About
Who we are
The Maritime, Energy & Commodities Society at Penn is an undergraduate student organization founded in 2026 to study the industries that carry and power everything else.
01 — Mission
Our mission
To build an interdisciplinary student community exploring the industries, energy technologies, and markets that power global trade.
Through research, educational programming, industry engagement, and collaborative projects, we connect students with the maritime, energy, and commodities sectors while examining their financial, technological, and environmental evolution.
Our aim is to prepare members to understand, and contribute to, more innovative, efficient, and resilient global systems.
02 — Position
Why a society like this did not already exist at Penn
Penn has strong organisations for finance, consulting, sustainability, transportation, engineering, and energy. Each takes one slice of the picture. The problems we find most interesting sit in the gaps between them.
A shipowner ordering a dual-fuel vessel is making a fuel-price bet, a regulatory bet, and a capital-markets bet at once. A port authority electrifying its cranes is weighing grid interconnection against berth economics. A trader pricing a cargo is also pricing a chokepoint, an insurance market, and an emissions regime.
MECS at Penn exists for that overlap — seaborne trade, ports, freight markets, energy infrastructure, commodity flows, new energy technologies, regulation, and the decisions that connect them.
03 — From the President
We started MECS because the most consequential industries in the world economy are also among the least discussed on campus.
Almost everything around you arrived by sea, and almost everything you do today runs on energy someone had to move, price, and finance. Those systems are enormous, deeply technical, and changing quickly — and they are rarely taught as one subject.
This Society is our attempt to treat them as one subject: to read the markets carefully, to learn from the people who work in them, and to publish work that is useful to someone outside our own membership. We are new, and we would rather be honest about that than overstate what we have done so far. What we can promise is seriousness about the subject.
If you work in these industries and would be willing to spend an hour with a room of students, we would like to hear from you.
Name TBD
President, MECS at Penn
04 — Governance
How the Society is run
A seven-member Executive Board oversees three branches. Officers are elected annually by the membership, by secret ballot and a two-thirds majority, and outgoing officers advise their successors for at least three weeks.
President
Operations, strategy, University registration, and external representation. Coordinates the three branches.
Vice President
Shares management and strategy, and acts for the President when required.
Head of Outreach
Speaker programming, partnerships, alumni engagement, and campus outreach.
Head of Research & Publications
Publication schedule, editorial standards, and the development of member writing.
Head of Consulting
Sourcing and scoping projects, coordinating teams, and the quality of client deliverables.
Treasurer
Budgets, funding applications, reimbursements, and financial records.
Secretary / Communications Director
Minutes, membership records, internal communications, and the Society's public materials.
Leadership for 2026–27 Our founding board is being seated. Officer names and photographs will be published here once elections and appointments are complete.
05 — Membership
Our members
Membership is open to undergraduates enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, from any school or year, and is filled through a unified application reviewed by a committee of members. MECS at Penn does not discriminate on the basis of any characteristic protected by University policy or applicable law.
General meetings run at least once every two weeks while classes are in session. Every member belongs to one of the three branches.