Administrator

Some tech companies have already begun to harvest electricity from waste vibrations to power lights and recharge batteries using a class of piezoelectric ceramic materials, which emit electrical charges when stepped on or manipulated. Now, a team led by materials scientists at Penn State has expanded these early efforts of energy harvesting by improving the structure and chemistry of a piezoelectric material made of potassium sodium niobate.

A multidisciplinary team of Penn State students participated in the 2025 Society of Exploration Geophysicists' EVOLVE program, a mentor-guided, six-month virtual internship that uses commercial data to give students real-world experiences on energy exploration and carbon solutions. The team presented their results on a prospective gas reservoir at the SEG IMAGE Conference, held Aug. 25-28, in Houston, Texas.

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. 

Geochemist Rens Verburg, senior vice president and technical fellow in geochemistry at the engineering and professional services firm WSP USA, will give a free talk, “The Critical Minerals Rush — Not So Fast,” at 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3.

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, the Science Policy Society graduate student organization at Penn State invites the campus community to explore these questions through a hands-on, scenario-based workshop titled "Conservation Policy in the Final Frontier: Strategic Simulation for Earth and Space Governance." The event is organized by Dani Buchheister, doctoral candidate in geosciences and astrobiology.

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.

For two Penn State geography graduate students, fieldwork in Southern Africa offered more than a research assignment. It provided a front-row view of how science, community and collaboration come together in the effort to restore landscapes undergoing rapid environmental change. Faisal Elias and Abdul-Salam Jahanfo Abdulai spent more than a month in Malawi this summer as part of the Socio-Ecological Outcomes and Monitoring of Restoration in Mosaic Dry Forest-Grassland Ecosystems project, a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded collaborative and interdisciplinary project led by Penn State Assistant Professor of Geography Ida Djenontin. 

The Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences Symposium highlighted University students and faculty across various disciplines, including some from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computational, data and quantum sciences methodologies to their research. Wan Ki “Arthur” Lo, geosciences doctoral student, won third place in the poster session at the symposium for his research, “Analysis of Ground Deformation Preceding the December 2020 – May 2021 Eruption at Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i."

Harrison Cole, an alumnus and former postdoctoral scholar in the Penn State Department of Geography, designs maps for the National Geographic Museum of Exploration, currently under construction in Washington, D.C. Cole said the work he did as a postdoctoral scholar in the Walker Building translated directly into the skills he now uses at National Geographic.

Mook Bangalore, assistant professor of environmental policy in the Penn State School of Public Policy, will deliver a talk titled “Understanding the Impacts of Floods on People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” at noon on Friday, Oct. 24, in 401 Steidle Building at Penn State University Park and will also be accessible via Zoom.