Title:

mRNA-based therapeutics - opening a new era in medicine

Speaker:

Norbert Pardi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Microbiology

Perelman School of Medicine

Bio:

Dr Norbert Pardi holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and genetics. He has been working at the University of Pennsylvania since 2011 and currently holds an Assistant Professor position at the Department of Microbiology of the Perelman School of Medicine. His research interest is the development of mRNA-based therapeutics with particular focus on new generation infectious disease vaccines. He explored the development of a novel vaccine platform using nucleoside-modified mRNA in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and used it to generate highly effective vaccines targeting various pathogens (influenza virus, coronaviruses, malaria and others). Dr. Pardi is a pioneer of the nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccine technology and published milestone papers in the field.

Description:

Dr. Pardi's talk will summarize the history of mRNA therapeutics/vaccines (the hurdles that needed to be overcome and particularly, the contribution of UPenn (Katalin Kariko, Drew Weissman and Norbert Pardi) to the success of mRNA). Moreover, the presenter will provide a snapshot on the current standing of the field and tell about the future directions of mRNA therapeutics/vaccine development.

Track 1

Title: Keynote: mRNA-based therapeutics - opening a new era in medicine

Speaker: Norbert Pardi (PSOM)

Time: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Description:

See Keynote tab above for full description and speaker bio.

Title: Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roadmap Update

Speakers: James Brewer & André Jenkins (ISC)

Time: 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Description:

In November 2021, SailPoint Identity IQ was implemented as the underlying identity engine for Penn Community. The IAM team will discuss what’s next as we leverage our new identity management system’s capabilities to improve the security and efficiency of University-wide identity and access management processes in phased functional releases.

Title: Breaking Down Code Silos with GitHub Campus

Speakers: Timothy Allen (Wharton), Chris Niemeyer (SEAS)

Time: 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM

Description:

Have you ever tried to collaborate on code with colleagues across schools? Have you tried to get a vendor access to code? Do you have faculty and students who get their own GitHub accounts, rather than going through painful processes?

Then GitHub Campus is the answer for you! Penn is now a member of GitHub campus, which makes GitHub Enterprise features available to the Penn Community via PennKey login. It features GitHub’s powerful Teams feature, which gives cascading access to projects and repositories, GitHub Alerts for repositories with security vulnerabilities, GitHub Classroom for integration with Canvas, and support for collaboration with external users, such as vendors or colleagues from other Universities. This is available for free to the entire Penn Community.

We will give an overview of GitHub Campus, followed by a presentation on how to remove secrets from code repositories, and why you should do it.

Title: Super Charging UPenn Qualtrics with Microsoft Azure Functions Serverless Compute

Speakers: Etienne Jacquot & Mario Giorno (ASC)

Time: 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Description:

Leveraging three enterprise public cloud services offered via Pennkey SSO, this presentation aims to share work done by the Annenberg School for Communication’s IT staff in collaboratively supporting a dynamic Qualtrics survey using the custom web API integration with Microsoft Azure’s serverless compute offering, Azure Functions. Together this solution brings advanced Python & R functionality directly into our Qualtrics workflow to seamlessly and securely process survey response data. Finally, to support the lifecycle of this project we underscore the use of Atlassian Bitbucket for version control of both source code and documentation in using git for reproducibility. 

Track 2

Title: Accessibility at Penn: a Year in Review

Panel: Kara Gaulrapp (ISC), Becky Moulder (Wharton), Anna Kent (Wharton), Jeremy Low (Wharton), Chat Whitman (Wharton), Nikitas Tampakis (Library), Leslie Vallhonrat (Library)

Time: 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Description:

In this session, you’ll hear from the teams at ISC, Wharton Computing, and Penn Libraries about how they’re advancing accessibility in their programs and Penn at large. We’ll also cover changes to Penn’s digital accessibility policy, new resources that are available, and other accessibility-related projects happening around campus.

Title: Start Using Your EDUCAUSE Benefits Today! 

Speakers: Tonya Bennett (PennVet), Dirk Van Rybroek (EDUCAUSE)

Time: 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM

Description:

This session will share Penn's EDUCAUSE member benefits. Learn how EDUCAUSE can help solve cross-organizational challenges through the efficient and effective use of IT. As members, we have access to a vast collection of tools and resources that help make our jobs easier and help advance our careers.

Title: The Canvas @ Penn Site: The Source for Information on Canvas and Other Teaching Technologies

Speakers: Canvas Editorial Documentation Board (CDEB): Kate Bertel, Monique Breaux, Anna Kent, Linda J. Lee, Becky Moulder, Jessica Morris, Kara St. Francis

Time: 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Description:

The Courseware Documentation Editorial Board (CDEB) members will give an intro to the Canvas @ Penn site (infocanvas.upenn.edu), followed by lightning-round style overviews of the platforms and tools documented there, including Canvas, Panopto, Zoom, Poll Everywhere, Perusall, Gradescope, and more. Managed by a team of courseware experts from across Penn, the Canvas @ Penn site provides a robust resource for faculty, students, and staff at Penn and beyond.

Track 1

Title: Enterprise Identity & Microsoft Services

Speaker: John Lee (ISC)

Time: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Description:

A lecture on Microsoft Services, with a focus on enterprise user identity. The trend in Higher Ed is to more tightly integrate Microsoft identity and related services. Shifting away from traditional approaches to cloud-based services is a central feature of this approach. This lecture will briefly cover, identity, security, migration, and touch on opportunities for efficiency gains.

Title: Organizational Change at Penn: The Impact of COVID-19 on Remote Work and IT Staff

Speaker: Jared Venezia (Dental)

Time: 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM

Description:

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent “shutdown” in early 2020 was an unprecedented time of organizational change. This talk will present research performed as part of my capstone project that specifically examines the impact of COVID-19 on remote work for IT staff at Penn. This includes the results of a survey members of the IT community participated in and provides an opportunity for discussion on the topic.

Title: This! Is! Penn Jeopardy!

Speakers: Chris Wargo & Stephanie Riley (ISC)

Time: 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM

Description:

Chris and Steph MC a Penn-specific Jeopardy Trivia game to unwind towards the end of ITSC. Filled with obscure acronyms, trivia, and tidbits: spend some time with the two greatest MCs alive for a fun-filled wacky game to test your knowledge!

Title: Robots are not just for Sci-Fi any more – RPA Robotic Process Automation

Speakers: Chandrasekhar Oruganty & Jeanine Kleba (ISC)

Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM

Description:

Robots were once characters in Sci-Fi movies but now automations are readily available for corporate and individual real-world applications.  During this presentation you will learn the benefits of building automations as well as what ‘bot’s are and are not.  You will get to see the first UPENN automation and hear about next steps with automations on campus.  

Title: Using Google Data Studio for Dashboard Analytics Reporting

Speaker: Jeffrey S. Danielewicz (Division of Finance)

Time: 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Description:

Everyone knows Google Analytics captures a wealth of information from your website. Giving stakeholders access to Google Analytics often leads to more questions than answers. Welcome Google Data Studio, a tool allowing you to create informative dashboards. Now, your audience can have all the data they need in one handy place.

Track 2

Title: Patient Recruitment for Clinical Research with TrialX

Speakers: Mahasweta Dutt (PSOM), Marianne DiTonno (iConnect, TrialX)

Time: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Description:

First, we will speak about iConnect about the major features as it exists today, then the features that are coming.  

Secondly, we will speak about Curetalks and some of the talks we have had and the successes of the talks.

Last, we will speak about Expand – formerly App Bakery and how we can help with remote or virtual study visits with mobile applications. 

The major features we speak about in iConnect are the API-based integration to sync trial data from their database. Ability to do campaign tracking, automated follow-up, and dynamic pre-screeners.  Some of the shortly upcoming features are branded website and multiple language support

In Curetalks we will speak about some of the most successful talks.

Finally, we will speak about xPAND we work with a UPenn Researcher (Dr. Basner) on Space research studies and the PCOS tracker 

Title: Redefining the Wharton Classroom for the Current Era

Speakers: Katie Watkins & Jared Obstfeld (Wharton)

Time: 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM

Description:

We will be detailing the problems we were presented in the spring of 2020, the changes in design and support we made to support virtual classes, then how we made the pivot to hybrid classes, and some of the challenges we faced a long the way. We will end with the vision for the classrooms moving forward to try to anticipate the instructional and event needs for the future. 

Title: My Guiding Principles (for supervising IT staff)

Speaker: Charles (Chip) Buchholtz (SEAS)

Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM

Description:

​I have a collection of "rules of thumb" for managing my staff.  It's a mental list I run through when I'm trying to decide how to handle a situation.  I find that when things go bad, it's usually because I didn't follow one of these guidelines.  

Title: The Mission Continuity Program: A Vision for Protecting Penn’s Future

Speaker: Dr. Anita Gelburd (ISC)

Time: 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Description:

Want to know more about what continuity planning is and why it’s important to the whole University? Do you already know about Penn’s continuity planning program and want to hear about what’s coming up?  Come learn how Penn is taking its Mission Continuity Program (MCP) into the future with a new strategic plan.

We will be holding an in-person reception after the convention's second day, at City Tap House in University City. Please register by Friday May 13 if you will be attending the reception.

When: Wednesday, May 18 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Where:

City Tap House

3925 Walnut Street, Radian Balcony

Philadelphia, PA 19104