Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

You're viewing an archived collection of past energy and environment events from around Penn State and beyond. Please visit our Event Calendar to view current and upcoming events.

 10:00 – 11:00am  Online  Full details
Join the Data Science Community for talks from two Penn State data scientists! Talks include:

 6:00 – 7:00pm  Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space or Online  Full details
Diane Jones Allen and Austin Allen, the duo behind Design Jones LLC, which was the recipient of the 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Community Service Award, will give a lecture at 6 p.m. on Nov. 1 as part of the Stuckeman School’s Lecture and Exhibit Series. The lecture will focus on how water has shaped the design process and the imaginations of the African American cultural and social experience within the American landscape.
 4:00 – 5:00pm  Online  Full details
Fires burn in all terrestrial ecosystems on the globe, and wildfires are getting larger, more destructive and deadly. Both humans and climate are contributing to this trend. The Fall 2021 EESI EarthTalks series, “Fire in the Earth System,” will address humanity’s long relationship with fire, how humans and climate create conditions conducive to megafires, and how policy makers and land managers can address the fire problem. The seminars, which are free and open to the public, take place from 4 – 5 p.m. on Mondays via Zoom.
 12:00 – 1:00pm  Online  Full details
Hydrologic connectivity facilitates the transfer of water and nutrients from source zones to river networks. In particular, human alteration of the landscape has exacerbated the connectivity of some contaminants, threatening water security and sustainability. High-frequency aquatic sensing together with high-performance computing and radioisotope tracing allows us an opportunity to understand how changes in connectivity can result in downstream impacts to water quality.
 9:00 – 10:00am  Online  Full details
The U.S.-EU event will highlight mutually beneficial opportunities for cooperation on science and technology between the U.S. and European space stakeholders while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Moderated by former NASA Administrator and U.S. Science Envoy the Honorable Charles Bolden, the virtual roundtable will give U.S.

 All day  Oct 29: Conference Room, New James Building; Oct 30: 114 Steidle Building  Full details
Details regarding registration, logistics, and schedule are currently being finalized. Please check back often for more details. Distinguished alumni and accomplished researchers in the field of carbon materials will interpret the past, assess the present and anticipate the future of arguably the most diverse and flexible family of materials known to humankind. The two-day symposium consists of five sessions, each with five or six 30-minute lectures. A poster session showcasing current graduate and undergraduate students' research will conclude the symposium.

 1:00 – 2:50pm  Online  Full details
Penn State Professor of Mathematics Nate Brown and Nobel laureate Carl Wieman, Stanford University professor of physics and education and author of “Improving How Universities Teach Science,” will present a remote mini-symposium, co-hosted by UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning (CITL) and Division of Physical and Biological Sciences, titled “STEM Educational Equity and Design.”
 11:00am – 12:00pm  100 Huck Life Sciences Building  Full details
Cresten Mansfeldt, University of Colorado, presents "Squishy Infrastructure: Balancing Risks and Rewards in the Built Environment Microbiome"
 12:00 – 4:00am  Online  Full details
The Climate Alliance’s Asian regional committee is hosting a Climate & Cities virtual conference on the 28th and 29th October 2021. The conference will be open to all and will serve as an important opportunity to share emerging research on how Asian cities are being impacted by climate change and identify the opportunities to transform future cities towards a net zero economy.
 12:00 – 1:00am  Online  Full details
Urbanization increases impervious cover and includes buried water and stormwater/wastewater infrastructure, which interrupts both fast stormflows and slow environmental flows and regulates urban water balances through intercepting and transforming infiltrated stormwater and groundwater into fast flows (i.e., rainfall-derived inflow and infiltration or RDII). Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), as nature-based best management practices to urban stormwater problems, can potentially mitigate the hydrologic impact of urbanization and reduce the flashiness of flow regime.

 4:30 – 5:30pm  220 Hammond or Online  Full details
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, University of Toronto, presents "Imaging Habitable Worlds - Lessons from the Deep Biosphere and Hydrogeosphere" as part of the ​Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series.
 12:00 – 1:00pm  Online  Full details
In March 2020, SAFES launched the “Impacts of COVID-19 on Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Systems” Seed Grant. PIs and team members from these innovative projects will provide brief updates on the outcomes and further research directions.      ● Quantifying the impacts of COVID-19 on farmers' decisions to manage for soil health in PA (Sharifa Crandall, PI)      ● Assessing Factors Affecting Farmers' Stress and Developing Stress Resilience Skills (Suzanna Windon, PI)
 11:45am – 12:45pm  Online  Full details
Universities can be powerful allies and are uniquely placed to address the climate crisis but have untapped potential. This panel discussion brings together experts from several institutions to illuminate novel pathways for engagement and action by asking: 
 All day  Online  Full details
The Climate Alliance’s Asian regional committee is hosting a Climate & Cities virtual conference on the 28th and 29th October 2021. The conference will be open to all and will serve as an important opportunity to share emerging research on how Asian cities are being impacted by climate change and identify the opportunities to transform future cities towards a net zero economy.

 11:30 – 11:59pm  Online  Full details
The Climate Alliance’s Asian regional committee is hosting a Climate & Cities virtual conference on the 28th and 29th October 2021. The conference will be open to all and will serve as an important opportunity to share emerging research on how Asian cities are being impacted by climate change and identify the opportunities to transform future cities towards a net zero economy.
 3:30 – 4:30pm  112 Walker Building or Online  Full details
Small-scale vortices associated with damaging wind gusts in hurricanes have been documented in several observational studies.  These vortices have a horizontal extent of roughly 100 m to 1 km and have been likened to tornadoes because of their size and extreme wind speeds.  In this study a hierarchy of large-eddy simulations is used to document the dynamics of these vortices.  Composite analysis at the time of peak near-surface wind speed shows how they are associated with a coherent vortical structure that resembles one-half of the famed “hairpin vortex” that is a characteristic of turbule
 1:00 – 2:00pm  Online  Full details
Those of us that garden or irrigate plants know that keeping plants watered is crucial for success, especially during the hot, dry months of summer. Water Webinar Series: The Effects of Water Quality on Gardening and Irrigation will discuss the impact of water quality on plants and what to look for in your water test so that you can prepare for the next growing season.
 12:00 – 1:00pm  Online  Full details
Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy Initiative Speaker Series presents "Grid Governance in the Energy Trilemma Era: Remedying the Democracy Deficit" with Andrew Kleit, Penn State, and Daniel E. Walters, Penn State Law
 12:00 – 1:00pm  Online  Full details
Cities and communities across the world are under increasing pressure by challenges associated with water abundance, distribution, and quality in the midst of the climate-crisis. In the face of aging infrastructure, population growth, and shifting dynamics in earth surface processes, we desperately need to develop smart water infrastructure and systems to adapt and enhance resilience. Recent floods throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, particularly in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, highlight that the problems and challenges are right here, right now.
 12:00 – 1:00pm  Online  Full details
Water Cooler Talk: Riparian Buffer Ecosystem Services will cover important concepts and techniques for discussing the value of riparian buffers for water resource protection and other ecosystem services. Hear about current work happening in the water resource field and be able to ask questions and share ideas with professionals across Pennsylvania.