Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Spring 2026 Julia WilcotsUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesHost: Miquela Ingalls

My approach to mentoring and advising PhD students has remained largely unchanged over the past decades, with a focus on developing critical thinking, challenging published work, forming and testing hypotheses, and advancing knowledge and discovery. However, accomplishing these goals requires continual adaptation to the technologies students use to obtain and process research information, which have changed dramatically over the past 30 years—from the internet and search engines such as Google to today’s AI-based tools like ChatGPT.

About a decade ago, our team began studying how a tiny backyard insect produces microscopic, hollow particles—called brochosomes—that control how light reflects and scatters, enabling natural camouflage. We uncovered how the shape of these particles governs their optical behavior and, most recently, developed the first biomimetic strategy to manufacture brochosome-like particles at scale. This talk will highlight how this platform is opening new opportunities across sustainable materials, biomedical devices, and advanced optical technologies.

Adaptability of living systems provides resilience in a dynamically changing environment. I will present our efforts to study coupled mechanical systems toward mechanically adaptive materials and structures.

Bradley Setzler analyzes the distinct adjustment paths of U.S. labor markets (places) and U.S. workers (people) to increased Chinese import competition during the 2000s. Using comprehensive register data for 2000-2019, we document that employment levels more than fully rebound in trade-exposed places after 2010, while employment-to-population ratios remain depressed and manufacturing employment further atrophies.

Earth is the only planet in the solar system with a climate that enables habitable surface conditions. Life on Earth also modifies the global environment, with an atmospheric composition that includes contributions from biological as well as technological sources. Some of these global-scale influences of life on climate could be could be observed remotely, manifesting as potential “biosignatures” that could be detectable across astronomical distances.

As AI models become increasingly powerful and integrated into society, their "black box" nature poses significant risks and distrust. In this talk, I will introduce principled methods to scientifically understand AI systems and improve their trustworthiness across the full spectrum, from training processes to model mechanisms to data features. First, I will discuss techniques to trace model behavior back to specific training updates, enabling training data assessment, model auditing, and credit assignment.

Power systems face growing challenges from aging infrastructure, transmission constraints, and rising demand driven by electrification, data centers, and building loads with increasing flexibility. Addressing these challenges requires advanced methods that capture system physics while remaining scalable and data-informed. This presentation provides an overview of cross-cutting analytics, modeling, optimization, and control capabilities developed within PNNL’s Optimization and Control Group, spanning learning-based analytics, control design and methods, and system optimization.

Given the fast development of technology and automation systems, researchers are generating tons of data from scientific experiments to facilitate discoveries, especially in the areas of biology and medicine. However, large-scale biomedical data make it challenging for biologists or medical researchers to more effectively utilize these data with robust and powerful methods for novel and reproducible discoveries. Therefore, I pioneered the research for building Knowledge-Enhanced AI Co-Scientist System to overcome these challenges.

Developed in the early 1900s, quantum mechanics has been one of the most successful theories in modern science, allowing us to understand the properties of natural "materials" such as atoms and molecules and helping scientists and engineers develop the materials underlying modern electronics.

The properties of materials are governed by their atomic structures, which can uniquely be determined using microscopes that irradiate materials with electrons instead of light. These electron microscopes are essential for discovering atomic structures, including the distortions and defects that often control materials’ functionality. In contrast to telescopes that can image the details of galaxies that are very large and very far away, electron microscopes can probe the atomic arrangements in tiny nanomaterials right under our noses.

2026 Women Advancing River Research Seminar Series

Dr. Wangda Zuo will present an overview of the current landscape and emerging trends of the data center industry, major data center cooling technologies, and a real-world case study of a data center in Massachusetts to highlight research advances in data center cooling efficiency. This is the first seminar in a series of talks to address questions and concerns about data centers in Pennsylvania and the implications for water availability. Lunch will be provided.Please RSVP by Friday, February 20.

Climate change research increasingly requires insight into how people make sense of uncertainty, disagreement, and loss of institutional support. Our February conversation explores what it means to study climate change as a communication scholar, drawing on Matt Goldberg’s experience. Dr. Matthew Goldberg is the director of experimental research at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Janet Swim, Associate Director of the Climate Consortium, will host the interview.

This session will provide a brief introduction to GIS resources available to amplify your research, teaching and work, including ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Online Applications, ArcGIS Pro and other resources for open-source software applications. Additional references will include aspects of ArcGIS Notebooks and ModelBuilder, along with additional emerging geospatial topics. This session will give users exposure to applications and options to enhance geospatial projects.

Research scientist Matthew Goldberg will present “Strategic climate communication research for real-world impact” at 4 p.m. on Feb. 24 in the Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library.

You are invited to join the first of a two-part training webinar series where experts from PEMA, DCNR, USGS, PA GeoBoard, and Penn State University share:An overview of landslides / mudslidesLandslide / mudslide risk in PATools for evaluating risks and vulnerabilitiesThe second webinar in the series will focus on landslide mitigation projects and case studies.This training is intended for municipalities, insurance representatives, GIS specialists, and state agencies. 

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.

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.

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.