Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

We’re used to weather apps disagreeing, but in disaster response, choosing the wrong forecast can have real consequences. Normally, models are validated using weather station data, but in much of the world that data is limited or missing. This talk explores how Penn State researchers are finding creative ways to work around these gaps.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed many aspects of daily life, from performing routine tasks such as generating dinner menus to addressing complex scientific problems such as predicting weather. Despite their remarkable empirical success, AI-driven approaches continue to face fundamental challenges related to reliability, interpretability, and long-term predictive fidelity.

Christopher Timmins, a professor of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will lead a seminar on residential market responses to certain toxins in drinking water.His free talk — based on the recent research paper “Imperceptible Contaminants and Housing Markets: Evidence from Local News” — is scheduled for noon on Friday, Feb. 6, in 157 Hosler Building at Penn State University Park. The event is part of a spring seminar series hosted by the Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI).

Dr. Julia Bowsher is Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences at North Dakota State University. She investigates how stress during development affects adult performance, with a focus on bees. Her work spans the fields of physiology, evolution, and development and uses molecular and bioinformatic techniques. Her research includes multiple solitary bee species and honey bees.

Mars and Titan have strikingly different atmospheres. Mars's atmosphere is thin and dry with a regular dust storm cycle and global dust events; Titan’s atmosphere is thick with a methane hydrologic cycle and storms that can cover a large fraction of the surface. Yet, in comparing these defining features to Earth, weather systems on each world share many characteristics in structure, size, and frequency. However, because Mars and Titan are smaller than Earth, atmospheric waves reach planetary-scale sizes.

To kick off our spring series we will host seminars under the theme Innovating Plant Resilience: From Genes to Ecosystems which will feature Dr. Jesse Lasky (Biology), Dr. Sally Assman (Biology), Dr. Mark Guiltinan (Plant Science), and Dr. Jill Hamilton (ESM). 

This talk highlights our recent advances in pushing the limits of thermal transport for improved thermal management and energy efficiency. I will first discuss our establishment of the theory and computational method for four phonon scattering, a high-order phonon process. We demonstrated its significant and often dominant role in high and low thermal conductivity materials, such as boron arsenide, graphene, and perovskites.

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Spring 2026 Luke WeaverUniversity of MichiganHost: Isabell Fendley

The brain, as a physical substrate, exploits rich dynamics arising from neuronal coupling through dynamic synapses, rather than centralized control or symbolic logic. In my group, we explore how similar principles can be realized in engineered materials by embedding computation directly into networks of soft, ionic, and biomolecular components. We create neuromorphic tissues—networks of physically coupled material nodes that process information through intrinsic nonlinear dynamics, fading memory, and signal propagation.

In nature, symbiosis is a survival strategy. In science, it is an innovation strategy—but it rarely happens by accident. At the One Health Microbiome Center, we are not just studying ecosystems; we are engineering one. I will discuss how we intentionally fuse distinct disciplines, linking a unified vision with the data scientist’s algorithm, the ecologist's field trial, and the technologist’s state-of-the-art platforms.

Alzheimer’s disease is a complex and devastating condition affecting millions of people worldwide. Understanding how it progresses and identifying the best strategies for early intervention are major scientific and medical challenges. In this talk, Hao will share how his team is using advanced computational modeling, artificial intelligence, and digital twin technology to create personalized simulations of Alzheimer’s progression. These models help us predict how the disease develops in individual patients and explore the impact of potential treatments.

Research has shown that neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and depression have a strong genetic basis. Over the past two decades, Girirajan’s research has focused on identifying genes that contribute to these disorders and understanding why individuals carrying the same genetic variant show different clinical outcomes. In the talk, Girirajan will highlight ongoing research in his lab on how genetic mutations arise and accumulate, and how individuals with these mutations become susceptible to different disease trajectories.

Heidi Biggs, design researcher and assistant professor of digital media at Georgia Tech, will present a talk titled “Designing Embodied Ecologies: Reframing Local Environmental Data through Design and Making.”Biggs will discuss how environmental and climate change data that is often viewed as neutral and scientific can be critically reframed through design practices that bring these data into more intimate, local and embodied forms.

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.

How do students really think about sustainability? Geography researchers Dr. Mark Ortiz and PhD candidate Harman Singh are getting interactive with their research at Science on Tap this month, exploring care, culture, and community in sustainability education.

"From Microbes to Mountains: Collaborative Research on Páramos Resilience and Ecosystem Services" presented by Dr. Jose Luis Machado"The Dry Island Effect in the Andes Paleo Record: Implications for Future Water Resources in a Warming World" by Jaime Escobar

Sophie Giffard-Roisin, Fulbright Research Scholar at Lamont Observatory, Columbia University, will present “AI in Geoscience: Opportunities and Challenges of Foundation Models” on Wednesday, Jan. 28 from noon to 1 p.m. in the Deike Building.Abstract:

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.

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Spring 2026 Joel Rowland Los Alamos National Laboratory Host: Anastasia Piliouras

Since nearly its inception, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been home to one of the nation’s largest energy economies, playing a central role in key moments of the United States energy transition. Today, as the second-largest energy supplier in the country, Pennsylvania’s power and natural resource sectors rival those of many nations. However, rising energy demand and shifting industry trends are challenging long-standing energy institutions and paradigms.