Public health demands both critical thinking and quick decision-making--often without the benefit of all the data we desire. Take this course to learn how other public health professionals (and lawyers /doctors /activists /educators /policymakers) have responded, both successfully and disastrously, to evolving health threats. Using a case-based method, the course will probe true public health emergencies, considering the (limits of) information available to scientists; the public response; political/economic considerations; media coverage; policy/programmatic response; and health/social outcomes. The course will tackle cases from infectious disease and social epidemiology, and will cover: outbreak investigation, lay epidemiology, surveillance and rapid response, and strategies to address the social determinants of health, including poverty/SES and racism. Students in the class will develop key skills in critical epidemiological reasoning and public health action.

This course explores Impact Investing, a discipline that seeks to generate social benefits as well as financial returns. From tiny beginnings, the Impact Investment space has expanded and now commands significant attention from policymakers, wealthy and public-spirited individuals, academia and, not least, the world's largest asset managers and philanthropic foundations. Evangelists believe it may be the key to freeing the world from poverty. Skeptics think it will remain confined to the boutique. Regardless, Impact Investing is becoming a distinct career specialization for finance professionals despite the diverse skillset each must have and the uncertainty of the new field's growth. In addition to prerequisites, FNCE 2050 is recommended but not required.

This course examines current developments in public corporation environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, with a particular emphasis on the manner in which public company shareholders and their advisors have sought to increase public company focus on advancing ESG issues. This course will examine the debate around the propriety of holding corporations and their directors responsible for ESG issues beyond their duty to comply with the law. This course also will explore in detail some of the most prominent current ESG topics. This course will examine how shareholders and other stakeholders have been advancing key environmental issues such as climate change policies, the pursuit of carbon neutrality, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the prevailing mechanisms for holding corporations accountable for their environmental commitments. This course also will explore how shareholders and other stakeholders have sought to advance critical social issues such as human rights, workplace culture, labor and employee relations, human capital management, political spending and disclosure as well as issues related to gender and racial equity and diversity in the workforce. Such an exploration will include engaging around prioritization and appropriate accountability metrics. Finally, this course will examine key corporate governance issues including shareholder voting such as dual class structures and majority voting regimes, board composition and diversity, say on pay and executive compensation, and the rise of shareholder proposals related to ESG.

The Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has fundamentally altered post-Cold War security norms across the European continent. This includes a reinvigorated Transatlantic approach to supporting European energy security. For example, Western Europe had for years built up a strategic security vulnerability through an over-reliance on Russian hydrocarbon resources, in particular natural gas, as well as critical infrastructure owned by Kremlin-controlled enterprises. Europe is now embarking on a transformational shift to end its longstanding dependence on Russian hydrocarbons that provides an opportunity to both decouple from an authoritarian neighbor and decarbonize its energy supply to address the climate crisis. Meanwhile, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have aimed to deprive the Russian government of the financial and technical means of prosecuting its military aggression in Ukraine through comprehensive sanctions and technology export control regimes. This course will explore the history of European dependence on Russian energy resources and critical infrastructure projects and will analyze how the Russian Federation has ‘weaponized energy’ against European democracies before and after it’s invasion of Ukraine, including through trends of strategic corruption and elite capture. The course will assess as a case study the current European energy infrastructure landscape and ask students to propose infrastructure, regulatory, and physical/cyber security strategies from the perspective of a practitioner of transatlantic energy diplomacy. This course will also explore contemporary trends in energy sanctions and technology export controls policies crafted by democratic states worldwide. We will review recent U.S. and European sanctions policies through the framework of existing and proposed Russia sanctions, including analysis of sanctions implemented through Executive Order and Congressional legislation, and similar legislation enacted by the European Union. The course will take a multidisciplinary approach, combining primary source readings with classroom simulations drawing on the historical, policy, science, and technology drivers of effective European energy security strategies.

Charles Darwin's first impression of the Galápagos was not a positive one. Upon landing on San Cristóbal Island, he was underwhelmed, commenting that the island reminded him of "what we might imagine cultivated parts of the Infernal regions to be." But Darwin quickly recognized that the Galápagos is a unique place to study geology and natural history. We will follow in his footsteps, studying ecology, evolution, and the natural history of Galápagos, along with the growing impact of humans on this fragile place. The course will culminate in a visit to the Galápagos archipelago to examine first-hand the issues and theories discussed throughout the seminar.

0

The Amazon is burning. The glaciers are melting. Heat waves, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and droughts devastate ever larger swaths of the earth, producing crop failures, air pollution, soil erosion, famine and terrifying individual hardship. At the same, time the so-called Western World is literally walling itself off from the millions who are fleeing from disaster and war with what little they can carry. White militants chant "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us," social media spreads memes and talking points about "white genocide" and "white replacement" and online ideologues fantasize about building white ethnostates. Are these developments connected? Is there a causal relationship? Or are these conditions purely coincidental? Increasingly, arguments about limits to growth, sustainability, development and climate change have come to stand in competitive tension with arguments for social and racial equality. Why is that case? What are the claims and underlying anxieties that polarize western societies? How do white nationalist movements relate to populist and fascist movements in the first half of the 20th century? What is new and different about them now? What is the relationship between environmentalism, rightwing populism and the climate crisis? And how have societies responded to the climate crisis, wealth inequality, finite resources and the threat posed by self-radicalizing white nationalist groups?

This course surveys various processes that are used to produce materials structured at the micron and nanometer scales for electronic, optical and biological applications. Basic principles of materials chemistry, physics, thermodynamics and surface/interfacial science are applied to solid state, liquid, and colloidal approaches to making materials. A wide range of nano- and microfabrication techniques, including photolithography, soft lithography, nanoimprint lithography, 3D printing and self-assembly, are covered. The course is heavily lab based, with 30% of class time and 50% of the homework devoted to hands on experiences and lab report writing. Lab assignments are a series of structured individual/group projects. Evaluation is based on 3 lab reports, 4 problem sets with journal paper reading assignment, and a final project design.

This course introduces students to the way sociological theory intersects with and is used to enforce Fair Housing Law. At the end of the semester students will be familiar with various sociological theories that explain patterns of residential segregation in America. Students will learn about various planning and policies that have both reinforced and deepened patterns of segregation as well as various fair housing laws. Students will collaborate with the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic and a community based fair housing group to address a fair housing issue. Students will collect data, gather information, and perform analyses to further a fair housing advocacy effort.

This course focuses on teaching students the Pennsylvania flora, both native and naturalized. Through weekly field trips, students will gain an appreciation for the diversity of plant species and plant communities in PA, and observe and discuss ecological and historical forces that influence plant species occurrences and plant communities. The ability to quickly and accurately identify plants in the field, through both sight identification and the use of a dichotomous key, is the major thrust of this course. Students will also learn how to appropriately collect plant materials for further study/identification in the laboratory and for archiving in an herbarium collection.

Processes of soil development in a variety of temperate environments. Effects of lithology and climate on soil properties.

Whether you call it climatological science-fiction or #clifi, speculative fiction about anthropogenic climate change is becoming an important site for thinking, feeling, and warning about earth’s changing environments. In this class we’ll study a cluster of recent cli-fi novels that project a variety of climate scenarios into the future. We’ll also look at fictions that explore humanity’s entanglement with non-human beings and environments, as well as at those that connect climate change in the present with scarce-resources, conflict, displacement, and environmental racism. Supplementary readings in the environmental humanities will introduce terms and concepts such as the Anthropocene, deep time, the great acceleration, the nonhuman turn, ecological grief, and climate justice. Primary texts by the likes of Octavia Butler, A. S. Byatt, Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Powers, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jesmyn Ward, Alexis Wright.

This seminar compares a set of practices that center on coca leaf production in indigenous communities, where coca cultivation has been sustained over long centuries, on the one hand, with a set of unsustainable practices linked to the “drug war” in the Americas, on the other. Participants will read scholarly work in history and anthropology, support one another through a research process, and explore what historians and other scholars might contribute to discussions about drug policy

According to a 2019 paper by Scott A. Kulp and Benjamin H. Strauss in the journal Nature Communications, 230 million people worldwide occupy land that is less than 1 meter above current high tide. These lands will be inundated by sea level rise by the end of this century, or earlier. Add to this the inherent flood risks in riverine and urban settings. How do we prepare and adapt? The class will explore the challenge of floodplain management in a changing climate through lectures, talks by guest experts, readings and multimedia, and exploration in the field. We will take a field trip to the New Jersey coast to witness home elevations, beach nourishment, and locales that are already experiencing chronic tidal flooding; we will meet with municipal officials challenged by increasingly persistent sea level rise. Our class will look at the National Flood Insurance Program, examine its goals, critique its 50 year history and debate reforms to the program at the same time the US Congress is considering reauthorization of the program. We will look at resiliency efforts that states and local governments are pursuing and the new city- and state-level position of Chief Resiliency Officer. In class we will cover hazard mitigation planning, land use, hard and natural infrastructure, regulations, the Community Rating System and other issues pertaining to flooding and climate change, including social justice and public health issues. Throughout the course, material will be introduced to prepare the student to take the Certified Floodplain Manager exam administered by the Association of State Floodplain Managers. This optional test, should the student pass, will provide credentialing that is well recognized in the United States.

Physical properties; fluid statics; Bernoulli equation; fluid kinematics; conservation laws and finite control-volume analysis; conservation laws and differential analysis; inviscid flow; The Navier-Stokes equation and some exact solutions; similitude, dimensional analysis, and modeling; flow in pipes and channels; boundary layer theory; lift and drag.

Are you intrigued by the role food plays in our lives and our world? Have you noticed that the food film has become one of cinema’s most durable subgenres not only in the US but in global cinema as well? Are you willing to test the proposition that the food film is more than entertainment? That the food film, in fact, provides us unique access to a range of fundamental questions about passion and desire, family, survival, art, gender, race, and ethnicity? This seminar explores numerous aspects of the food/film nexus, starting with the classics (Babette’s Feast and Tampopo), and grazing across a menu of Hollywood, independent, and international documentaries and feature films that throw light on food production and global warming; chefs and the restaurant business; the erotics of food and cinema; eating and the self; and moral and religious aspects of consumption. Designed for lovers (or potential lovers) of food and film alike, this course will introduce you to the art of film analysis and the pleasures of cuisine.

The destruction of the world's forests through wild fires, deforestation, and global heating threatens planetary bio-diversity and may even, as a 2020 shows, trigger civilizational collapse. Can the humanities help us think differently about the forest? At the same time that forests of the world are in crisis, the "rights of nature" movement is making progress in forcing courts to acknowledge the legal "personhood" of forests and other ecosystems. The stories that humans have told and continue to tell about forests are a source for the imaginative and cultural content of that claim. At a time when humans seem unable to curb the destructive practices that place themselves, biodiversity, and forests at risk, the humanities give us access to a record of the complex inter-relationship between forests and humanity. Forest Worlds serves as an introduction to the environmental humanities. The environmental humanities offer a perspective on the climate emergency and the human dimension of climate change that are typically not part of the study of climate science or climate policy. Students receive instruction in the methods of the humanities - cultural analysis and interpretation of literature and film - in relation to texts that illuminate patterns of human behavior, thought, and affect with regard to living in and with nature.

The destruction of the world's forests through wild fires, deforestation, and global heating threatens planetary bio-diversity and may even, as a 2020 shows, trigger civilizational collapse. Can the humanities help us think differently about the forest? At the same time that forests of the world are in crisis, the "rights of nature" movement is making progress in forcing courts to acknowledge the legal "personhood" of forests and other ecosystems. The stories that humans have told and continue to tell about forests are a source for the imaginative and cultural content of that claim. At a time when humans seem unable to curb the destructive practices that place themselves, biodiversity, and forests at risk, the humanities give us access to a record of the complex inter-relationship between forests and humanity. Forest Worlds serves as an introduction to the environmental humanities. The environmental humanities offer a perspective on the climate emergency and the human dimension of climate change that are typically not part of the study of climate science or climate policy. Students receive instruction in the methods of the humanities - cultural analysis and interpretation of literature and film - in relation to texts that illuminate patterns of human behavior, thought, and affect with regard to living in and with nature.

This course will study the historical and intellectual forces behind the appearance of market economies on the world stage. The voyages of exploration undertaken by Europeans in the 15th and 16th century created, in just a few decades, a global economy. By 1600, silver from Mexico was exchanged in Manila for ceramics made in Nanjing (China). After a long trip through the Pacific, Mexico, and the Atlantic, the ceramics ended up in the tables of prosperous merchants in Bruges (modern day Belgium). How did this integrated global economy appear? How did global interconnections over the centuries shap our current world? How did markets emerge and influence these interconnections? Who were the winners of globalization? And who were the losers? How did economists, political scientists, and others think about the strengths and weakness of market economies? This course will explore these questions and the role that markets have played in it from the late 15th century to the present. Even if the economic theory will structure much of the discussion, insights from intellectual history, cultural history, microhistory, legal history, and institutional history will help to frame the main narrative. The course will be, as well, truly global. First, beyond the traditional focus of economic history courses on Europe and the Americas, particular attention will be devoted to Africa and Asia. Second, the priority will be to highlight the interconnections between the different regions and to understand how the people living in them negotiated the opportunities and tensions created by the economic transformations triggered by globalization and how they conceptualized the changing lives around them. Finally, the class will highlight how diverse intellectual traditions handled the challenges presented by historical change.

This interdisciplinary course covers fundamental concepts of global and population health. Epidemiology and methodology, historical and contemporary contexts, physical (water, air, climate change, and food/nutrition) and social (health inequities, sex/reproduction, injury/violence) determinants of health, and interventions for health improvement are addressed. Health problems such as infectious and chronic diseases cannot be understood apart from history, economics, environment, and inequalities - they are not simply medical issues. Global Health refers not only to the health problems of "others" living in far corners of the world (low- and middle-income countries), but also to our own health problems as citizens of a very rich, but very unequal and multicultural nation. The aim of the course is to help students become more informed and active global citizens. Learning methods include faculty presentations, student presentations, and small group discussions. Although this course has a health focus, it is aimed at all students interested in global issues.