News

Nicolas Choquette-Levy, assistant professor in the Penn State Department of Geosciences in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, has joined the faculty of the Institute of Energy and the Environment. His role will also include collaboration with the Penn State Climate Consortium, which strongly supported his appointment. 

Four Penn State Department of Geography faculty members — Lorraine Dowler, Joshua Inwood, Zhenlong Li and Emily Rosenman — have been named 2025 fellows of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

As wildfires relentlessly sweep across Southern California and other parts of the world, Manzhu Yu, an assistant professor of geography at Penn State, offered insights into the ongoing crisis in Los Angeles (LA).

In December 2023, the University launched the Penn State Climate Consortium. Its mission is to meet the mounting challenges related to climate change by identifying, creating and implementing research-based climate solutions. In its first year, the consortium has provided resources, fostered collaborations and created opportunities to advance climate research and solutions.

The Penn State Climate Consortium has announced a call for breakout sessions for the 2025 Climate Solutions Symposium, taking place May 19-20, 2025, at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center. 

Penn State will be sending its second delegation of students and faculty to the United Nations’ annual climate meeting. This year’s conference, COP29, will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from Nov. 11–22. 

Ida Djenontin, assistant professor of geography at Penn State, was recently awarded a $1.3 million grant from the NSF to investigate the socioecological outcomes of restoration in degraded woodlands ecosystems.

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.

The Penn State Department of Geography will host Meredith Alberta Palmer, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University at Buffalo, for its fall 2024 Coffee Hour lecture series

Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day — an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS) — with sessions on Nov. 18 and a trivia event on Nov. 19.