Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Life Cycle Analysis in the Bioeconomy is part of the Penn State Future of Bioenergy and Biorenewables Workshop, presented by Penn State Center for Biorenewables

Hongxing Liu, Lafayette College will present Best Management Practices and Nutrient Reduction: An Integrated Economic-Hydrological Model of the Western Lake Erie Basin

Part of the EESI EarthTalks series “Changemaking made EESI: Fostering inclusive research communities in the Earth and environmental sciences”

Dr. Nicolas Buchler, Associate Professor of Molecular Biomedical Sciences, North Carolina State University

Join Dr. Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan for a discussion on his major priorities as Director of National Science Foundation (NSF)sharing his vision for his six-year term and promising a continued push for inclusiveness in science and engineering. Panch was sworn in as NSF’s 15th director on 2 July 2020.  He was previously the Executive Vice President and Chief Research and Innovation Officer at Arizona State University and is a former Chair of APLU’s Council on Research (COR).

Dr. Menachem Elimelech, Director, Environmental Engineering Program and Roberto Goizueta Professor of Environmental and Chemical Engineering Yale University Zoom Link: psu.zoom.us/j/98470996380

Four leading experts—an atmospheric scientist, an archaeologist, a coral reef biologist, and a professor of media studies—share their diverse perspectives on what needs to be most urgently communicated about climate change now. Join us for an in-depth climate change panel discussion as scientists and journalists relate their experiences communicating their research with the media and other audiences. The panel discussion is free and open to the public, but you must register for the online event.

The interaction between tropical cyclones and upper-tropospheric troughs is a common occurrence in the North Atlantic, and presents complications in forecasting tropical cyclone intensity. Troughs can be both favorable and unfavorable for tropical cyclone intensification. Troughs that are favorable for intensification, versus troughs that are unfavorable, are typically weaker, shallower, and longitudinally-narrower, resulting in reduced vertical wind shear and ventilation. In these situations, convection is able to wrap upshear in the tropical cyclone and promote intensification.

Meeting climate goals requires rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, agriculture, industry, and practically every other aspect of modern society.  Yet most of the technologies needed for this transition do not exist.  How can policymakers steer system transitions at an unprecedented scale?  This talk will answer that question by looking at the actions needed in each major emitting sector, at how policymakers can organize to address critical uncertainties, and the roles for international cooperation.  The talk will be based on a report published with the Energy Tr

Fall 2020 ESSC Brown Bag Series with Mingyu Park, Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, Penn State To maintain social distancing as much as possible during the novel coronavirus pandemic, seminars will be conducted via Zoom this semester. A hyperlink to the Zoom meeting for each seminar is given in the schedule below in the row corresponding to that seminar. Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are from 11:15am - 12:30pm Zoom link: https://psu.zoom.us/j/95622536379

The fields of bioenergy and biorenewables have seen and continue to experience unprecedented growth, as the world seeks to shift its economy to a sustainable, renewable basis. Penn State's Center for Biorenewables works to catalyze this transformation through innovation and education relating to biorenewable food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, materials, and energy.

The Water Insights Seminar Series engages the University and broader community in collaborative learning and discussion about critical water challenges from local to global scales.   All seminars are scheduled for Tuesdays from 12:00 - 1:00 pm and will be held via Zoom. Zoom room open from 11:30 for setup and log-in. Meetings (video, audio, and chat) will be recorded. No waiting room, and no passcode. Participants will be muted automatically upon entry.

Organisms living in temperate localities often experience changes in population size across seasons. These cyclic booms and busts have the potential to dramatically alter the genetic composition of populations through the joint action of natural selection and drift.

Diversity of viewpoints—across attributes such as ethnicity, gender, age and educational background, breeds innovation. Organizations have become more active in their efforts to hire and work with a broader societal group of people. Having a diverse workforce is a prerequisite to creating products, services, and business practices that can set a company apart and generate competitive advantage. At the global scale, diversity and inclusion allows organizations to adapt in an agile manner to the unique needs of different demographic groups, markets and cultures.

Part of the EESI EarthTalks series “Changemaking made EESI: Fostering inclusive research communities in the Earth and environmental sciences"

Approaches to disease management continue to involve biological controls however their inconsistent efficacy has limited in field application. Using complementary approaches to understand microbial interactions could help close this gap. Currently, my research examines microbe-microbe interactions at a population and whole community levels to understand antagonistic and suppressive traits that could potentially be exploited to reduce plant disease. Firstly, I aim to determine if bacteriocin production by bacterium provides a fitness benefit to bacteria in leaf apoplast.

Land and Water Revisited is a story about the relationship between humans and their environment as told by the people of the Teotihuacán Valley of México.

Geopolitics can be understood as an analytical category simultaneously for approaching the contemporary world order, as well as to interrogate sexuality and gender identity as it is produced through/with statecraft, and in the striving of sexually marginalized communities to create bodily security. Global governance, international human rights principles have failed to protect transgender cross border migrants. Simultaneously, the present epidemiological initiatives around the COVID19 pandemic is yet to fully address the impact of the pandemic upon the lives of LGBTQ communities.

Terry McGlynn, California State University Dominguez Hills

Welfare weights which assign a greater weight to the welfare of the rich are commonly used in regionally disaggregated climate-economy models. This paper considers two modelling alternatives which give equal weight to the welfare of all people living at particular time in order to identify the climate policy path which maximizes global human welfare.