What is Penn Open Labs?

Open Labs is a cross-campus fellowship of graduate and professional students devoted to educating and mentoring young scholars, and encouraging them to pursue careers in the sciences. The Penn chapter of Open Labs is run by graduate student volunteers who are passionate about sharing their enthusiasm of science with future researchers. We are currently dormant, and looking for new graduate students to resume the work.

For high school students
(and parents and teachers!)

If you've ever wondered what a robotic engineer does, how a biochemist spends their day, or how anyone could ever have fun doing math for 10 hours straight, then you've come to the right place. The goal of "Open Labs" is to give young students (6-12th grade) a direct experience of what it's like to be a scientist. Twice a year, we give fun, age-appropriate, TED-style presentations about our research at our Science Cafe events (more info below).

For Penn graduate students

We all know perfecting our pipetting technique, debugging our neural networks, and reminding our advisers to renew our Matlab licenses are a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon—but not everyone does! As a student-led organization that is dedicated to science outreach and inspiration, Penn Open Labs is a great opportunity to share your passion for science with future generations. We have several events throughout the year where you can volunteer or just mingle with other student scientists on campus.

About our Science Café!

Our latest event:

What: Four Penn graduate students giving TED-style talks on what makes their research exciting and inspiring (full details below!)
When: Saturday April 14, 2018; 2:00pm-4:00pm
Where: Ben Franklin Room, Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce St., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Parking: Metered street and public lots (link).

Planning on attending? Please RSVP by filling out the form at the link below:

Event Details & RSVP