Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

The Adaption-Innovation Theory and Community Planning webinar is a dynamic and interactive program designed to empower community leaders, planners, and developers with the essential knowledge and skills to foster sustainable development and address the ever-evolving needs of their communities. This workshop offers a comprehensive exploration of the Adaption-Innovation Theory, a groundbreaking framework developed by Dr. Michael Kirton, which examines individual and collective problem-solving approaches.

2023 Women Advancing River Research Seminar Series Confronting the Ghosts of Nutrients Past, Present, and Future in Water Quality Management Kim Van Meter, Penn State (U.S.) Jana Compton, Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.)

Join the Sustainability Institute for the second film in our 2023-24 Intersections film program and the first film in this year’s sub-strand of programming entitled From Anxiety to Action, exploring ways people are moving beyond climate paralysis into meaningful action to affect the future.

This Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program provides a yearly cohort of 12 graduate students with funding for travel, lodging, and leadership and professional development training to support a one-to-six-month research internship abroad. During the global experience, students will collaborate with experts and local communities to address complex sustainability challenges associated with interconnected water-energy-food systems. All majors are welcome to apply.

The precursor study used constant land use and land cover change (LULCC) for the future to demonstrate the importance of accounting for historical land-use legacy.  The age distribution of trees in the forest depends upon the history of past disturbances, while the nutrients in the soil depend up past LULC.  Thus establishing the correct initial state of the vegetation and soil is crucial to model accurately the effect of biogeochemical cycling with environmental change in the future.  This study starts with initial conditions averaged and condensed for each plant functional type (PFT) from

Dr. Stephen H. Schoenholtz is Director of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center and Professor of Forest Hydrology and Soils at Virginia Tech. As Director of the VWRRC, he oversees a federally- and state-funded water research center whose mission is to facilitate collaborative research, extension, and education programs to develop solutions to water resource challenges. His research and teaching program focuses on interactions between land management and water and soil resources.

The demand for lithium in the U.S. is set to surge tenfold by 2030, driven primarily by electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. While multiple lithium mines are proposed nationwide, only one is currently operational. Unlike the time-consuming process of permitting and starting traditional mines, lithium-rich fluids from oil and gas operations are generated continuously, often overlooked. This presentation explores the potential of extracting lithium from fluids in the Appalachian Basin, aligning its volume with future demand and innovative extraction technologies.

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Fall 2023 Sam Shaheen Penn State University (Deines Lecture) ​Yesterday and today: impacts of historical and contemporary oil and gas extraction on groundwater in the Appalachian Basin

If you have a film you probably need to know its thickness. Film thickness measurements are important to everything from polymers to epitaxial 2D materials, but choosing the optimal technique is often not straightforward.  We will discuss some advantages and complications of several methods available at Penn State.  Techniques to be highlighted include:  X-ray methods, SEM, TEM, optical methods and other destructive and non-destructive techniques. Are there really 101 ways? Come find out.

I will overview recent efforts towards developing methods to assess confidence in published findings in the literature using AI.  These efforts serve the broader aim of supporting efficient scientific processes in light of the last decade’s replication crisis and ongoing open science movement. We will end with the vision of a computable scholarly record.

Penn State Global serves to broadly lead, advance, and support the university's global engagement. The office provides the specialized knowledge, expertise, and services to facilitate global programs, initiatives, and partnerships. This presentation focuses on supporting multidisciplinary research via global partnerships.

Bhattacharya will discuss critical issues related to health care access for marginalized communities, with a particular focus on Hijra, Kothi, and transgender (HKT) individuals in Kolkata, India. Topics to be addressed include barriers such as affordability, acceptance, accommodation and accessibility that HKT individuals encounter when seeking health care. Also included in the talk is the development of a comprehensive health care access index and the use of spatial analysis to identify disparities among HKT communities.

Please join us to discuss using technology and artificial intelligence to tackle challenges and questions in agricultural and ecological science.  Participants are welcome to register to give a short (2-5 min) or longer (15 min) talk about their projects or ideas, or just come to listen, learn, meet new collaborators and eat great food. 

Celebrate the feeling and flavors of autumn at the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Student Farm’s 8th annual Harvest Fest! Campus and community members are invited to spend an evening on the farm sampling farm-fresh foods, making crafts, enjoying live music and engaging with our student farmers. Join us on Thursday, September 14 from 4-7 p.m. for a fun-filled evening! The event is free and open to the public.  This year, the Ross Student Farm is excited to host Dr. Neeli Bendapudi, president of Penn State University, at Harvest Fest for remarks at 5 p.m.

By using a range of inputs ranging from economics, the known emissions rates, and expected production it is possible to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and social cost of carbon as oil, natural gas and coal move through the world economy. This is critical in evaluating the impact of potential new oil and gas leasing in Federal waters- leases which tend to last for approximately 70 years- complete with different possible production scenarios.

The Stuckeman School is hosting a Research Open House on Sept. 13 from noon to 1:30 p.m. to showcase the breadth of design research being done by the school’s faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students, along with collaborators from the college and the larger University community.

This will be an opportunity to learn about a variety of new capabilities, new expertise, and recommended best practices to maximize your usage of the MCL. Whether you’ve been using MCL for years, are looking to start using the lab soon, or are just curious about MCL resources this event is for you. All students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend. Excellent coffee will be provided.

Panelists: Jennifer Wagner  |   Law, Policy, and Engineering  Emily Davenport  |  Biology

Innovations in separation technologies are critical for securing our supply-chain, enabling sustainable manufacturing, and ensuring clean air and water at a global scale. By tuning redox-electron transfer reactions, my lab is developing new electrochemically-driven separations with high molecular selectivity to tackle key challenges in energy and sustainability. I will discuss the design of redox-active polymer electrosorbents for critical element recovery and materials recycling.

The GeoGraphics Lab is a new cartography laboratory at Penn State's Department of Geography. It operates as part of the Peter R. Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach. The GeoGraphics Lab is designed to support commercial and nonprofit clients, as well as those in the Penn State Geography community, including its students and faculty. In this talk we will explain the motivation for launching a new mapping and community geography lab, highlighting the research and production infrastructure we have developed in the lab, as well as showcasing example projects and their impacts.