As the United Nations celebrates its 70th anniversary, DrexelNow checked in with Ambassador (Ret.) Joseph M. Torsella, distinguished visiting fellow in the Center for Public Policy in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, who formerly served as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations for U.N. Management and Reform. From 2011-2014, he was responsible for leading efforts to make the U.N. a more efficient, accountable, respected and effective organization. On Wednesday, May 13, Torsella will give a public discussion at Drexel on “The U.S., the U.N. and U.N. Reform: Why its So Hard...and So Important.” The event will take place from 1:30 – 3 p.m. in the Bossone Research Enterprise Center’s Mitchell Auditorium (32nd and Market Streets, Philadelphia).

Creating a symbiotic relationship in which historic sacred spaces, such as churches, help to alleviate performing artists’ need for space could benefit both groups and better integrate them into the community, according to a new study from Drexel University. However, an intermediary is needed to help facilitate these relationships, the study found. The study was led by Neville Vakharia, an assistant professor and research director of arts administration in Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, and Partners for Sacred Places, a national organization dedicated to the stewardship and active community use of historic sacred spaces.

Students, faculty and staff from Drexel University will help make the fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Science Festival one of the biggest citywide celebrations to date. More than 200 regional partner organizations from museums to cultural centers and educational institutions will present over 100 events across the city during the nine-day celebration intended to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. 

Autism does not end when children reach adulthood—yet most public awareness, public policy and research about autism focus on the needs of children. A new national report from the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute answers critical questions about the experiences and outcomes of young people on the autism spectrum with transition planning, living arrangements, social participation, employment, postsecondary education, health and mental health, safety and other domains.

The ceremonial opening kick of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Sao Paolo, Brazil, which was performed—with the help of a brain-controlled exo-skeleton—by a local teen who had been paralyzed from the waste down due to a spinal cord injury, was a seminal moment for the area of neuroscience that strives to connect the brain with functional prosthetics. The public display was a representative of thousands of such neuroprosthetic advances in recent years, and the tens of years of brain research and technological development that have gone into them. And while this display was quite an achievement in its own right, a Drexel University biomedical engineer working at the leading edge of the field contends that these devices are also opening a new portal for researchers to understand how the brain functions. 

Notorious gangsters Al Capone and Carlo Gambino were famously done in by tax evasion charges. John Gotti, the “Teflon Don” was given up by a confidant. While the criminal masterminds of today are conducting their nefarious business online, the key to taking them down depends on understanding how they organize and where to squeeze them. Researchers from Drexel University’s Privacy and Security Automation Lab are searching for that pressure point by studying the activity of cybercrime forums. Their findings could guide the next generation of “Untouchables.”

On Thursday, April 30 from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m., Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang will speak on  “Better Cities: Transforming Public Spaces Through Art & Design” at Drexel University’s Mandell Theater (33rd and Chestnut Streets) as the fifth lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences' annual Distinguished Lecture Series.

A groundbreaking new book, Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines how those associated with abortion care are harassed, threatened, stalked, picketed, sent hate mail and otherwise terrorized on a daily basis, and how these incidents are drastically increasing

Drexel public health researchers published a review of the state of the science on which policy and infrastructure changes have a real impact on obesity prevention.

In a public discussion, entitled “Renewing the American “We”: What We Owe James Wilson,”
Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella (Ret.), distinguished visiting fellow in the Center for Public Policy in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, will share his thoughts on how we can – and why we must – renew our sense of American community in polarized times and what “forgotten founder” and Pennsylvania native James Wilson has to say about our current situation. The event will take place at the National Constitution Center’s Kirby Auditorium (525 Arch St., Philadelphia) on Wednesday, April 1 at 6:30 p.m.

Storylines, a new exhibition at Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert Street) in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, presents the work of Lithuanian-born artist and illustrator Ray Bartkus. Creating immersive environments, Bartkus’s monumental, figurative paintings embrace and engulf viewers, projecting them into compelling, mysterious domains. Shown for the first time in the United States, much of this work has been seen internationally in Lithuania, Poland, Austria Japan and the Netherlands. The exhibition will be on display from Tuesday, April 7 – Sunday, May 24.

Amidst large-scale sculptures made from recycled tires by contemporary American sculptor and printmaker Chakaia Booker, local poets will create poems, or ‘verbal sculptures,’ inspired by the themes of the artwork at Drexel University during Black History Month. Booker’s Are We There Yet? exhibition of sculptures, paintings and prints explores issues of race, gender, globalization and more.

Parents and physicians still aren’t doing enough to address the rise of “pharming,” or recreational use and abuse of prescription drugs, among teenagers, according to public health researchers at Drexel University.

As the dust settles after the chaos of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday shopping season, it’s the perfect time to take a closer look at America’s consumer culture, including ‘affluenza,’ the epidemic of overconsumption. In a new course, called “Studying Consumerism,” offered by the Department of Communication in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, students—and a limited number of alumni and members of the general public—can do just that. The winter term course, which runs from Jan. 5 – March 21, will provide students with a broad overview of critical, historical and practical issues pertaining to consumerism as well as branding and marketing.

A civil war that led to the beheading of a king, an 11-year discontinuation of the monarchy, followed by a bloody man-hunt for the judges who signed his death warrant – are all part of one of the most tumultuous times in England’s history and the subject of “Killers of the King,” the latest book by Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is both part of England’s recent history and a renowned chronicler of its more distant eras. On Jan. 22, he will visit Drexel University to talk about his book and also about what it’s like to run the Spencer family estate of Althorp —a real-life Downton Abbey— in the 21st Century. This event is part of a lecture series sponsored by the Kal & Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies.