Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Dr. Luis Escobar, University of Vermont

Meteorology and Atmospheric Science Colloquium Yan Jiang Postdoctoral Scholar University of California, San Diego

Yanhong Jin estimates the impact of childhood obesity on intergenerational income and social mobility in the US. Utilizing the polygenic scores of Add Health participants, she proposes a novel instrument variable for childhood obesity based on genetic information related to weight status. She finds strong evidence that childhood obesity lowers intergenerational income and social mobility of adult children.

Climate change is upon us. Catastrophic fires in Canada and out west, deadly heat waves in the south, floods across our region… the list goes on. The impacts on ecosystems and human systems are already tragic and getting worse. Decarbonization is all the rage but falls woefully short of the need. Wind, solar, and energy efficiency provide important emission reduction benefits, but at best they can achieve zero emissions. With fossil fuel use continuing at excessive rates, the world needs negative carbon strategies. 

Hazleton, Pennsylvania has changed significantly since its founding in 1857. Historically a coal mining town, the city of 30,000 is now home to a growing Hispanic community representing 65% of the population. In 2013, Krista Schneider began working with a local nonprofit community and economic development organization that collaborates with a coalition of community organizations to revitalize the city’s downtown.

Climate Dynamics Seminar (Meteo 575) Devon Kerins (Penn State University, Environmental Engineering and Biogeochemistry)

You are invited to join Penn State’s Materials Research Institute (MRI) and Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE) for a happy-hour networking event. During the event, you'll have the opportunity to talk informally with the core facility staff about materials testing, fabrication, and synthesis needs. Additionally, IEE core facility staff will be on hand to discuss environmental contaminant testing, radiocarbon dating, and high-resolution 3D imaging.

From her time as a Penn State student through her 20-year career in Urban and Community Forestry at the Georgia Forestry Commission, and current role as Assistant Director of the Cooperative Forestry Program/Forest Legacy Program Leader in the US Forest Service Southern Region, Susan will share the challenges, highlights, and opportunities that led to her career advancements, and the unbreakable bonds of Penn State alumni formed along the way.

Blackouts are common in college students and are associated with increased alcohol-related harms. Self-report is the most common way to assess college student drinking but becomes less reliable at higher quantities of alcohol consumption. Self-report also does not tell us how students are drinking, which may be important in the prediction of harm. In this talk, I will discuss the use of alcohol biosensors to measure the manner in which students drink to predict the occurrence of alcohol-induced blackouts.

About 60% of all plastics ever produced are currently in waste sites, resulting in a yearly loss of $80-120 billion USD. Additionally, plastic production, which makes up 6% of global oil use, is expected to increase to 20% by 2050.

As a popular emission reduction tool, the carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) can potentially add an economic incentive for building owners to retrofit buil

Attend this enlightening session unveiling the evidence and future projections of climate change in Pennsylvania, exploring Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and its role in mitigating climate risks while delving into current financial programs supporting CSA initiatives.

Revisiting Past Lectures on the 30th Anniversary of the Ashtekar Frontiers of Science

Halie Kampman, a postdoctoral scholar in Penn State’s Department of Geography, will present "Health in Transition: The Politics of Nutrition and Food Systems Change in Ghana" at the next Department of Geography's Coffee Hour lecture.  Kampman will delve into the rapid and dramatic food system transition currently occurring in Ghana, driven by urbanization and globalization. The focus will be on the changing dietary patterns and the corresponding rise in diet-related illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

The Large-Scale Solar in Pennsylvania: 2024 General Update webinar is presented by Extension Educators who closely follow developments with PJM (a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.) and PUC (Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission) along with proposed legislation and policy changes. Educators will discuss recent trends in large-scale solar, also called utility-scale solar, in Pennsylvania. Educators will explain what is happening in the Commonwealth and why.

2024 Women Advancing River Research Seminar Series All seminars will be presented online live at 11:00 a.m. ET on the third Thursday of each month. Seminar recordings will be posted later. Please register in advance for all talks. "Fire and Water" Sheila Murphy, USGS Gabrielle Boisrame, Desert Research Institute (U.S.)

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Spring 2024 Eric Roden University of Wisconsin–Madison Host: Sue Brantley

MCL now offers a range of analytical techniques that can be used to determine important electronic properties of your device or material system. These properties include: band gap (Eg), work function (WF), valence band maximum (VBM), ionization energy (IE), electron affinity (EA), conduction band minimum (CBM) and carrier concentration. We have techniques for studying electronic defect states in the band gap which can impact device performance and for those making heterojunctions we can determine valence and conduction band offsets.

In this special edition of the Millennium Café, we will have a panel discussion with researchers from different disciplines to the consider the state of science and engineering in related fields, such as synthetic biology, materials, and living materials, and how advances across these fields can expand our understanding of the dynamic structures and processes that underpin life on Earth. Don’t miss this unique event, starting at 10a on 2/13 in the 3rd floor Café Commons of the MSC Bldg.

A growing majority of the world’s population lives in cities.