News

November 18, 2024

How do formerly incarcerated individuals navigate community reentry?

<p>China recently limited the export of gallium nitride, a type of semiconductor used to manufacture a variety of consumer power electronics, such as cellphones and computers, as well as medical devices, cars, wind turbines, solar farms, LED lightbulbs and more. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Patrick Lenahan, distinguished professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, $1 million to investigate the possibility of replacing gallium nitride-based devices with boron nitride.</p>

November 15, 2024

The search to replace a critical semiconductor

<p>Denis Crawford earned his doctorate in American studies from Penn State Harrisburg in 2020. In 2022, he became the historian and exhibit designer for the College Football Hall of Fame.</p>

November 14, 2024

Harrisburg alum makes career telling stories at College Football Hall of Fame

<p>Nate Osikowicz, a Penn State doctoral student in aerospace engineering, has received a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities award. The award sponsors graduate students who have the potential to contribute to the development of innovative new space technologies.</p>

November 14, 2024

Aerospace graduate student receives NASA research opportunity

<p>A simple biomaterial-based strategy that can influence the behavior of cells could pave the way for more effective medical treatments such as wound healing, cancer therapy and even organ regeneration, according to a research team at Penn State.</p>

November 13, 2024

Squishy microgels in granular biomaterials confine and direct cell behavior

<p>Engaging in everyday physical activity has immediate benefits for brain health. Middle-aged people who participated in everyday movement showed improvement in cognitive processing speed equivalent to being four years younger, regardless of the activity's intensity level, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State College of Medicine.</p>

November 12, 2024

Can everyday physical activity improve cognitive health in middle age?

<p>The Biology and Ecology Student Research Showcase, hosted by the Biology Graduate Student Association and Ecology Graduate Student Organization on Nov. 1, featured poster and podium presentations from nearly 30 graduate and undergraduate students.</p>

November 11, 2024

Biology and Ecology Student Research Showcase winners announced

November 11, 2024

Upcoming events supporting graduate student success, Nov. 13-19

<p>Penn State Great Valley is offering a streamlined 33-credit MBA with highly flexible delivery and the opportunity to specialize by earning up to three graduate certificates as part of the program.</p>

November 11, 2024

Penn State Great Valley launches streamlined 33-credit MBA

<p>Two graduate students in Penn State Great Valley’s data analytics program, Praneeth Sunkavalli and Jainil Kakka, won second place for their research poster at a recent symposium hosted by the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. For their research project, they used machine learning to analyze event data from soccer games to measure the success rates of a defensive tactic called "pressing," when players pressure their opponents in an attempt to regain the ball.</p>

November 11, 2024

Great Valley students’ sports analytics research poster wins second place

<p>A consistent bedtime may be more important to a child’s ability to control their emotions and behavior than the duration or quality of their sleep, according to a new publication by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development and Penn State College of Medicine. </p>

November 11, 2024

Consistent bedtime linked with better child emotion and behavior regulation

<p>Eleven students from the College of IST attended the BLK Men in Tech THRIVE Conference on Oct. 10-13 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. THRIVE is a tech conference designed to foster connections, facilitate learning and promote personal development for all in the tech community, with a special focus on the Black male experience.</p>

November 08, 2024

IST students attend tech conference focused on the Black male experience

<p>Five Penn State aerospace engineering graduate students, including two brothers, were selected for the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation Scholarship-for-Service Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Defense.</p>

November 08, 2024

Aerospace engineering graduate students awarded Department of Defense fellowship

<p>Penn State will be sending its second delegation of students and faculty to COP29, the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, which will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November.</p>

November 05, 2024

Penn State delegation will head to Azerbaijan for UN's annual climate meeting

November 04, 2024

Upcoming events supporting graduate student success, Nov. 6-12

<p>The Madlyn L. Hanes Library at Penn State Harrisburg has launched a new exhibition, “Always Aim High! An Exhibition Celebrating Shirley Chisholm,” featuring rare materials from the Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection. The exhibition opened Oct. 22 and will be on display through Dec. 20 at the entrance to Archives and Special Collections on the library's third floor. Chisholm was the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968 and the first Black woman to run for U.S. president in 1972. </p>

November 01, 2024

Harrisburg campus library celebrates Shirley Chisholm with new exhibition

<p>Maddie Hindman, a master of public policy student, is using her Liberal Arts education and passion for civic engagement to get out the vote.</p>

October 31, 2024

Liberal Arts student mobilizes young voters through PSU Votes internship

<p>Faculty and staff in Penn State’s Law, Policy, and Engineering (LPE) initiative were recently tapped by the governor’s office to lead a two-day training program in September in Harrisburg on science and technology policy. The faculty and staff are part of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Science and Technology Policy Program, which is run by LPE and aims to improve public and environmental health, economic and social equity, and public scientific discourse in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.</p>

October 30, 2024

New initiative in Law, Policy and Engineering trains state governor’s fellows

<p>Ashleigh McDonald, a doctoral student and graduate assistant in the College of the Liberal Arts’ Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, traveled to Sydney, Australia, to conduct research for her dissertation at two prominent and allegedly haunted sites that date back to the late 1700s, when Great Britain and Ireland first started using the country as a penal colony.</p>

October 30, 2024

Liberal Arts doctoral student explores memories behind haunted places

<p>Keisha Oliver, who is pursuing a dual-title doctoral degree in art education and African American and diaspora studies, was named a fall 2024 artist-in-residence at the Penn State College of Engineering’s Learning Factory.</p>

October 29, 2024

Art education doctoral student serves as artist-in-residence at Learning Factory

<p>Hospitality stakeholders and organizations can serve a significant role in the integration of people who have criminal records or histories of incarceration back into the workforce, according to a new framework created by researchers in the Penn State School of Hospitality Management.</p>

October 29, 2024

Hiring, supporting justice-impacted individuals in the workplace

<p>Microplastics have been steadily increasing in freshwater environments for decades and are directly tied to rising global plastic production since the 1950s, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers.</p>

October 29, 2024

Microplastics increasing in freshwater, directly related to plastic production

<p>A newly discovered protein naturally houses an unusual binding site that can differentiate between rare earth elements, and researchers at Penn State have made it even better. Rare earth elements are key components used in everything from modern tech to gasoline production. The protein, called LanD, enriches neodymium and praseodymium over other similar rare earth elements and has the potential to revolutionize industrial mining, researchers said.</p>

October 29, 2024

Bacterial protein discovered, engineered to better separate rare earth metals

October 28, 2024

Upcoming events supporting graduate student success, Oct. 30-Nov. 5

<p>Three graduates were honored at the College of Information Sciences and Technology's second annual Alumni Symposium. The award ceremony was part of two event-filled days celebrating IST’s 25th anniversary.</p>

October 28, 2024

Three graduates honored at College of IST Alumni Symposium

<p>Maddie Hindman, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in public policy, has been working as an intern for PSU Votes since May to help prepare her fellow students to vote in this year's general election. In this Q&A, Hindman talks about her experience with student voter support at Penn State and what she thinks her peers need to know heading into Election Day on Nov. 5. </p>

October 25, 2024

Penn State student works to ready peers to vote in upcoming election

<p>Medical imaging is no longer in Kansas, Toto, as a team led by Penn State researchers brings traditional black and white diagnostic images of X-rays and traditional CT scans into technicolor. The researchers developed novel contrast agents that target two proteins implicated in osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease commonly characterized as wear-and-tear arthritis.</p>

October 25, 2024

New technique allows technicolor imaging of degenerative joint disease

<p>Three Penn State Online MBA students attended the 2024 homecoming game — including one in an unconventional way.</p>

October 25, 2024

Penn State Online MBA students make sure their friend doesn’t miss Homecoming

<p>Anivesh Sinha is one of the graduate research assistants working with a team of faculty and students from five Commonwealth Campuses, with funding from a University Presidential Public Impact Research Award, to help Pennsylvania nonprofit organizations improve their cybersecurity practices.</p>

October 24, 2024

Grad student works with research team to strengthen nonprofits’ cybersecurity

<p>Since 2017, ClearWater Conservancy and the Sustainable Communities Collaborative have collaborated on projects that address the nonprofit organization’s needs while providing Penn State students with real-world experiences. This semester, graduate-level graphic design students have been redeveloping the organization’s visual identity and providing recommendations for additional aspects of design in print and digital media.</p>

October 24, 2024

Graphic design students help ClearWater Conservancy develop new visual identity

<p>Voice assistants (VAs) like Alexa and Siri continue to gain popularity in households and on personal devices. According to digital trends research company Emarketer, the number of VA users will surpass 150 million in 2025. Despite the ubiquity, companies haven’t been able to work around users’ strong negative reactions to advertising on these applications. A research team, including scholars from Penn State, may have a solution.</p>

October 24, 2024

More user control may help ease negative reactions to ads on voice assistants

<p>An old physical phenomenon, known as the Hall effect, has revealed some new tricks, according to a team co-led by researchers at Penn State and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They reported their findings, which they said have potential implications for understanding fundamental physics of quantum materials and developing applied technologies such as quantum communication and harvesting energy via radio frequencies, in Nature Materials.</p>

October 24, 2024

Room temperature electrical control could heat up future technology development

<p>Twenty-four students from the College of Information Sciences and Technology attended the annual Grace Hopper conference, which celebrates women and nonbinary technologists from around the world. </p>

October 23, 2024

IST students attend annual Grace Hopper Celebration

<p>A team led by researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine re-engineered immune cells with a light-activated switch that modulates protein function and cellular behavior. When exposed to blue light, the cells change shape, infiltrating solid tumors grown in the lab and killing them.</p>

October 23, 2024

Re-engineered, blue light-activated immune cells penetrate and kill solid tumors

<p>Though often compared in size to round objects — peas, golf balls or even softballs — hailstones do not fall from the sky as smooth spheres. A new approach for modeling hailstorms that uses more realistic hailstone shapes could improve our understanding of hazardous weather, according to a team led by scientists at Penn State.</p>

October 22, 2024

Lumpy, bumpy hail: Realistic hail shapes may improve modeling of severe weather

<p>Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day — an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems — on Nov. 18 and 19. This year’s sessions focus on geospatial presentation, networking opportunities and student engagement, with the theme “Geographers Take Action.” The event is co-sponsored with the Department of Geography.</p>

October 21, 2024

Penn State GIS Day activities focus on the theme 'Geographers Take Action'

<p>Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day — an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems — on Nov. 18 and 19. This year’s sessions focus on geospatial presentation, networking opportunities and student engagement, with the theme “Geographers Take Action.” The event is co-sponsored with the Department of Geography.</p>

October 21, 2024

Penn State GIS Day activities focus on the theme “Geographers Take Action”

<p>Margery E. Hoffman, widow of 1982 Penn State civil engineering doctoral alumnus Paul C. Hoffman, has committed a $1.05 million estate gift to establish an endowment to benefit graduate students in civil engineering in her husband's memory.</p>

October 21, 2024

$1.05 million estate gift to establish graduate fellowship in civil engineering

October 21, 2024

Upcoming events supporting graduate student success, Oct. 23-29

<p>A project led by Penn State researcher Felecia Davis that explores Black culture, its relationship to technology, and concepts of translation in architectural design is featured in the “Material Acts: Experimentation in Architecture and Design” exhibition that opened Sept. 28 at the Craft Contemporary arts museum in Los Angeles.</p>

October 21, 2024

Work by Stuckeman architecture researcher featured in Los Angeles exhibition

<p>For graduate students, college can be a trying and difficult time. Students are often far away from their lifelong support system of families and friends. An effort that began three years ago in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences is elevating the experiences of graduate students within the college.</p>

October 21, 2024

EMS graduate student network continues to improve experiences for peers

<p>A team of researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and collaborators from five different institutes has created a 3D atlas of developing mice brains, providing a more dynamic understanding of how the mammalian brain develops. This atlas provides a common reference and anatomical framework to help researchers understand brain development and study neurodevelopmental disorders.</p>

October 21, 2024

Researchers develop 3D atlas of the developing mammalian brain

<p>The availability of an artificial intelligence system's training data can promote transparency and accountability of that system, according to Penn State researchers.</p>

October 18, 2024

Showing AI users diversity in training data boosts perceived fairness and trust

<p>Twenty-two new species of gall wasps have been identified and named for the first time, thanks to new research led by a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences graduate student.</p>

October 18, 2024

Penn State entomology graduate student identifies 22 new species of gall wasps

<p>Twenty-two new species of gall wasps have been identified and named for the first time, thanks to new research led by a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences graduate student.</p>

October 18, 2024

From Catwoman to Han Solo, newly discovered wasps named after famous thieves

<p>Flathead catfish — native to the Mississippi River basin — were first detected in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the two decades since then, the invasive species has spread throughout the river basin. The impact of the large predator on the waterway’s food webs and ecology was unknown, but now a team including researchers from Penn State is beginning to understand what Susquehanna flatheads are eating and how their presence is affecting native aquatic species in the river.</p>

October 18, 2024

Invasive flathead catfish impacting Susquehanna’s food chain, researchers find

<p>A new technique allows astronomers to home in on planets beyond our solar system that are in line with each other and with Earth to search for radio signals similar, for example, to ones used to communicate with the rovers on Mars. Penn State astronomers and scientists at the SETI Institute spent 28 hours scanning the TRAPPIST-1 star system for these signs of alien technology with the Allen Telescope Array. Although the team didn’t find any evidence of extraterrestrial technology, their work introduced a new way to search for signals in the future.</p>

October 17, 2024

Are nearby planets sending radio signals to each other?

<p>A rare, extremely luminous X-ray outburst has been observed in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a close neighbor of our own Milky Way galaxy. The observations, made by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and other telescopes, were described by an international team of astronomers led Penn State scientists on the Swift team.</p>

October 17, 2024

Rare, ultra-luminous nova spotted in the Small Magellanic Cloud

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