This is the website for the Daily Pennsylvanian Alumni Association (DPAA), the alumni organization of the University of Pennsylvania's student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian. Please explore what we have to offer, but be aware that certain features of this site require a login and are only available to paid members of the DPAA.

The history of the DP
(in 17 minutes, 33 seconds)

At the start of 2011, Executive Editor Lauren Plotnick said she wanted to start four days of training for new editors and managers with a session on the history of the DP -- something that would make them better appreciate the magnitude of running the 127 year-old organization.

DP General Manager Eric Jacobs says the idea blossomed in his mind immediately: a video slideshow which would trace the paper's long history, interspersed with alumni memories to inspire the staff. "Standing in front of the group to talk through the DP's history would be dry, but I pictured a movie with historic photos, front pages, quotes from alumni which make you laugh and which make you cry, and dramatic music to heighten the emotional connection."

Two long days of hectic work by Jacobs and Operations Director Katherine Ross later, the DP History movie emerged.

Kien Lam: around the world
in under 5 minutes

Former DP photographer Kien Lam '06 has made a splash on the world stage with his under-five minute time-lapse video of his nearly year-long trip around the world.

He visited 17 countries over 343 days, traveling without a set itinerary or plan, other than to head east and keep going. The 4 minute, 50 second video is composed of 6,237 photographs, and received 2 million views on YouTube in just the first few weeks since he uploaded it at the start of the year.

Lam quit his job as a financial strategist in San Francisco to travel. In a recent interview with a travel blogger, Lam said, "I wanted to travel for more than 2 weeks at a time. Whenever I used to visit a country and meet other travelers, I was always envious that they had 2 months or 6 months or a year to travel. My entire “vacation” or “travels” was just one of a long list of places they were visiting on one trip. I felt like I wanted to do it now, rather than put it off for later."

How did he decide which countries to visit? "That was hard. I wanted to start in London to see some friends and then follow the sun and warm weather. 2010 was a particularly cold year in San Francisco and I just wanted to go where it was warm. I had places I wanted to visit, and made my decisions from country to country as I arrived."

DP Alumni News

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Steve Stecklow '76 is leaving The Wall Street Journal in February after 18 years at the paper to become a London-based investigative reporter for Reuters. Stecklow joined the Journal in 1993 as a Boston-based national education reporter. He moved to London in 1998 as a global investigative reporter for the Journal, before returning to Boston in 2005. Stecklow shared the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with three other Journal reporters for a series on backdated stock options. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 as well, and has received journalism's prestigious George Polk award three times. Stecklow has worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Star, Philadelphia Bulletin, and the Atlantic City Press, and has been an adjunct professor at Boston University, teaching a course in investigative journalism.

Two Jews and a Muslim walk into a bar… is not the start of a bad joke — it's a description of a Christmas weekend getaway trip to Montreal by three DP alumni. Shawn Safvi '08, Josh Kay '10 and Alex Raksin '09, (left to right in the picture at right) became friends working on the business staff of the DP in 2006 and 2007. They all live and work in New York.

Alex Koppelman '05 was named The New Yorker's new online Associate News Editor at the end of November. The former 34th Street Magazine Editor-in-Chief had been working as News Editor at trade journal Adweek, which followed a stint as a political blogger for Salon.com.

About two dozen DP alumni visited the DP office following Penn's Homecoming romp over Princeton November 5. Among the returning alumni from recent years were Parisa Bastani '08, Anthony Campisi '09, Matt Conrad '07 (recently passed the New York State Bar), Michelle Marcus Dayan '07, Michelle Dubert '07, Ari Friedman '06 (currently a medical student at Penn), Cezary Podkul '06 (now working at Reuters), Jeff Shafer '06, and Jonathan Tanenwald '06. From the most recent graduating class, returnees included Rachel Baye '11, Michael Gold '11, Naomi Jagoda '11, and Andrew Scurria '11.

Catherine Lucey '01, a former DP Campus News Editor and current reporter and City Hall Bureau Chief for the Philadelphia Daily News, gave birth to her first child with husband Ryan Donnell on Friday, October 21. The baby, Cillian Patrick Lucey Donnell, weighed in at 7 lbs., 5oz. Ever the devoted DPAA Board member, Catherine participated in the DPAA's annual Marquez Journalism conference less than a month before giving birth. (And Ryan, a freelance photographer who is not a DP alum, nonetheless reprised his participation in the Marquez conference in a session for photographers and designers.)

The history of the DP(in 17 minutes, 33 seconds)

Kien Lam: around the world in under 5 minutes

DP Alumni News

The history of the DP
(in 17 minutes, 33 seconds)

Kien Lam: around the world
in under 5 minutes