News

Each semester, staff across Penn State's colleges pull off what seems like an impossible task: Host the perfect ceremony to cap off every student's journey toward a degree. But commencement ceremonies are an undertaking that can't happen overnight. It takes the dedicated work of commencement coordinators and college staff to plan, prepare for and execute the biggest annual event at University Park.

Cristina Elena Mihalache, a Fulbright Scholar from Romania, has spent the past eight months with the Penn State Department of Geography advancing her research in geospatial sciences and remote sensing.

It took a series of events for things to fall into place. First, a mastodon had to live its life in the rolling terrain of Iowa, fossilize and be exposed by erosion in a nearby stream some 13,000 years later. Chris Widga, a vertebrate paleontologist at Penn State, had to find a home as director of the EMS Museum & Art Gallery. And Kaitlin Dasovich, a student in geosciences, had to develop a spark for undergraduate research.

For the first time, scientists have discovered fossil evidence of an endangered, living tropical tree species. The unprecedented find was made in Brunei, a country on the large island of Borneo, and reveals a critical piece of the ancient history of Asia’s rainforests, highlighting the urgent need for conservation in the region, according to researchers at Penn State who led the discovery.  

As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 13 Penn Staters, including one from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University.  

Three Penn State undergraduate students who participate in the University’s Sustainable Labs Program were invited to Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus in April to help make the facility’s research labs more sustainable. 

Penn State meteorology students are better prepared to communicate the complexities of the weather to the public through a new collaboration with WPSU.

With a four-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Penn State researchers, along with clinical partners at Penn State Health, Carle Foundation Hospital and University of Alabama Birmingham, aim to develop a one-step confirmatory laboratory test that can definitively diagnose active syphilis infection within 10 minutes.

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.

Jasmine Fields found Penn State because of its reputation for world-class research. She said she loved science and biology and thought she might become a doctor. Soon after, she became interested in protecting the environment and her passions shifted toward creating a more sustainable world.