Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

The Jagged Western Edge of North America: How Precambrian Rifting Influences Subsequent Tectonism, Basil Tikoff

Presented by the Choose Clean Water Coalition and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, with support from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Chesapeake Legal Alliance, and Virginia Conservation Network, this crash course will dive into effective storytelling, crafting presentations, and translating nuanced science and data into a compelling and understandable message.

Sustainability Series for Commonwealth Employees The series is intended to give commonwealth employees opportunities to hear from subject matter experts and receive updates on each topic to enrich their knowledge while engaging in group conversations.  The series is intended to give commonwealth employees opportunities to hear from subject matter experts and receive updates on each topic to enrich their knowledge while engaging in group conversations. 

Bacteria to beetles: connecting social interactions to specialized metabolism Matt Traxler, Ph.D., University of California Berkeley

Seminar: Dissecting links between nutrition and stress in honey bees Vanessa Corby-Harris, USDA-ARS September 18, 2020 @ 11:00 am to 12:00 pm Seminars will be hosted by Zoom. A link will be provided here the week of the seminar.

The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is like a heartbeat to Earth’s climate system, serving as the Hadley circulation’s rising branch and producing some of the most intense rainfall. Textbook descriptions show that the ITCZ follows the Sun’s seasonal migration. However, such definitions are deficient for the east Pacific Ocean ITCZ, which is centered north of the equator except during boreal spring when a double ITCZ forms.

In 2019, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf issued an executive order charging the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection with drafting rules for Pennsylvania to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Draft rules for Pennsylvania joining RGGI are scheduled to be issued in mid-September, with full integration by 2021. RGGI is a multi-state compact aimed at managing greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector, which establishes state-level emission reduction targets and allows for the trading of permits within and across state lines.

Fall 2020 ESSC Brown Bag Series with Lara Fowler, Penn State Law, Institutes of Energy and Environment 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/97448097169

Pyrite Oxidation in Rocks: From Atomic Observation to Global Implications, Xin Gu

The Student Farm, established as a one-acre educational farm pilot program in 2016, has engaged thousands of students and community members in learning about food systems, agriculture, and sustainability. The farm is now actively expanding to three and a half acres, and establishing infrastructure for four-season growing and education. This talk will provide an overview of the history and future plans, with a focus on the student leadership, engagement, and individual and collective agency that are the heart of the program.

Citrus greening (aka Huanglongbing, HLB) caused by the phloem-limited, fastidious α-proteobacteria 'Candidatus Liberibacter' spp. is the most devastating citrus disease in the world.  Harnessing the beneficial potential of native microbiota may be one of the few logistically and economically potential solutions for controlling HLB. We investigated the effect of management practices on HLB control via changes in soil microbiota, and used this information to develop a synthetic microbial community (SynCom) with a stable and predictable outcome in the field.

Jing-ke Weng, Massachusetts of Institute of Technology on September 14, 2020 @ 12:10 pm to 01:10 pm via Zoom Contact Ying Gu yug13@psu.edu

NASA’s next-generation laser altimeter mission, the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), launched on 15 September 2018, carrying the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) as its sole payload.  ICESat-2 is the planned successor of the ICESat mission, which was on orbit from 2003 to 2009; ICESat-2 was designated as a top priority in the NASA Earth Science Decadal Survey in 2007.  ATLAS is a photon-counting lidar that directs laser beams (532 nm) at the Earth’s surface, fires a stream of light 10,000 times per second, and measures the distance between t

Tailocin and antibiotic persistence in a model plant pathogenic bacterium

Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEP) seminar: The Impact of China’s Place-based Environmental Regulations on its Hog Industry and Water Quality: A Synthetic Difference-in-differences Approach Wendong Zhang, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University; affiliated with the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development

One of the least understood aspects in atmospheric chemistry is how urban emissions influence the formation of natural organic aerosols, which affect Earth’s energy budget. The Amazon rainforest, during its wet season, is one of the few remaining places on Earth where atmospheric chemistry transitions between preindustrial and urban-influenced conditions. Here, we integrate insights from several laboratory measurements and simulate the formation of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in the Amazon using a high-resolution chemical transport model.

Fall 2020 ESSC Brown Bag Series with Colin Zarzycki, 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/98425157146

Joshua Garber, Penn State, will present The Punctuated Continuum of Plate Tectonics Revealed by Global Igneous Rocks

Join the A Multiscale Approach to Managing Forests for Birds and Other Wildlife webinar and learn about the unique “power” of birds as barometers of forest health. This webinar was approved for Society of American Foresters CFE credits, Master Gardener Update Training, and may qualify for other credits.

Esther Ngumbi, University of Illinois on September 4, 2020, 11:10 AM - 12:00 PM Seminars will be hosted by Zoom. A link will be provided https://ento.psu.edu/events/seminar-title-tba-66 the week of the seminar.