report China Under 30 Entrepreneurs to Watch, Los Angeles Post Top 30 Entrepreneurs, APEC “Voices of the Future”, McKinsey Next Generation Women Leader in Asia, Pacific Forum Next-gen Leader, BMW Foundation Impact Asia Fellow, China Institute Next Gen Leader Council, World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper, etc.

Wei Zhou

Wei is the founding partner of China Creation Ventures (CCV). He is a resourceful venture capitalist, a successful serial entrepreneur in technology, and a pioneer of Chinese digital payment industry. Before becoming an investor, Wei has accumulated more than 10 years of experience in technology innovation and business management. During college in the 90s, Wei joined a startup company in payment technology. He started with designing China’s first payment software and hardware, and eventually oversaw the group’s corporate strategy and M&A and took the company to IPO on Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1996. In 2002, after being the youngest executive of a listed company, he founded his own company in wireless payment technology and risk management, and led the company to years of rapid growth until acquired at high valuation.

In 2007, Wei joined KPCB as a founding member and Managing Partner of the China office. During the 10 years at KPCB, Wei led the TMT investments in Greater China. Within the 29 TMT companies Wei invested in, 11 have become unicorns, 1 has achieved over 500x return, and 4 have achieved over 100x return.

In 2017, Wei founded CCV with the original TMT investment team at KPCB China. CCV sticks to “selective investments strategy” and focuses on early and growth-stage investments Enterprise Solutions, Digital Healthcare, Advanced Technologies, and New Generation in China. CCV currently manages over 500 million in USD and 2.5 billion in RMB. Since its establishment, CCV has already delivered 2 IPOs and 4 unicorns (within which 2 are valued at over 10 billion USD). By far, under the “selective investments strategy”, Wei has successfully invested in at least 1 unicorn every year on average during his 14 years of investment career.

With his successful investment track record, Wei has been given numerous awards such as Forbes China’s Top 30 Venture Capitalists for four consecutive years, Fortune Top 30 Most Influential Investors of 2020, 36Kr Top 35 Investors Most Welcomed by Entrepreneurs, and Best Investor of the Year awarded by Zero2IPO and China Venture respectively.

Wei holds an MBA degree from the Wharton Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He serves as the treasurer of China Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (“CVCA”), and long-term entrepreneurship mentor at Wharton Business School, Tsinghua PBC School of Finance, and Zero2IPO Sandhill College.

June 29, 2021 - PWCC Book Talk Series: The Shopping Revolution, Updated and Expanded

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Penn Wharton China Center is delighted to present the Penn Wharton China Center Book Talk Series in collaboration with Wharton School Press.

The series brings thought-leading book authors to a Chinese audience to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas in our increasingly interconnected global environment.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In a fully updated and expanded edition of The Shopping Revolution: How Retailers Succeed in an Era of Endless Disruption Accelerated by COVID-19, Wharton professor Barbara E. Kahn, a foremost retail expert, examines the companies that have been most successful during a tsunami of change in the industry. She offers fresh insights into what we can learn from these companies’ ascendance and continued transformation in the face of unprecedented challenges.

ABOUT THE EVENT

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

Click here to register on Eventbrite. The link will be distributed through an email at 17:00 on June 29.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara E. Kahn
Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor of Marketing, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Barbara E. Kahn is the Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She served two terms as the director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center. Prior to rejoining Wharton in 2011, Barbara served as the dean and Schein Professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami, Miami, Florida. Before becoming dean at UM, she spent 17 years at Wharton as Silberberg Professor of Marketing. She was also vice dean of the Wharton undergraduate program.

Barbara is an internationally recognized scholar on retailing, variety seeking, brand loyalty, product assortment and design, and consumer and patient decision-making. She has published more than 75 articles in leading academic journals. She is the author of The Shopping Revolution: How Successful Retailers Win Customers in an Era of Endless Disruption and Global Brand Power: Leveraging Branding for Long-Term Growth. She is also the coauthor of Grocery Revolution: The New Focus on the Consumer.

Barbara has been elected president of the Association for Consumer Research, elected president of the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) Policy Board, and selected as a Marketing Science Institute trustee. She was also an associate editor at JCR, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science. She has recently been elected as a fellow for both the Association of Consumer Research and the Society of Consumer Psychology. Barbara received her PhD, MBA, and MPhil from Columbia University, and her BA from the University of Rochester.

May 25, 2021 - Penn-Fudan Virtual Series on Global Issues and Governance: U.S.-China Hospital Management and Navigating Challenges During COVID-19

ABOUT THE EVENT

This virtual event is the inaugural event of the Penn-Fudan Virtual Series on Global Issues and Governance jointly launched by the Penn Wharton China Center and the Institute for Global Public Policy at Fudan University. We invited top executives and scholars from the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Fudan University School of Public Health, and Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University. The panelists will have a comparative dialogue on hospital management practices between the U.S. and China, and two top-ranked hospital systems which are both at the forefront of fighting COVID-19.

EVENT INFORMATION

Date & Time:

  • Beijing Time: 8:00 PM, May 25, 2021
  • Eastern Time: 8:00 AM, May 25, 2021

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

Click here to register on Eventbrite. The link will be distributed through an email at 5:00 PM on May 25.

If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

OPENING REMARKS

Yijia Jing
Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, Professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University

Prof. Yijia Jing is a Chang Jiang Scholar, Seaker Chan Chair Professor in Public Management, Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy, and Professor of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He got his BA/MA in Economics from Peking University, MA in Sociology from University of Maryland College Park, and Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Ohio State University. He conducts research on privatization, governance, and collaborative service delivery. He is founding editor-in-chief of the journal Global Public Policy and Governance and co-editor of International Public Management Journal. He is the founding co-editor of the Palgrave book series, Governing China in the 21 Century.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Dan Guttman
Professor, Tianjin University Law School; Adjunct Professor, Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Affiliated Scholar, New York University US Asia Law Institute

Dan Guttman is a teacher, lawyer, and has been a public servant. Following 2004-6 years as a China Fulbright scholar he has worked with China and US colleagues teaching and developing programs in comparative governance, and practices law in the U.S. He served as Executive Director of a Presidential Advisory Commission on bioethics, was a Commissioner of the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission, directed U.S. Senate investigations on government use of private expertise, and was UNDP and EU China “foreign expert advisor” on environmental law.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Patrick J. Brennan, MD
Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Penn Medicine; Professor, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine

Patrick J. Brennan, MD is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Brennan leads implementation of Penn’s Blueprint for Quality, a strategic effort to improve clinical accountability and the outcomes of care.

Dr. Brennan oversees the departments of Healthcare Quality, Patient Safety, Regulatory Affairs, and Medical Affairs. He has developed a Center for Evidence Based Practice to apply scientific evidence to clinical operations. Dr. Brennan is an infectious diseases physician and previously served as Director of Infection Control for 11 years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and for periods of time held the same post at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. He also served as Director of Tuberculosis Control for the City of Philadelphia for seven years.

Dr. Brennan is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and in 2008 served as SHEA’s president. From 2004 to 2010 Dr. Brennan chaired the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), which advises the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a broad range of issues related to control of infectious diseases.

Dr. Brennan is a member of the Patient Safety Advisory Group of The Joint Commission. He is past chair of the Board of Directors of the Health Care Improvement Foundation (HCIF), an independent, nonprofit organization that leads health care initiatives aimed at improving the safety, outcomes and care experiences of patients in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Philip Okala, MA
Chief Operating Officer, Penn Medicine

Phil Okala is Chief Operating Officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. In this role, he has executive oversight for the health system’s hospitals, clinical service line operations and integration. Prior to this role, he was Senior Vice President for Business Development at Penn Medicine, overseeing strategy and business development initiatives. He provided executive leadership on major health system initiatives for strategic marketing positioning, which included expanding clinical service lines, successful mergers and strategic alliances across Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Before joining Penn Medicine in 2007, Phil held executive positions at other organizations including: System Vice President of the Cancer Service Line at Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA; Vice President for Clinical Strategic Planning at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY; and management positions at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He has a master’s in Healthcare Administration from Texas Woman’s University; Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Houston – University Park; and an advanced certification in Healthcare Executive Leadership from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. He is involved with numerous community and professional organizations and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and Healthcare Financial Management Association (FHFMA).

Chouwen Zhu
Chief Physician, Vice President of Zhongshan Hospital (affiliated to Fudan University)

Professor Chouwen Zhu, Chief Physician, is the Vice President of Zhongshan Hospital (a top tertiary-care general hospital) affiliated to Fudan University. He was the team leader of Shanghai Medical Support Team to Hubei province in 2020.

He earned his MD degree from Peking Union Medical College after completing 8-year curriculum and was a visiting scholar at the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester. He got his MSc degree in Health Development from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. He is currently an associate professor at Shanghai Medical College, specializing in clinical medicine (gastroenterology), clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine.

After working as the Deputy Director of Medical Service of Zhongshan Hospital, he has served as the Vice Director and Director of Foreign Affairs Office, Director of Medical Center Office, and Director of the China Medical Board Affairs at Fudan University. Now Dr. Zhu is the President of ChinaCLEN International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN), China.

Yingyao Chen
Professor, Associate Dean of the School of Public Health, Fudan University

Professor Yingyao Chen is the Associate Dean of the School of Public Health, Fudan University. He earned his PhD degree from Fudan University and was a visiting scholar at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

His research interests include health technology assessment and hospital management. He is the author of the books Evaluation of Health Services (in Chinese) and Economic Evaluation of the Burden of Disease and Prevention Strategies for Birth Defects in China (in Chinese).

He has published extensively in economic evaluation of maternal and child health technology, technical evaluation of medical equipment and hospital management and regulations. He has been engaged in funded research projects with support from the World Health Organization, China’s Ministry of Health, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, National Science Foundation, among others.

May 12, 2021 - Penn in China Faculty Speaker Series: High Speed Rail, Civil Society, and Income Inequality

Join Penn Global, Penn Alumni, and the Penn Wharton China Center in welcoming Chao Guo, Associate Professor of Nonprofit Management in the School of Social Policy and Practice, and Faculty Director of Penn’s International Master of Public Administration Program, to discuss a cross-country, cross-disciplinary project which extends a hypothesis regarding transport links and the strength of civil society. Based on a unique dataset of 519,684 social ventures in China between 2007 and 2016, Chao and his collaborators find that the operation of high-speed rail positively affects the creation of civil society organizations, and that these civil society organizations help reduce urban-rural income inequality.

Co-presenting with Professor Guo will be Sunny Li Sun, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Peiyi Jia, Ph.D. Candidate in the Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell,  and Jipeng Qi, Associate Professor of Economics at Beijing Jiaotong University.

Click “Read More” to register. Link will be distributed in your confirmation email.

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

ABOUT THE PENN IN CHINA FACULTY SPEAKER SERIES

The Penn China Faculty Speaker Series aims to highlight the wide range of research conducted by Penn faculty in China and engage the Penn community in intimate conversations on a broad range of topics including, COVID-19 and the future of US-China relations. The Faculty Speaker Series is sponsored by the Penn Wharton China Center, Penn Global, and Penn Alumni.

ABOUT PENN GLOBAL

Penn Global provides strategic direction for Penn’s global endeavors, with a focus on the efficient investment of University resources for global activities. Penn Global collaborates with Schools and Centers across the University and seeks to catalyze cross-school collaborations to integrate knowledge that addresses key issues. We partner with leaders from Penn and around the world to develop innovative interdisciplinary global strategies, initiatives, and programs.

For more on Penn Global, please visit the below website.

https://global.upenn.edu/global-initiatives/about-penn-global

Speakers

Chao Guo
Associate Professor of Nonprofit Management, School of Social Policy and Practice; Associate Faculty Director, Fox Leadership International Program, University of Pennsylvania

 

Professor Chao is Editor-in-Chief of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, the premier journal in the field. His award-winning research includes the 2014 text Social Entrepreneurship: An Evidence-Based Approach to Creating Social Value and the 2020 book The Quest for Attention: Nonprofit Advocacy in a Social Media Age. Actively involved in community-serving projects, he serves as Faculty Director of Penn Restorative Entrepreneurship Program (PREP), which helps formerly incarcerated persons to become entrepreneurs, participate in civic engagement, and advocate for social justice.

Sunny Li Sun
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Professor Sun’s research interests cover entrepreneurship, corporate governance, venture capital, network, and institution. He has published over 50 papers in Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, and other English journals. He has four papers listed as “highly cited papers” (in the top 1% of its academic field) based on Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science Indicators. He is the senior editor of Management and Organization Review. Before joining the academia, Dr. Sun has 11 years’ industrial experience in new venture creating, financing, and consulting.

Jipeng Qi
Associate Professor of Economics, Beijing Jiaotong University

Professor Qi’s research interests cover FDI, cross-border M&A, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. He has published over 20 papers in Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Journal of Career Development, Employee Relations, and other scholarly journals. He also has extensive consulting experience in transportation and utilities industries.

May 11, 2021 - PWCC Book Talk Series: Winning in China – 8 Stories of Success and Failure in the World’s Largest Economy

EVENT INFORMATION

The Penn Wharton China Center is delighted to launch the Penn Wharton China Center Book Talk Series in collaboration with Wharton School Press.

The series brings thought-leading book authors to a Chinese audience to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas in our increasingly interconnected global environment.

We welcome the participation of Penn/Wharton alumni, friends, managers and executives interested in company leadership and its development, publishers, and the general public.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos visited China in 2007, he expected that one day soon China would be a double-digit percentage of Amazon’s sales. Yet, by 2019, Amazon, the most powerful and successful e-commerce company in the world, had quit China.

In Winning in China: 8 Stories of Success and Failure in the World’s Largest Economy, Wharton experts Lele Sang and Karl Ulrich explore the success and failure of several well-known companies, including Hyundai, LinkedIn, Sequoia Capital, and InMobi, as more and more businesses look to reap profits from the demand of 1.4 billion people.

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 05:00 PM on May 11.

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

About the Author

Lele Sang
Global Fellow, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Lele Sang is Global Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A former journalist and editor, she has worked for the Beijing News and Caijing Magazine covering business and politics and has interviewed world leaders from prime ministers to Fortune 500 company CEOs. She also worked at startups and multinational corporations in both the United States and China.

She is co-author with Karl Ulrich of Winning in China. She was a visiting scholar at University of California–Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. She holds an MPA degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karl Ulrich
Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the CIBC Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Karl Ulrich is the Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the CIBC Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an appointment as Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He leads Wharton’s San Francisco campus and the Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship programs and his research is focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development.

He is the co-author of Winning in China (Wharton School Press, 2021); Product Design and Development (6th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2015), a textbook used by a quarter of a million students worldwide; and Innovation Tournaments (Harvard Business Press, 2009). He is the winner of many teaching awards, including the Anvil Award, the Miller-Sherrerd Award, and the Excellence in Teaching Award at The Wharton School. At Penn, he co-founded the Weiss Tech House and the Integrated Product Design Program, two institutions fostering innovation in the university community.

In addition to his academic work, Ulrich has led dozens of innovation efforts for medical devices, tools, computer peripherals, food products, web-based services, and sporting goods. As a result of this work, he holds 24 patents. Ulrich is a founder of Terrapass, Inc. which the New York Times identified as one of the most noteworthy ideas of the year, and he is a designer of the Xootr scooter, which Businessweek recognized as one of the 50 coolest products of the 21st century. Ulrich holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.

April 30, 2021 - PWCC Special Virtual Event: Fireside Chat with Former Ambassador Gary Locke on U.S.-China Relations and Stopping Anti-Asian Racism

ABOUT THE EVENT
Former Ambassador to China, Former Governor of Washington State, and Interim President at Bellevue College Gary Locke has been at the forefront of addressing and combating Anti-Asian Racism as U.S.-China relations deteriorate. As a representative of the Asian American community, he is bringing his diplomatic expertise to join Penn Law Professor Jacques deLisle in discussing U.S.-China relations and the ongoing social campaign against the surge of hatred, violence, and discrimination against Asians.

Event Time

  • Eastern Time: April 29th, 9 PM – 10 PM
  • Pacific Time: April 29th, 6 PM – 7 PM
  • Beijing Time: April 30th, 9 AM – 10 AM

Click “Read More“ to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 05:00 PM on Apr 29th.

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

Zoom Webinar Link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96970316377
Meeting ID: 969 7031 6377
Passcode: 012039

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Gary Locke

Former Ambassador to China and Governor of Washington State; Current Interim President at Bellevue College

As Governor of Washington State (the first Chinese American to be elected governor in United States history and the first Asian American governor on the mainland of U.S.), U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke has been a leader in the areas of education, employment, trade, health care, human rights, immigration reform, privacy, and the environment. Currently, Gary Locke serves as the interim president of Bellevue College, which is the third-largest higher education institution in Washington State serving nearly 30,000 students annually.

As Washington’s 21st Governor from 1997–2005, the nation’s most trade-dependent state, Mr. Locke increased exports of Washington State products and services by leading trade missions to Mexico, Europe, and Asia, more than doubling the state’s exports to China.

During his tenure, he achieved bipartisan welfare reform and oversaw the gain of 280,000 private-sector jobs, despite two national recessions. Mr. Locke also had the most diverse cabinet in state history. More than half his judicial appointments were women and 25% were people of color.

As U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2009-2011, he led President Obama’s National Export Initiative to double American exports in five years; assumed a troubled 2010 Census process but which under his active supervision ended on time and substantially under budget, saving taxpayers $2 billion; and achieved the most significant reduction in patent application processing in the agency’s history: from 40 months down to one year. With U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, Mr. Locke also oversaw a significant first step in the president’s export control reform effort that strengthened national security, while making U.S. companies more competitive by easing their licensing burden for high-tech exports.

As U.S. Ambassador to China from 2011–2014, he opened markets for made-in-USA goods and services; reduced wait times for visa interviews of Chinese applicants from 100 days to 3 days; and through the Embassy’s air quality monitoring program, exposed the severity of the air pollution in China, causing the Chinese people to demand action by the government and the government in turn beginning to address the issue.

His innovations in government efficiency, customer focus, and priority-based budgeting, as well as successful and under-budget management of high-risk initiatives, have won him acclaim from nationally recognized authors and organizations, including Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In his two terms as Governor, Washington was ranked one of America’s four best-managed states.

Jacques deLisle

Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School; CSCC Director

Jacques deLisle is the Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including: legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and U.S.-China relations. His writings on these subjects appear in a variety of fora, including international relations journals, edited volumes of multidisciplinary scholarship, and Asian studies journals, as well as law reviews. DeLisle is also a professor of political science and former Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Penn and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served frequently as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C. law and government policies and is a consultant, lecturer, and advisor to legal reform, development, and education programs, primarily in China.

 

Learn more about Penn’s Task Force on Support to Asian and Asian American Students and Scholars.

April 28, 2021 - Future of Education: Fireside Chat with VIPKid Founder and CEO Cindy Mi, Hosted by Penn GSE Dean Grossman

ABOUT THE SERIES

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

ABOUT THE EVENT

This conversation will offer insights into how current tech advancements are influencing the future of education. Penn GSE Dean Pam Grossman’s fireside chat discussion with VIPKid Founder and CEO Cindy Mi will provide the audience with valuable takeaways about what education might look like for the next generation of learners.

This is a joint event with Penn Graduate School of Education, VIPKid, and Eisenhower Fellowships.

EVENT INFORMATION

Date & Time: 

  • Beijing Time: 08:00 PM, April 28th, 2021

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through an email at 05:00 PM on Apr 28th

If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer.

The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

Pam Grossman
Dean, Penn Graduate School of Education

Pam Grossman is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A distinguished scholar, she came to Penn from Stanford University’s School of Education, where she was the Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Education. At Stanford she founded and led the Center to Support Excellence in Teaching and established the Hollyhock Fellowship for early career teachers in underserved schools. Before joining Stanford, she was the Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington.

Dr. Grossman’s research focuses on the preparation of teachers and other professionals, as well as issues of instructional quality, particularly in English Language Arts. Her most recent work focuses on practice-based teacher education and the role of core practices of teaching in teacher preparation and professional development. She co-directs the Core Practice Consortium, a consortium of faculty from 11 different institutions that has been investigating pedagogies useful for helping novices learn to teach. She was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2009 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. In addition to chairing the Board for the Spencer Foundation, she currently serves on the Board of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Dr. Grossman is a leading expert in teacher preparation, teacher quality, and teacher professional development. A former high school English teacher, Dr. Grossman is at the forefront of rethinking how teachers are educated and studying the connections between the support they receive, the quality of their classroom practice, the likelihood they remain in teaching, and student learning.

Cindy Mi
Founder and CEO, VIPKid

Recognized for her career as an educator and entrepreneur, Cindy Mi is the Founder and CEO of VIPKid, a global edtech company that connects children in China (and globally) with the world’s best teachers for real-time online English language learning. Cindy has led VIPKid to become China’s market-leading edtech startup with over 800,000 students and approximately 100,000 teachers connecting for around 200,000 classes daily.

VIPKid’s vision is to build a global classroom that empowers students and teachers through personalized learning, connects cultures across the world and sparks a passion for lifelong learning.

Cindy has spoken on the main stage at The New York Times New Work Summit, TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, ASU+GSV Summit, OZY Fest in Central Park, Y Combinator’s Startup School at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Y Combinator’s Global Founders Summit in San Francisco, among others.

In 2021, Cindy was invited by The Brookings Institution to join the Leadership Council, Center for Universal Education. In 2020, Cindy was named a Fellow in the Eisenhower Fellowships’ prestigious Women’s Leadership Program, a five-week exchange that leverages the organization’s global network of trailblazing talent to help the Fellows pursue projects that better the world. She was also named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list of most influential young people in technology in 2020 and honored as 2020 CEO of the Year by the EdTech Breakthrough Awards. In 2019, Cindy was named a Glassdoor Top CEO and was #1 on Crunchbase’s list of 50 Female Entrepreneurs Everyone Should Know. She was also a recipient of the ASU + GSV Summit 2019 Power of Women Award. In 2018, Cindy joined the Whittle School & Studios’ Academic Advisory Board. Cindy was also selected to join the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Class of 2018.

Cindy earned her MBA from CKGSB, China’s leading private business school, and studied at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management as part of an MBA exchange program.

April 23, 2021 - 2021 Penn Blockchain Conference China Panel

ABOUT THE EVENT
This panel discussion is a complimentary virtual event that is part of the 2021 Penn Blockchain Conference. It is a collaboration between the Penn Wharton China Center and the Penn Blockchain Club.

About the Conference

2020 has rapidly transformed the landscape of digital banking, payments, security, identity, and financial inclusion both in fintech and blockchain. This conference will present cutting-edge developments and trends in both industries.

Visit the conference Website via https://pbc2021.com/

EVENT INFORMATION

This panel discussion is a complimentary virtual event that is part of the 2021 Penn Blockchain Conference. It is a collaboration between the Penn Wharton China Center and the Penn Blockchain Club.

Event Time

  • Beijing Time: April 23, 8 AM – 9 AM
  • Eastern Time: April 22, 8 PM – 9 PM
  • Pacific Time: April 22, 5 PM – 6 PM

ABOUT SPEAKERS

Herbie Fu/傅哲飞
Venture Partner, Alpha Square Group, A New York family office; Former Partner, 8 Decimal Capital

Blockchain advisor to several listed companies, internet companies, and Hong Kong real estate companies. Independent advisor to Matrixport, a subsidiary of Bitmain.

Ken Huang/黄连金
CEO, DistributedApps

  • Executive Program Alumni, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
  • Author of a Book entitled <Blockchain Security Technical Guide> in Chinese
  • Former High-End Blockchain Expert at Huawei
  • Chair of Blockchain Security Working Group of Cloud Security Alliance of Great China Region
  • Chief Security Advisor of China Mobile Communications Federation’s Blockchain Expert Committee
  • Distinguished Researcher & Lecturer of  Big Data Blockchain and Regulatory Technology Laboratory and RegChain Laboratory of Renmin University of China
  • IEEE Honored Speaker for AI and Blockchain
  • Frequent speaker at many global Blockchain conferences, including Davos WEF, CoinDesk Consensus, IEEE, Blockchain Connect, Tokensky, World Crypto Economic Forum, Bigdata Expo, Wangxiang Blockchain Conference, Finwise, Singapore FinTech Festival, etc.
  • Was invited to speak at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Beijing University, World Bank, Bank of China, Huawei, etc.

Phillip Liu
Ex-COO, Ex-CPO, Bitmain, largest Bitcoin mining ASIC manufacture; Recent Defi, NFT infrastructure projects; Mega Fund, venture capital focus on high-tech startups in China

Phillip has many years of experience both in China and the United States, focusing on developing blockchain infrastructure technology, Defi and NFTs, central bank digital currency projects, His track record includes the successful restructuring of Honghe Lighting, a publicly listed company in China, and the restructuring of Hualing Group’s Hong Kong IPO and other mergers and acquisition.

He created a solid relationship with People’s Bank of China, especially with the institute of digital money, and Bank of China. He was the second-largest shareholder of The China Jining Bank. He has a very strong knowledge in finance and asset management. He led the team that successfully established and managed several funds including DongFang Yongtai Fund, and has established a solid reputation in China’s private equity circle. His team has managed to maintain the internal rate of return at 40% over several years.

Phillip received his Bachelor of Engineering from Tsinghua University and his M.S in Economics from UPenn.

Ken Lo/卢廷匡
Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, HKbitEx

Ken Lo is a co-founder of HKbitEX and holds the position of Chief Strategy Officer. HKbitEX, headquartered in Hong Kong, builds a digital asset exchange serving professional investors with a virtual asset trading platform license (in application with HK SFC) as the core. Prior to joining HKbitEX, Ken was one of the early founding members of ZA International where he held the position of Head of Strategic Partnerships. ZA International recently obtained Virtual Banking and Virtual Insurance licenses – the only financial institution that achieved such a hallmark in Hong Kong.

He is an active participant in the Fintech community, and currently serves as a Board Member of Fintech Association of Hong Kong, adjunct assistant professor for the Master of Fintech Program at Hong Kong Chinese University, and guest lecturers for Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Hong Kong University. He also serves as a mentor for the Cyberport Start Up Incubation Programme, HKUST BBA program, and HKU MBA program. He graduated from HKUST BBA and obtained a Masters of Finance (Investment Management) at HKUST.

April 9, 2021 - Penn Wharton China Center Career Series: Wharton Alumni & Top Venture Capitalists on VC Career Path Planning

Please visit the Event Website below to learn more.

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VukGpG9ErcfpawFvSiGKhQ

Location

Penn Wharton China Center

World Financial Center West Building, 16F No. 1 East Third Ring Middle Road
Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020

March 17, 2021 - Landing a Job in China: Facts, Fictions, and Transformations

Penn Wharton China Center is inviting you to a scheduled virtual event.

Topic: Landing a Job in China: Facts, Fictions, and Transformations

Time: March 17, 2021, 20:00 PM Beijing, Shanghai (08:00 AM Eastern)

JOIN ZOOM MEETING

https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96850863252?pwd=bkQreVRodXg1YWx6bVRaNjNVSlNqZz09

Meeting ID: 968 5086 3252
Passcode: 151638

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FyQ0qoODx0nRbW_f-M8HAg

March 6, 2021 - Emerging Research at Penn Engineering

ABOUT THE SERIES

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

ABOUT THE EVENT

In this research panel, three of our faculty members will describe their emerging cutting-edge research in the areas of computer vision, materials science, and emerging hardware for machine learning, and the importance of collaborative approaches to education and research. The panelists will discuss their new work and put it in context of emerging markets and technology trends in the Asia-Pacific and Americas region.

Theme: Technological research and innovation trends relevant to China and the US.

Introduction: Prof. Vijay Kumar, Nemirovsky Family Dean, Penn Engineering

Moderator: Prof. Boon Thau Loo, RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs

Panel:

  • Prof. Jing Li, Eduardo D. Glandt Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor (ESE, CIS)
  • Prof. Jianbo Shi, Professor (CIS)
  • Prof. Shu Yang, Professor (CBE, MSE)

HOW TO REGISTER

Date & Time:

  • March 6, 2021, 9:00 AM Beijing Time
  • March 5, 2021, 8:00 PM Eastern Time
  • March 5, 2021, 5:00 PM Pacific Time

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through a text message at 6:00 PM on February 23.

SPEAKERS

Vijay Kumar
Nemirovsky Family Dean, Penn Engineering

Vijay Kumar is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor’s of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.

In addition to holding many administrative positions at Penn, Kumar has served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012 – 2013).  His lab has founded many startups in robotics, and he is the founder of Exyn Technologies. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013 and the American Philosophical Society in 2018.

Boon Thau Loo
RCA Professor (CIS) and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, University of Pennsylvania

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor of artificial intelligence in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) department. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all academic and admissions operations for doctoral, master’s and professional programs at Penn Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research team, and is also currently the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), an inter-disciplinary systems research lab bringing together researchers in networking, distributed systems, and security. In addition to his academic work, he actively participates in entrepreneurial activities and has co-founded two technology companies that were successfully acquired.

In addition to holding many administrative positions at Penn, Kumar has served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012 – 2013).  His lab has founded many startups in robotics, and he is the founder of Exyn Technologies. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013 and the American Philosophical Society in 2018.

Shu Yang
Professor (CBE, MSE), University of Pennsylvania

Shu Yang is a Professor in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering, and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Her group is interested in synthesis, fabrication, and assembly of (bio)polymers, gels, liquid crystals, colloids, and their composites; dynamic tuning of the sizes, shape and assembled structures, and use of geometry to create highly flexible, super-conformable, and shape changing materials. Combining novel materials at the nanoscale and geometric designs at micro- and macroscales, the Yang lab explores unique surface, optical, and mechanical properties for potential applications, including coatings, adhesives, displays, (bio)sensors, energy efficient building skins, robotics, biomedical devices, and wearable technology.

Yang received her B.S. degree from Fudan University in 1992, and Ph. D. degree from Cornell University in 1999. She worked at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies as a Member of Technical Staff before joining Penn in 2004. She received the George H. Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research from Penn Engineering (2015-2016). She is a Fellow of Division of Soft Matter (DSOFT) from American Physical Society (APS) (2018), Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering from American Chemical Society (ACS) (2018), Royal Chemical Society (2017), and National Academy of Inventors (2014). She serves as an Associate Editor of Science Advances and Polymer Reviews, respectively, and as a Scientific Editor of Materials Horizon.

Jing Li
Eduardo D. Glandt Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor (ESE, CIS), University of Pennsylvania

Jing (Jane) Li is the Eduardo D. Glandt Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering (primary) and of Computer and Information Science (secondary) at the University of Pennsylvania. She spent her early career at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center as a Research Staff Member and was one of founding members of Hardware Accelerator and Machine Learning Group at IBM. She is broadly interested in developing fundamental methods for workload optimized systems, ranging from embedded systems, IoT to cloud/data centers and super computers. Her group has focused on cross-stack approaches to synergistically optimize algorithm, software, and hardware for machine learning, graph analytics, and information retrieval. To validate the research ideas, her research puts a strong emphasis on real system prototype both at chip level and system level.

She is one of the founding members for a new research community – machine learning system with leading IT companies. Her past contributions to IBM’s IP portfolio had been essential to multiple lucrative partnerships. The innovations were implemented in prototypes by global partners and vendors within the area of memory products. She won IBM Research Division Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for successfully achieving CEO milestone on multi-bit storage class memory. She served as the advisory chair and steering committee for an industrial memory venue – International Memory Workshop (IMW) to hold annual meetings with worldwide memory vendors. She is in the program committee for International Symposium of Computer Architecture (ISCA) Industry Track. She holds over 40 patents.

Jianbo Shi
Professor (CIS), University of Pennsylvania

Jianbo Shi was born in Shanghai, China. He studied Computer Science and Mathematics as an undergraduate at Cornell University where he received his B.A. in 1994. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley in 1998, for his thesis on Normalize Cuts image segmentation algorithm. In January 2003, he joined the Department of Computer & Information Science at University of Pennsylvania where he is currently a Professor His current research focuses on human behavior analysis and image recognition-segmentation. His other research interests include image/video retrieval, and vision based desktop computing. His long-term interests center around a broader area of machine intelligence, he wishes to develop a “visual thinking” module that allows computers not only to understand the environment around us, but also to achieve higher level cognitive abilities such as machine memory and learning.

 

Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HvgPcJcPIv7rN6ZDIHXMNQ

February 24, 2021 - Future of Blockchain and Crypto

ABOUT THE SERIES

At Penn, we work hard to ensure that our students are career- and future-ready. This brand-new series entitled, “Penn at Work — Making Your Future: 2021 and Beyond,” covers carefully curated topics that will define the future and reshape humanity through the lens of our students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders.

ABOUT THE EVENT

This inaugural event is in collaboration with the Penn Blockchain Club. The Penn Wharton China Center and the Penn Blockchain Club worked together on the China panel of the 2019 Penn Blockchain Conference. Together, growing with the Penn/Wharton blockchain eco-system, we are witnessing the development of this game-changing amazing technology and our vibrant student group.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are becoming a global phenomenon in recent years. Talks continue about the future of the sector as crypto prices soar.

Litecoin’s underlying technology is similar to Bitcoin, but has a decreased block generation time, increased maximum number of coins, and a different hashing algorithm. Litecoin has consistently been one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

HOW TO REGISTER

Date & Time:

  • February 24, 2021, 9:00 AM Beijing Time
  • February 23, 2021, 8:00 PM Eastern Time
  • February 23, 2021, 5:00 PM Pacific Time

Click “Read More” to register. The link will be distributed through a text message at 6:00 PM on February 23.

If you are interested in this topic, please leave your questions while the registration. The speaker will select some questions to answer. The webinar will use Zoom as its platform. To download or learn how to use Zoom please visit: https://zoom.us/download

SPEAKERS

Charlie Lee
Founder, Litecoin
Engineering Director, 
Coinbase

Charlie Lee built Litecoin while he was working at Google, and later became Engineering Director at Coinbase. Now he serves as the head of the Litecoin Foundation.
Joyce Yang
Founder and CEO, Global Coin ResearchJoyce Yang is the founder and CEO of Global Coin Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on Asia Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. She is also the founding partner of Global Coin Ventures. Joyce graduated from Harvard and spent her prior life working in finance on technology companies in the East and West.
Event Website: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZArTjSdiK8vZTOMoO7s4Rw