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<p>On May 9, Penn State Great Valley held a commencement ceremony honoring 474 students who have completed their graduate degrees this past academic year. MBA alumna Rina Desai, principal/owner of Eigen X, a professional services firm focused on data and technology, gave the keynote address.</p>

May 12, 2025

Penn State Great Valley honors graduates at 2025 commencement

<p>A Penn State pilot course brought police officers and community members together in Philadelphia to enhance law enforcement de-escalation skills and foster community connections through effective communication and trust building.</p>

May 09, 2025

Bridging the communication gap between police and the community

<p>A new one-year fellowship program created by Penn State’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) aims to give students and early-career professionals hands-on experience in taking scientific discoveries from the lab to the marketplace. The Next-Gen Innovators Program, a paid fellowship opportunity, is designed to train the next generation of leaders in technology commercialization through a cross-sector experience that includes rotations with a venture capital firm, a technology-based startup company and OTT.</p>

May 08, 2025

New fellowship program in research commercialization

<p>Saturday and Sunday, May 10-11, will mark a time of transition at the Penn State Smeal College of Business as the college bids farewell to more than 2,000 graduates.</p>

May 08, 2025

Penn State Smeal to award more than 2,000 degrees during spring 2025 commencement

<p>For the first time, scientists have discovered fossils of a living, endangered tropical tree in Borneo, revealing that Asia’s rainforests have sheltered these ancient giants for millions of years and highlighting the need for their conservation. The team was led by researchers at Penn State.</p>

May 08, 2025

First fossil evidence of endangered tropical tree discovered

<p>These eight students join the 56 prior recipients continuing in the University’s graduate degree programs across seven academic colleges.</p>

May 08, 2025

Fox Graduate School opens nominations for first scholarships from Fox endowment

<p>While the effects of the housing crisis and the environmental impacts of debris generated in the construction sector persist in the United States, two projects led by Penn State Stuckeman School architecture professors have earned funding to develop new methods to address these challenges while also bolstering the manufacturing industry in Pennsylvania.</p>

May 08, 2025

Manufacturing PA Innovation Program funds two Stuckeman-led research projects

<p>A new study exploring how therapy dogs can create a safe, nonjudgmental environment for survivors of domestic violence in educational, therapeutic and courtroom settings was recently published posthumously on behalf of John R. Chapin, professor emeritus of communications at Penn State Beaver. The research highlights the ways therapy dogs, who are trained to provide emotional support to survivors, can reduce anxiety, foster trust and facilitate positive outcomes.</p>

May 07, 2025

How do therapy dogs help domestic abuse survivors receiving support services?

Congratulations to the World Campus summer graduates of the Class of 2025

May 07, 2025

Congratulations to the spring graduates of the World Campus Class of 2025

<p>Research completed by the late John Chapin, a professor emeritus of communications at Penn State Beaver, has now been published posthumously because of his former student, Michael Brayack, a 2014 Penn State Beaver graduate, and Chapin's wife, Grace Coleman.</p>

May 07, 2025

Penn State Beaver alumnus helps finish, publish professor’s final research

<p>While service robots with male characteristics can be more persuasive when interacting with some women who have a low sense of power, “cute” design features — such as big eyes and raised cheeks — affect both men and women similarly, according to new research from a team in the Penn State School of Hospitality Management.</p>

May 06, 2025

Gender characteristics of service robots can influence customer decisions

<p>The Faculty Senate Committee on Student Life recently awarded six graduating Penn State seniors who will be pursuing graduate-level education with the John W. White Graduate Fellowship. </p>

May 06, 2025

Faculty Senate honors six graduating seniors with 2025 John W. White Fellowships

May 02, 2025

McCourtney Institute awards more than $50,000 in research grants

<p>A team of researchers from Penn State created a hairlike device for long-term, non-invasive monitoring of the brain’s electrical activity. The lightweight and flexible electrode attaches directly to the scalp and delivers stable, high-quality electroencephalography recordings.</p>

May 02, 2025

The future of brain activity monitoring may look like a strand of hair

<p>With a four-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Penn State Professor Dipanjan Pan will lead a team in developing a one-step confirmatory laboratory test that can definitively diagnose active syphilis infection within 10 minutes.</p>

May 01, 2025

$2.7M NIH grant to fund first comprehensive syphilis test

<p>Lightweight lithium metal is a heavy-hitting critical mineral, serving as the key ingredient in the rechargeable batteries that power phones, laptops, electric vehicles and more. As ubiquitous as lithium is in modern technology, extracting the metal is complex and expensive. A new method, developed by researchers at Penn State and recently granted patent rights, enables high-efficiency lithium extraction — in minutes, not hours — using low temperatures and simple water-based leaching.</p>

April 30, 2025

Rapid lithium extraction eliminates use of acid and high heat, scientists report

<p>Halima Binte Islam, a public policy graduate student from Bangladesh, is using her time at Penn State to explore research on digital inclusion and AI policy. Through hands-on projects and interdisciplinary collaboration, she’s preparing for a global career in public policy.</p>

April 30, 2025

Liberal Arts graduate student explores digital inclusion and technology policy

<p>Collegiate female endurance runners who experience chronic energy deficiency can compromise performance and training benefits, according to a recent study by researchers in the Penn State Department of Kinesiology. </p>

April 30, 2025

Energy deficiency impacts collegiate running performance

<p>Graduate students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences were recognized for their accomplishments during the 2025 Graduate Student Award Celebration, hosted by the Office for Research and Graduate Education and held recently on the University Park campus.</p>

April 29, 2025

College of Agricultural Sciences graduate students receive awards

<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>

April 29, 2025

College of Education alumna named National Teacher of the Year

April 29, 2025

Scholar and entrepreneur alumnus to speak at IST commencement

<p>A project by two Stuckeman School architecture graduate students earned fifth place overall in the worldwide TerraViva “Easdale Ferry Office” Competition that welcomed entries from students as well as professional design practices.</p>

April 28, 2025

Architecture grad students earn gold mention in international design competition

<p>The Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences has announced a new program to foster interdisciplinary collaborations among early career researchers and Penn State faculty.</p>

April 25, 2025

Institute for Computational and Data Sciences issues call for proposals

<p>William Rothwell, distinguished professor of workforce education and development, has been honored with the Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award while Farhan Sadique, who received a Ph.D. in workforce development and training from Penn State and is now an assistant professor at Kansas State University, received the Distinguished Dissertation Award at the recent conference for the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) in Jacksonville, Florida.</p>

April 25, 2025

College of Education faculty member, alumnus honored at ISPI conference

<p>Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence announced the winners of its first-ever "Cheat-a-thon," a virtual competition that invited faculty and students at universities across the U.S. to test the capabilities and limitations of using generative artificial intelligence to answer college-level questions. </p>

April 25, 2025

Competition shows not all exam questions can be correctly answered using AI

<p>Despite a long history of traditional medicinal use in the United States, the collection, consumption and efficacy of the peculiar forest plant aptly named ghost pipe, scientific name Monotropa uniflora, remains a mystery. Now, with social media and the internet driving a resurgence in the harvest and economic trade of the parasitic species — which appears strangely white because it is devoid of chlorophyl — a research team from Penn State has taken the first step toward documenting its new status.</p>

April 25, 2025

Traditional forest medicinal plant ghost pipe used differently today

<p>Two Penn State graduate students enrolled in Intercollege Graduate Degree Programs administered by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences have each been awarded two-year American Heart Association fellowships. Junyao Yuan is pursuing a degree in integrative and biomedical physiology, while Julio Flores Cuadra is pursuing a degree in neuroscience.</p>

April 25, 2025

Penn State graduate students receive American Heart Association fellowships

<p>Penn State Sustainability has announced the 2025 recipients of its sustainability awards. These accolades, including the John Roe Sustainability Impact Award, the Student Sustainability Advisory Council Tree Award and the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium Campus Sustainability Champion Award, commend the extraordinary contributions of students in spearheading sustainability initiatives.</p>

April 25, 2025

Penn State celebrates the 2025 student sustainability award winners

<p>Lithium-ion batteries have been a staple in device manufacturing for years, but the liquid electrolytes they rely on to function are quite unstable, leading to fire hazards and safety concerns. Now, researchers at Penn State are pursuing a reliable alternative energy storage solution for use in laptops, phones and electric vehicles: solid-state electrolytes. Led by Hongtao Sun, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, the team published the approach using an advanced manufacturing technology to develop solid-state batteries. </p>

April 24, 2025

‘Cold’ manufacturing approach to make next-gen batteries

<p>Penn State Scranton Assistant Professor of Business Nonna Sorokina gave a presentation on research exploring sustainable energy investments. The research involved collaboration with several colleagues, including Saya Lee, assistant professor in the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering at Penn State, and Darshana Sunoj and Hyungjin Kim, graduates of the Penn State Department of Economics.</p>

April 24, 2025

Public support matters for sustainable energy investments, researchers find

April 23, 2025

World Campus Online Faculty Development offering course on teaching adult learners

<p>For the second year in a row, fourth graders in the State College Area School District have been learning about the earth sciences with the help of geosciences faculty members and graduate students in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. </p>

April 23, 2025

For fourth graders, earth science lessons come to life at Penn State

<p>Ramsés Martínez Barquero, a fourth-year doctoral student in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, is the recipient of the 2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Fellowship in the McCourtney Institute for Democracy. How authors in Spain and Portugal responded to the challenges posed by authoritarian regimes is the subject of Martínez Barquero's doctoral work.</p>

April 23, 2025

Spanish, Italian and Portuguese doctoral student named Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow

<p>The Penn State Smeal College of Business’ virtual teaching studios are attracting graduate students from around the world and providing them with a highly engaging team-based learning environment.</p>

April 22, 2025

Penn State Smeal virtual teaching studios attract new audiences

<p>Three Eberly College of Science graduate students, Kristen Aviles, Pranav Diwakar and Edward Hilvano, have been awarded the Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award.</p>

April 21, 2025

Three Eberly graduate students awarded Outstanding Teaching Award

<p>College of Arts and Architecture graduate students Mahsa Adib, a doctoral student in architecture with a focus on landscape architecture, and Glynnis Reed-Conway, a doctoral student in the dual-title art education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program, have each been recognized with the University’s Alumni Association Dissertation Award.</p>

April 18, 2025

Grad students in architecture, art education receive Alumni Association Dissertation Award

<p>Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing students Jessica Wellington and Ahmed-Rufai Yahaya won awards for their research at the 2025 Eastern Nursing Research Society’s Annual Scientific Sessions (ENRS) in Philadelphia on April 3-4.</p>

April 18, 2025

Nursing student research wins awards at ENRS Conference

<p>Tricia Hart, who earned a doctoral degree in nutritional sciences in December 2024, will be representing Penn State in the final round of a regional Three Minute Thesis competition on April 25. Community members can watch online and vote for the People's Choice award. </p>

April 18, 2025

Doctoral alumna advances to final round of regional Three Minute Thesis

<p>For the first time, the Tech Tournament technology showcase — held during the Invent Penn State Venture & IP Conference on April 10 — featured university innovators from across Pennsylvania. The showcase highlighted 12 disruptive technologies and early-stage companies emerging from some of the state’s top research universities, including Penn State.</p>

April 17, 2025

Three research-based startups win funding in Invent Penn State Tech Tournament

<p>An interdisciplinary team from Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh developed a coastal management model that takes a chess-like approach to protecting shorelines against rising sea levels amid climate change uncertainty.</p>

April 17, 2025

Coastal management model plays the long game against the rising tides

<p>Jhan D. Doughty, vice president and global head of belonging and engagement at Everest Group Ltd., will be the keynote speaker at the Penn State College of Education’s spring 2025 commencement ceremony for undergraduate students.</p>

April 16, 2025

Jhan D. Doughty to give keynote address at College of Education commencement

April 15, 2025

Immune system proteins involved in severe parasitic disease identified

<p>Increased soil salinity can reduce damage from prominent tomato pests such as the tomato fruitworm, according to researchers at Penn State. </p>

April 15, 2025

Feeling salty? Increased salt stress reduces tomato pest activity

April 15, 2025

Summer 2025 student parking registration begins May 5

<p>Penn State Smeal College of Business alumna Brontë Hamilton was recently appointed to the college’s Finance Advisory Board.</p>

April 15, 2025

Brontë Hamilton named to Penn State Smeal Finance Advisory Board

<p>The Penn State chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor society, recognized faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and students from the College of Agricultural Sciences during its annual meeting April 3.</p>
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April 15, 2025

Agricultural honor society Gamma Sigma Delta recognizes faculty and students

<p>The Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences honored six alumni with 2025 Outstanding Alumni awards in a ceremony on April 10 in State College. The six honorees were also inducted into the college’s Armsby Honor Society alongside four other inductees.</p>

April 15, 2025

College of Agricultural Sciences honors six with Outstanding Alumni awards

<p>Stuckeman architecture doctoral student Ali Baghi's research primarily focuses on new techniques for 3D printing concrete that would eliminate the need for traditional support structures, with a focus on sustainability and automation.</p>

April 14, 2025

Stuckeman grad student focuses on the future of sustainable construction

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