News

Penn State will soon celebrate its 11th GivingTuesday, and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences will be raising money to support the Millennium Scholars Program.

A multi-institutional team led by geography researchers at Penn State built and tested four AI agents in order to introduce a conceptual framework of autonomous geographical information systems and examine how this shift is redefining the practice of GIS.

Geography alumnus Bob Myers, who has worked for decades as an attorney, continues to take courses at Penn State. He earned a master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and a master of science in spatial data science. He also recently toured Penn State's Geographics Lab, which he contracted to assist on a project in honor of his late brother.  

Penn State geography alumnus Benjamin DeAngelo is stepping into a new role — one that allows him to apply a career’s worth of climate expertise in a more direct and collaborative way. He recently launched Operation Future, a consulting and advisory service focused on climate adaptation and resilience. 

Suraiya Parvin and Naser Lessani, two doctoral candidates in Penn State’s Department of Geography, will deliver research talks as part of the department’s Graduate Student “Coffee Hour” series at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7.

Geography majors Jesse Ehrlich and Cadence O’Brien spent a month in Malawi as part of the ECODRYFOREST project, a U.S. National Science Foundation–funded effort to study the ecological and social outcomes of landscape restoration in Southern Africa.

The J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School encourages all graduate students, including those from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, to submit videos to the first round of the 2025-26 Three Minute Thesis competition until Dec. 5.

Naomi Bird, a third-year undergraduate student at Penn State with a dual major in geography and comparative literature, is completing research related to e-cigarette marketing to teens through Penn State’s Scales of Corporate Harm Lab, housed in the Department of Geography.

Thelma Abu, assistant professor of environment and human interactions at the University of Connecticut, will deliver a talk titled “Invisible Wounds of a Warming World" at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31, in 112 Walker Building and will also be accessible via Zoom. Abu will examine how climate extremes, particularly rising temperatures in semi-arid regions of Africa, affect mental health outcomes in low-resource settings. 

Erica Smithwick, the director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State, will join three other climate scholars at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 29, for a virtual panel event on climate research communication.