Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Hear lightning talks from SAFES Critical Issue Initiative conveners, who will briefly discuss the research directions and opportunities to join and engage:      ● Managing Earth’s Critical Zone (convener: Jason Kaye, Ph.D.)      ● Regenerative and Climate-Smart Agriculture (convener: Armen Kemanian, Ph.D.)      ● Precision Biodiversity (convener: Christina Grozinger, Ph.D.)      ● Collaborative Governance in Complex Socioeconomic Systems (convener: Kathy Brasier, Ph.D.

Join us for the Soundings water film series co-presented by Penn State’s Sustainability Institute, Penn State’s Water Council, and WPSU. This series explores the intersecting issues surrounding water conservation and the innovative research and policy solutions addressing these issues around the world.

Kevin Kloesel, Director, Oklahoma Climate Survey, presents "Farming, Ranching and Football: What Happens When More Than Wind Sweeps Down the Plain?" at the Tarbell Lecture in Meteorology

Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy Initiative Speaker Series: Left in the Dust? Environmental and Labor Effects of Rural-Urban Water Sales Eric Edwards, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University

Please join us for an Engage with Industry event meant to share information on resources, best practices, and topics that impact the daily work of Penn State staff who engage with corporations. Topics will include:

Cairsty DePasquale's, associate professor of biology at Penn State Altoona, research focuses on understanding the roles the environment and physical activity play in mediating the connection between the brain and behavior in fish, primarily using zebrafish as a model organism.

Stormwater Bioretention basins, sometimes also referred to as rain gardens, are becoming a more common stormwater management practice in urban areas. During Water Cooler Talk: Stormwater Bioretention Basin Functions Lauren will discuss the results of research at sites in Pennsylvania and beyond with consideration of design variants like lined basins, managed release concept, and different vegetation. Performance metrics discussed will include hydrology, but will primarily focus on water quality processes related to nutrient cycling and metals retention in these management practices.

The Millennium Café, a weekly interdisciplinary research dialogue started in May of 2012 has been THE venue for researchers to exchange ideas and challenges while building community across campus.  The Café historically drew >75 researchers each Tuesday in the MSC Café Commons, COVID has complicated our ability to run the Café in its traditional format, and “in the garden” is the latest attempt to create ways for people to connect - particularly newer-to-PSU faculty and students.

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.

Kennet Flores, ​University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presents "Record of fluid-rock interactions along a long-lived subduction channel" as part of the ​Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series.

The WEFE Nexus Science Advances Conference has scheduled for September 27 -29, 2021. The conference will be digital and theme focuses on 'From Science to Practice: The Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus in the Mediterranean'. This conference is organized by the Joint Research Centre and the Directorate General Research and Innovation of the European Commission, the UFM-Union for the Mediterranean, the PRIMA Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area, and the Cyprus Institute. The deadline for registration is 30th June 2021.

The ways Penn State is addressing global climate change will be discussed during the eighth season premiere of President Eric Barron’s monthly WPSU show, “Digging Deeper,” on Sunday, Sept. 26. Barron will welcome a pair of University experts — IEE associate directors Bruce Logan, director of the Engineering, Energy and Environmental Institute and an Evan Pugh Professor in engineering, and Erica Smithwick, distinguished professor of geography — for the program.

The ways Penn State is addressing global climate change will be discussed during the eighth season premiere of President Eric Barron’s monthly WPSU show, “Digging Deeper,” on Sunday, Sept. 26. Barron will welcome a pair of University experts — IEE associate directors Bruce Logan, director of the Engineering, Energy and Environmental Institute and an Evan Pugh Professor in engineering, and Erica Smithwick, distinguished professor of geography — for the program.

Sea level change is partly determined by the balance between precipitation and surface melt and subsequent meltwater runoff on the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. Both ice sheet precipitation and melt occur relatively infrequently, but extreme events can have a disproportionate impact on the ice sheet system. In this talk I will highlight three different extreme phenomena and their impact, which I have studied using a combination of climate modeling and remote sensing.

Participate in a series of four workshops on topics related to health and the built environment throughout the 2021–22 academic year. 

Microbiome Center presents Gabriele Berg, Graz University of Technology

Penn State is hosting a virtual symposium Sept. 23-24 that will explore how architects and designers in related disciplines can gain a better understanding of the impact the built environment has on shaping society’s inequalities, how the decisions they make as design professionals have consequences, and how they can help bring about better social equity in an increasingly polarizing world.

A global catastrophe such as a major asteroid strike would threaten humanity’s survival, both through its immediate impacts and by generating soot that would block sunlight, lower global temperatures, and alter precipitation patterns in a way that would severely inhibit conventional agriculture and raise the specter of mass starvation. An interdisciplinary project recently launched at Penn State is exploring how people might work together to grow, harvest, process, store, and eat nutritious food under post-catastrophic conditions.

Lisa Bolton, Professor of Marketing and Felix Xu, Ph.D. Candidate in Marketing Professor Bolton will present her work, "Consumer Aversion to Company Waste," as part of the Center for the Business of Sustainability Research Seminar Series. Registration is required. To attend, please contact Tracey Mariner for registration information: tcd119@psu.edu.

Dr. Soto is Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Arizona.