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Boon Thau Loo (left), Russell Composto (top middle), Mark Yim (bottom middle), and Danielle Bassett (right) have been awarded endowed professorships at the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Four Engineering professors were awardedendowed professorships at the School of Engineering and Applied Science in recognition of their research. 

The endowed professorships provide the faculty members with additional financial support and broaden their influence in their fields, according to the Power of Penn campaign website. 

Bioengineering professor Danielle Bassett was named the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering. Bassett, who came to Penn in 2013, researches network science. A recent research topic in her group is predicting the extent of learning from human brain networks, according to her biography on the Penn Engineering page. A year after she arrived at Penn, Bassett founded the Penn Network Visualization Program, connects students interested in arts with scientists, according to a Penn Bioengineering blog post. 

Russell Composto, a professor in materials science and engineering, was named Howell Family Faculty Fellow. Composto joined Penn's faculty in 1990 and has received recognition for his research in polymer science and biomolecular engineering. His research centers around manipulating the surface of polymers, according to his Penn Engineering profile. 

Boon Thau Loo, a professor in computer and information science, was named the RCA Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Engineering School. He conducted postdoctoral research at Microsoft Research before joining Penn in 2007 and is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award, and Penn’s Emerging Inventor of the Year award. His website states that he is the co-founder of Termaxia, a storage software startup based in Philadelphia.

Mark Yim has been named the Asa Whitney Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics and director of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory at the Engineering School. He came to Penn in 2004 and works on self-reconfigurable robots.