Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar

Solid waste accumulation is a major challenge. Recycling efforts, spurred by material shortages after World War II, led to near-zero-waste manufacturing and compostable plastics. Yet composites remain difficult to recycle. These materials are critical for lightweight electric vehicles, aerospace, defense, energy systems, and construction. The global composites market is about $100 billion (2022–2023), with 25% by volume in construction. However, recycling composites typically degrades properties, preventing reuse in similar applications.

Biodevice innovation drives advances in human‑health technologies, enabling earlier diagnosis, real‑time monitoring, and more effective interventions. The Penn State Center for Biodevices accelerates the translation of discoveries into practical solutions by integrating materials science, engineering, biology, and data‑driven design. Founded in 2020 with a focus on medical devices, the Center is expanding into agricultural sustainability and environmental resiliency, reflecting a systems‑level view of health that links human well‑being, food systems, and the environment.

Department of GeosciencesColloquium SeriesSpring 2026Jordan WostbrockYale UniversityHost: Miquela Ingalls

The Mid-Atlantic region of the United States hosts a recurring low-level wind maximum, the Piedmont Low-Level Jet (LLJ), analogous to the well-studied Southern Great Plains LLJ. This nocturnal boundary layer phenomenon influences the distribution of pollutants in one of the most populated and economically critical regions, the I-95 corridor between Washington, DC and New York City. While the SGP-LLJ has been extensively studied in terms of its formation mechanisms, morphology, and its role in the dispersion of mass, momentum, and moisture, far less is known of the Piedmont-LLJ.

In this talk, Jonathan Marks will review recent climate litigation in both the U.S. and Europe in which the right to a healthy environment was invoked and developed, as well as the 2025 advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights addressing climate change. Marks will analyze the implications of the evolving right to a healthy environment in climate litigation and conclude with a brief discussion of additional tools in the legal, ethical, and policy toolkit that might complement this right.

The discovery of extrasolar planets enables us to tackle millennia old questions about whether the Earth and our solar system are unique, how they formed, and whether life exists beyond Earth. The 6000 exoplanets now known reveal many of the underlying mechanisms of how planets form and evolve, and the complex interplay between stars and planets that sculpt the atmospheres of planets and the architecture of planetary systems.

In this talk, Stewart will discuss how his laboratory investigates one of the most transformative events in the history of life: the water-to-land transition of vertebrates. This transition set the stage for the rise of tetrapods, the group of animals that includes amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In the first part of the talk, Stewart will focus on the fossils of Tiktaalik roseae and its close relatives.

Harpins are proteins secreted by most gram-negative bacterial species pathogenic to plants. While dissimilar in primary structure, harpins share the property of being able to elicit plant defenses when applied to plants as purified proteins. We used germplasm collection resources and genetic mapping to identify potential receptors for harpins in two harpin-responsive plant species: Nicotiana tabacum and Arabidopsis thaliana.

Protecting soil on agricultural lands is vital to both food production and environmental sustainability. Around the world, soils are eroding faster than they are forming, and conventional practices can accelerate this loss. Bare or highly disturbed soils are especially vulnerable to wind and water erosion, allowing nutrients and sediments to wash into nearby waterways. What happens on Pennsylvania farms directly affects the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

In this session, Andrew Schroeder—one of the leading national figures in humanitarian data, community resilience analytics, and rapid disaster intelligence—will share how Crisis Ready and Direct Relief are transforming disaster preparedness and response around the world.

Hydrogen and methane play vital roles in producing food and energy, but to slow climate change, they must be made and used in ways that release little or no carbon dioxide. This talk explores two new “green” methods for producing hydrogen without relying on fossil fuels when using electricity from renewable sources, and a method to make renewable methane. These technologies offer promising ways to produce clean hydrogen and renewable methane, helping reduce carbon emissions and move toward more sustainable energy systems.

Extreme weather conditions, induced and intensified by a global climate emergency, increasingly impact communities across the world. In the face of climatic threats (including heatwaves, droughts, fires, and flooding) and its impacts across spatial scales - from the body to the neighborhood - designers and residents alike spend mounting energy and resources to reshape their surrounding built environments and protect lives and livelihoods against such extremes.

Extreme weather conditions, induced and intensified by a global climate emergency, increasingly impact communities across the world. In the face of climatic threats (including heatwaves, droughts, fires, and flooding) and its impacts across spatial scales - from the body to the neighborhood - designers and residents alike spend mounting energy and resources to reshape their surrounding built environments and protect lives and livelihoods against such extremes.

The One Health Microbiome Center (OHMC) in the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences will host the One Health Microbiome Symposium on May 13 and 14, 2026. The symposium will bring together researchers from an ensemble of traditionally siloed disciplines to unify microbiome science, reflecting the center's mission. By welcoming industry partners and convening experts from the "One Health" pillars of human, agricultural and environmental health, the symposium highlights a central principle: Human health is inseparably linked to the health of our environment.

The One Health Microbiome Center (OHMC) in the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences will host the One Health Microbiome Symposium on May 13 and 14, 2026. The symposium will bring together researchers from an ensemble of traditionally siloed disciplines to unify microbiome science, reflecting the center's mission. By welcoming industry partners and convening experts from the "One Health" pillars of human, agricultural and environmental health, the symposium highlights a central principle: Human health is inseparably linked to the health of our environment.

The rapid expansion of AI data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, and hydrogen production facilities is creating unprecedented electricity demand on power grids. These large, fast-growing loads pose new challenges for planning, operations, and reliability—prompting heightened attention from utilities, regulators, OEMs, and grid operators.