News

Dani Buchheister, a doctoral student in geobiology and astrobiology, is among Penn State’s 21 new National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program recipients — six in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — for the 2022-23 academic year.

Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day — an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS) — with a two-day event Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 14 and 15.

Lexie Hain, director of agrivoltaics and land management at Lightsource bp, will introduce solar grazing as an agrivoltaic practice, and discuss ecosystem service considerations, as well as aspects of performance, professionalism, and potential implementation in her talk "Agricultural integration and solar facilities: Agrivoltaics in context" at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24.

Luis Ayala, professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering and holder of the William A. Fustos Family Professor in Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, has been honored as a distinguished member by the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Jenn Baka, associate professor of geography at Penn State, received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to examine a new cracker plant’s impact on humans’ relationship to the environment and environmental policymaking.

When thunderstorms rumble overhead, weak electrical discharges — called corona — can occur on tree leaves. A new study found coronas create large amounts of atmospheric chemicals that could impact air quality around forests, according to a team of Penn State scientists.

When sisters and Penn State Berks graduates Nicol Varona Cancelmo, class of 2013, and Cory Varona-Corniel, class of 2011, were growing up in the Dominican Republic, they hated their curly hair, and they spent years fighting it with chemical straightening.

Coastal cities such as Baltimore expect to see increased impacts of climate change, such as severe flooding, heat stress and increased energy consumption, particularly in low-income communities.

Tom Murphy, director of the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State, will answer questions around solar development in his talk "Utility Scale Solar and Pennsylvania – Trends, Impacts, and Implications." 

Penn State University Libraries will participate in the 14th annual global observation of Open Access Week, Oct. 24–30, by hosting a virtual panel of Penn State faculty at noon Tuesday, Oct. 25.