The Penn State Climate Consortium will host a series of fall events examining some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities associated with a changing climate.
Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar
A collection of upcoming energy and environment events from around Penn State and beyond.
Kathryn Hinkelman at the University of Vermont presents her talk "Connected by Design: Dynamic Modeling of Buildings, Infrastructure, and Environmental Systems"
District energy systems are transitioning from conventional steam and chilled-water networks to highly integrated thermal energy networks and multi-energy systems that couple heating, cooling, electricity, storages, renewable resources, and disparate sectors. This lecture presents how Modelica enables the development of scalable, physics-based models for the design, operation, and optimization of these increasingly large and networked systems.
Recent food inflation has fueled a public debate about "greedflation" and calls for price controls. Yet evidence on how profits are split along the food supply chain remains scarce, because wholesale prices are rarely observed. This talk introduces a new approach to that problem. Commissaries, the grocery stores the U.S. Department of Defense runs for military families, are required by law to sell products at cost plus a fixed 5% surcharge. Their prices therefore give a credible, product-level stand-in for the wholesale prices that manufacturers charge retailers.
Giorgia Giardina, Delft University, presents "Which Bridge Comes First? Connecting satellite monitoring, structural vulnerability and social equity."
The Geochemistry Forum hosts Bonnie McDevitt, U.S. Geological Survey, presenting "Sedimentary Basin Brines as a Potential Lithium Resource."
Penn State University Libraries will observe GIS Day, an annual event celebrating the technology of geographic information systems (GIS), on Nov. 16. This year's events focus on student success and career readiness via presentations, an alumni career panel, networking opportunities and a new geospatial showcase entitled GeoGallery.
This webinar will introduce participants to the new Forest Innovation Platform (FIP), an open-source forestry data tool developed by American Forests. The FIP uses reliable data to illustrate forest vulnerability to threats such as wildfire, insects, and disease under future projections and help landowners identify where to focus efforts to increase forest resilience. Dr.
This lecture introduces Modelica-based modeling, simulation, control, and optimization for grid-interactive efficient data centers. Using the open-source Modelica Buildings Library, we demonstrate equation-based, object-oriented modeling of cooling equipment, system configurations, control strategies, and integrated thermal-electrical systems. Case studies illustrate how Modelica can support model calibration, identify control and operational inefficiencies, evaluate energy-efficiency measures, and improve data center performance.
Extreme weather events are occurring with greater intensity and frequency across the country and in Pennsylvania. This program explores how extreme weather events, including floods, can affect mental health and substance use. Drawing on recent research, participants will learn how flooding can increase substance use harms, why these impacts occur, and strategies providers and communities can use to help reduce them.
2026 Women Advancing River Research Seminar SeriesBedrock Water Storage, Forest Health, and StreamflowAmanda Donaldson, University of Pittsburgh, United StatesDaniella Rempe, University of Austin, United States
Reliable thermal management is becoming increasingly critical in modern data centers as computing density, workload variability, and the adoption of liquid and hybrid cooling continue to grow. This lecture introduces Modelica-based model development for data center thermal management, with a focus on building physically interpretable and reusable models of air-side, liquid-side, and facility cooling systems. Using representative examples from hybrid-cooled data centers, the lecture will discuss system design, component modeling, and validation using measured data.
As energy demand continues to increase, many are experiencing financial difficulties. Join in to learn how organizations are working to relieve some of these challenges across Pennsylvania.As part of their ongoing partnership, Penn State Sustainability and the Pennsylvania GreenGov Council will once again present a monthly webinar series to educate government officials, students, faculty and community leaders about sustainability issues and progress throughout the commonwealth.
As data centers face unprecedented heat loads from high-performance computing, transitioning from traditional air to advanced liquid cooling is critical. This lecture presents a unified Modelica-based test bed designed to simulate and evaluate both air and liquid cooling architectures within a single, cohesive framework. By bridging energy efficiency and system reliability, the dynamic simulation environment enables holistic performance analysis under variable IT loads.
The Stuckeman School, which is home to three departments – Architecture, Graphic Design, and Landscape Architecture – and three research centers – the Center for Ecology plus Design, Hamer Center for Community Design, and the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, is proud to present the 2027 Stuckeman School Research Symposium at Penn State. Additional support has been provided by the College of Arts and Architecture, the School of Visual Arts, and the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences.
The Stuckeman School, which is home to three departments – Architecture, Graphic Design, and Landscape Architecture – and three research centers – the Center for Ecology plus Design, Hamer Center for Community Design, and the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, is proud to present the 2027 Stuckeman School Research Symposium at Penn State. Additional support has been provided by the College of Arts and Architecture, the School of Visual Arts, and the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences.