News

March 20, 2025

Penn State Human Resources shifting to virtual Form I-9 completion

<p>The Engineering Ambassadors Network recently held a three-day-long Spring Leadership Conference at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center.</p>

March 19, 2025

Engineering Ambassadors conference connects student engineers at Penn State

<p>A new workshop series at Penn State aims to help postdoctoral scholars and advanced doctoral students navigate the fellowship application process and strengthen their funding proposals. Workshops will take place on March 20, April 13 and May 5 at University Park and on Zoom. Registration is required for each workshop.</p>

March 19, 2025

Series to help early-career researchers navigate funding process begins March 20

<p>Increased antibiotic use can lead, seemingly paradoxically, to more problematic infections, as the bacteria evolve to resist the treatment. The answer to this antimicrobial resistance, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called “one of the world’s most urgent public health problems,” might be a medication used for kidney disease, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State.</p>

March 18, 2025

FDA-approved dialysis drug may help fight against antimicrobial resistance

<p>Community members are invited to engage with graduate students as they present their research and scholarship at Penn State's 40th annual Graduate Exhibition, set for March 28 on the University Park campus. </p>

March 17, 2025

Community invited to judge 2025 Graduate Exhibition

<p>Penn State graduate students will showcase their research in Penn State’s second annual Three Minute Thesis competition on Saturday, March 29, hosted by the Fox Graduate School. Community members are invited to attend, support participants, and vote for their favorite presentation.</p>

March 17, 2025

Stage set for final round of Three Minute Thesis competition on March 29

<p>Switching daily snack foods to pecans improves cholesterol levels and enhances overall diet quality, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State Department of Nutritional Sciences.</p>

March 17, 2025

Replacing other snacks with pecans may improve cholesterol, diet quality

March 15, 2025

Ag Sciences research institute SAFES funds projects addressing critical issues

<p>A new study has described a potential mechanism that could help explain why some proteins refold in a different pattern than expected. The researchers, led by chemists at Penn State, found that a type of misfolding, in which the proteins incorrectly intertwine their segments, can occur and create a barrier to the normal folding process.</p>

March 14, 2025

Protein accidentally lassos itself, helping explain unusual refolding behavior

<p>A team of researchers from Penn State and Baylor College of Medicine found that the Zika virus builds tiny tunnels, called tunneling nanotubes, to stealthily transport material needed to infect nearby cells, including in placental cells — which is one way the virus transmits from mother to fetus during pregnancy. The team also demonstrated, for the first time, that one specific Zika protein is responsible for the formation of the nanotubes.</p>

March 14, 2025

Tunnel-building virus: How Zika transmits from mother to fetus

<p>Professors of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management Andrew Mowen and Bing Pan received national honors at the recent 2025 Academy of Leisure Sciences Conference.</p>

March 13, 2025

Recreation, park and tourism management faculty receive national awards

<p>Nazifa Tabassum and Katie Yan, both graduate students at Penn State, are this year's I AM STEM winners, a contest dedicated to encouraging Penn State Eberly College of Science students to tell their science stories. They will both serve as this year’s keynote speakers for ENVISION on March 29, sharing their experiences in STEM and providing advice to middle school and high school students eager to get involved as scientists.</p>

March 13, 2025

Graduate students to present their journeys in science

<p>Brook trout may have a genetic trick up their scales when it comes to adapting, with limitations, to heatwaves that threaten their existence. A novel study led by researchers at Penn State suggests that brook trout — an iconic coldwater fish species native to streams and lakes in the eastern United States and Canada — are capable of mounting a protective genetic response to thermal stress that can be passed on from one generation to the next. </p>

March 13, 2025

Threatened by warming waters, brook trout may be able to adapt to hotter weather

<p>Newly achieved precise control over light emitted from incredibly tiny sources, a few nanometers in size, embedded in two-dimensional materials could lead to remarkably high-resolution monitors and advances in ultra-fast quantum computing, according to an international team led by researchers at Penn State and Université Paris-Saclay.</p>

March 07, 2025

‘Nanodot’ control could fine-tune light for sharper displays, quantum computing

<p>The Penn State Alumni Association will honor eight prominent young alumni for their outstanding professional accomplishments at the 2025 Alumni Achievement Awards Ceremony on March 28. The event will be livestreamed. </p>

March 06, 2025

Eight Penn Staters honored with 2025 Alumni Achievement Award

<p>Artificial intelligence models may help clinicians identify factors to predict long-term recovery from and personalize treatments for generalized anxiety disorder, according to researchers at Penn State.</p>

March 06, 2025

AI may help clinicians personalize treatment for generalized anxiety disorder

<p>As an undergraduate student majoring in mathematics at Texas Tech, Nicholas Prince got involved in research and loved it, he said. He never considered earning a doctorate, but his undergraduate research adviser convinced him otherwise. Now, at Penn State, he's a We Are for Science Fellow in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and he's helping to build a support network for graduate students.</p>

March 05, 2025

Earth and Mineral Sciences graduate fellow builds belonging safety net for peers

<p>Mary Zuccato, who earned her master of business administration from Penn State Great Valley, applied her knowledge to a variety of roles at Vanguard before taking on the role of chief operating officer at Every Cure, a nonprofit biotech organization that uses artificial intelligence to identify and evaluate repurposing opportunities for existing medicines that could be used to treat other diseases.</p>

March 04, 2025

Great Valley MBA alumna leads biotech nonprofit using AI to find new treatments

<p>A synthetic microbiome therapy, tested in mice, holds promise as a new treatment for C. difficile, a notoriously difficult-to-treat bacterial infection, according to a team of researchers at Penn State. The targeted treatment was as effective as human fecal transplants in mice against C. difficile infection with fewer safety concerns, protecting against severe symptoms and decreasing recurrent infections.</p>

March 03, 2025

Synthetic microbiome therapy suppresses bacterial infection without antibiotics

<p>Auja Bywater, a doctoral student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been awarded second prize in the Global Challenges University Alliance 2030 research competition.</p>

February 27, 2025

Penn State Ag student Auja Bywater wins global research award

<p>Soilless growing systems inside greenhouses, known as controlled environment agriculture, promise to advance the year-round production of high-quality specialty crops, according to an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State. But to be competitive and sustainable, this advanced farming method will require the development and implementation of precision agriculture techniques. To meet that demand, the team developed an automated crop-monitoring system capable of providing continuous and frequent data about plant growth and needs, allowing for informed crop management.</p>

February 27, 2025

New computer vision system can guide specialty crops monitoring

<p>Kelli Volkomer earned an undergraduate and graduate degree through the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and Penn State World Campus.</p>

February 26, 2025

Online energy and sustainability policy degree programs changed this grad’s life

<p>Scientists at Penn State have harnessed a unique property called incipient ferroelectricity to create a new type of computer memory that could lead to new electronic devices that use much less energy and can operate in extreme environments like outer space.</p>

February 25, 2025

Material’s ‘incipient’ property could jumpstart fast, low-power electronics

<p>Penn State’s Autonomous Robotics Competition Club recently developed a low-cost, unmanned aircraft system. The two-drone system includes 2D and 3D mapping technology that can assist law enforcement and first responders in indoor searches.</p>

February 24, 2025

Prize-winning drone system can assist first responders in indoor searches

<p>Penn State’s Autonomous Robotics Competition Club recently developed a low-cost, unmanned aircraft system. The two-drone system includes 2D and 3D mapping technology that can assist law enforcement and first responders in indoor searches.</p>

February 24, 2025

Prize-wining drone system can assist first responders in indoor searches

<p>A Penn State engineering student's work on a century-old math problem that expands research in aerodynamics, unlocking new possibilities in wind turbine design, was recently published in Wind Energy Science.</p>

February 21, 2025

Student refines 100-year-old math problem, expanding wind energy possibilities

<p>A new study, by a multinational team of researchers, including Penn State scientists, has gained critical insights into these regulatory control mechanisms in Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria parasites. The findings provide new opportunities for the development of therapeutic approaches against a disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year, according to the research team.</p>

February 19, 2025

Disrupting parasite gene regulation reveals new malaria intervention strategy

<p>Frank Igwé is the first recipient of the Dean’s Alumni Excellence Award in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. The newly created honor highlights and celebrates the extraordinary work and accomplishments of IST alumni.</p>

February 19, 2025

Moravia Health president receives IST’s first Dean’s Alumni Excellence Award

<p>Elham Rahimi, a graduate student in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, will receive the Raja V. and Geetha V. Ramani Graduate Students Award from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) at the society’s gala dinner during their annual conference, MINEXCHANGE, in Denver, Colorado, on Feb. 23. </p>

February 19, 2025

Elham Rahimi awarded the Raja V. and Geetha V. Ramani Graduate Students Award

<p>The corn earworm causes the loss of more than 76,000 bushels of corn in the United States annually, and there is mounting evidence that increasingly extreme weather events and temperatures will exacerbate the damage done to agricultural output by insect pests. Responding to that threat, a team of researchers at Penn State conducted a study that demonstrated that genetic lines of corn have inherent compounds that serve as insecticides, protecting them from the larvae that feed on them.</p>

February 19, 2025

Select corn lines contain compounds that sicken, kill major crop pest

<p>The 17th annual Materials Visualization Competition, an annual scientific and artistic visual competition open to all current undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty and staff working on materials-related topics, is now accepting submissions through March 7.</p>

February 19, 2025

Now accepting submissions for annual Materials Visualization Competition

<p>Penn State Behrend is inviting prospective graduate students to learn more about the college’s master’s degree programs through free online info sessions, beginning Feb. 19.</p>

February 18, 2025

Behrend to host graduate degree info sessions

<p>Young adults may be more sensitive to nicotine — and, as such, more susceptible to nicotine addiction — than middle aged adults, according to a new study conducted in mice by researchers in the Penn State Department of Biobehavioral Health.</p>

February 18, 2025

Young adults may be more vulnerable to nicotine addiction than the middle aged

<p>Four of Penn State’s online learners will participate in THON, the University’s student-run dance marathon that raises money for childhood cancer research, from Feb. 21-23.</p>

February 18, 2025

Four students to participate in THON for Penn State World Campus

February 18, 2025

Nominations open for student service and leadership awards

<p>The Penn State Cocoziello Institute of Real Estate Innovation hosted its inaugural Student IdeaLab on the University Park campus in December 2024, bringing together a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students interested in shaping the future of the real estate and built environment sectors. Designed to help students connect with peers across the University’s many disciplines and to promote co-creation of future institute activities, the event offered attendees a platform to share their interests, experiences and ideas. </p>

February 15, 2025

Penn State Cocoziello Institute hosts inaugural Student IdeaLab

<p>A panel of faculty and administrators will hold a virtual workshop exploring innovative approaches to ethics education and assessment in graduate programs from 2:30 to 4 p.m. on March 4. This free, 90-minute session, titled "Enhancing Ethics Education and Assessment in Graduate Programs," is designed for graduate program leaders.</p>

February 14, 2025

March 4 workshop to focus on ethics education, assessment in graduate programs

<p>Ashlie Crosson, an English and journalism teacher at Mifflin County High School in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, who graduated from Penn State with a master’s degree in educational leadership in 2015, has been named National Teacher of the Year by the Council of Chief State School Officers.</p>

February 13, 2025

College of Education alumna named finalist for National Teacher of Year

<p>Just like ChatGPT and other generative language models train on human texts to create grammatically correct sentences, a new modeling method by researchers at Penn State trains on recordings of birds to create accurate birdsongs. The results could improve understanding of the structure of birdsong and its underlying neurobiology, which could lend insight in the neural mechanisms of human language, the researchers said.</p>

February 12, 2025

ChatGPT for birdsong may shed light on how language is wired in the human brain

<p>For students like Clare Richey-Kaplan, the costume-production master of fine arts program in the College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Theatre offers highly specialized training for a skill that dates back centuries. Constructing a piece of clothing is a detailed and technical process from the initial meeting with a designer to the finishing stitch.</p>

February 11, 2025

School of Theatre graduate student values ‘knowing a little bit about everything’

Sending a 'We Are!' to these Penn Staters — Jan. 15

February 11, 2025

Sending a 'We Are!' to these Penn Staters

<p>Penn State instructors can now access Course Insights, a learning analytics tool developed in-house by the Data Empowered Learning team in Penn State IT. </p>

February 10, 2025

'Course Insights' now available to all instructors at Penn State

<p>During a job interview for a continuous improvement manager role, Parth Trivedi was asked to suggest improvements to a plant’s operations. His graduate studies and Six Sigma certification helped him give a detailed answer and land the job, where he now works to optimize operations and drive major savings for his company.</p>

February 07, 2025

Engineering management graduate suggests on-the-spot improvements to land job

<p>In 2018, the side of the Anak Krakatau volcano collapsed in a powerful eruption and produced a tsunami that killed hundreds and injured thousands on nearby Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. A new analysis of satellite data, led by researchers at Penn State, showed the mountainside was slipping for years and accelerated before the eruption — information that could have potentially offered a warning of the collapse.</p>

February 07, 2025

Satellite data identifies warning signs ahead of 2018 volcanic eruption, tsunami

<p>Researchers from Penn State and China’s Hebei University of Technology uncovered a new property of a sensor material, enabling the team to develop a new type of flexible sensor that can accurately measure both temperature and physical strain simultaneously but separately to more precisely pinpoint various signals.</p>

February 05, 2025

New smart sensor takes the pain out of wound monitoring

<p>Breastfeeding, and a longer duration of breastfeeding, had a positive impact on the mother’s parenting quality and, in turn, on the infant’s secure attachment to the mother, according to a new study by researchers from the Penn State Department of Human Development and Family Studies. The researchers also found that the support of a co-parent could help the infant develop a secure attachment, whether or not the mother breastfed.</p>

February 05, 2025

Supportive co-parenting may help secure infant attachment development

<p>If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with Earth-like technology, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect and from how far away? A new study by a team that includes Penn State astronomers and alumni investigated Earth’s detectability from across the cosmos.</p>

February 05, 2025

Could an Earth-like alien civilization detect us?

<p>People’s bodies can be old or young for their chronological age, depending on the amount and types of stressors they have experienced. Scientists can estimate people’s biological age, but whether they use oral tissue or blood to make the measurement matters, according to a new study led by researchers in the Penn State Department of Biobehavioral Health.</p>

February 05, 2025

Understanding aging requires more than counting birthdays

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