Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Dr. Jose Fuentes, Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, Penn State presenting Arctic climate change and trace-gas cycles

Join the American Society of Civil Engineers as they release their 2021 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. The quadrennial assessment will grade the condition and performance of 17 categories of infrastructure – including drinking water, roads, levees, dams, and much more. After the grades are unveiled, ASCE will convene a program of elected officials, decisionmakers, and thought leaders to discussion solutions to raising our infrastructure GPA.

Due to demands caused by climate change, the energy sector is undergoing a rapid transition. Buildings and communities become increasingly electrified and they need to become key contributors for aiding integration of renewables at scale. Their energy systems provide an opportunity to integrate and optimize renewables and storage across multiple prosumers and energy carriers. This leads not only to new system architectures and control challenges, but also to new requirements on design flows that can manage the increased complexity.

Water Insights is an interdisciplinary seminar series on water science, water management, and water policy sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Science (SAFES). Speakers include researchers, water managers, and water policy makers from Penn State, other universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. The series engages the University and broader community in collaborative learning and discussion about critical water challenges from local to global scales.

Water Insights is an interdisciplinary seminar series on water science, water management, and water policy sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Science (SAFES). Speakers include researchers, water managers, and water policy makers from Penn State, other universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. The series engages the University and broader community in collaborative learning and discussion about critical water challenges from local to global scales.

Esther Obonyo, Penn State presenting "Reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment"

Morels (Morchella spp.) are iconic spring mushrooms in the North-Central Region of the United States. There is a long history on research on morels and biology given that they are prized edible mushrooms. This past decade has seen significant advances into morel phylogenetics, mating, nutrition and cultivation. This has led to further questions while also providing new opportunities for studying and growing these fungi.

Manipulating Stomatal Blue Light Response in Wheat to Improve Productivity Plant Biology Tracy Lawson, University of Essex

EESI/Geosciences/EME Faculty Candidate Seminar: Improving Urban Resilience to Climate Change: A Case for Data-Driven Systems Modeling Dr. Renee Obringer, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), University of Maryland

Penn State’s Environmental Justice Project puts science in the service of fundamental rights to achieve just and sustainable development.

Science communication researcher Suzannah Evans Comfort says public relations may have more influence on science news compared to other types of news coverage. Comfort, assistant professor in the Media School at Indiana University, will discuss her research as part of the SciComm Speaker Series at 3 p.m. Feb. 26. The lecture, “It Takes Two: The Permeability of Science Journalism to Public Relations” will be virtual and streamed live on Zoom.

This is part of the Science and Values in Climate Risk Management webinar series, hosted by the Rock Ethics Institute and the Center for Climate Risk Management. SPEAKER: Wendy Parker TITLE: TBA ABSTRACT: TBA  

Learn about the strategic directions for this new institute in the College; Director Karen Fisher-Vanden and Associate Directors Christina Grozinger, Matt Royer, and Rob Shannon will discuss ongoing and future plans for the institute, including educational and outreach programs, thematic research priorities, and how faculty across the University can get involved in SAFES.

EESI/Geosciences/EME Faculty Candidate Seminar: Predictability of Extreme Dynamic Systems using Data Mining Ali Sarhadi, Postdoc, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT

Berit Arheimer, Swedish Meteorological & Hydrological Institute River flow in catchment modelling using HYPE for water management, open science and global development

The fifth annual Arthur W. Page Center Awards will honor Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director; Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of PBS Newshour; Eugene Robinson, Washington Post columnist and editor; and Bill Heyman, CEO of Heyman Associates. The renowned communicators will receive a Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communication at a special virtual awards event at 7 p.m. on Feb. 24, 2021.

Abstract: Food supply shocks are increasing worldwide, particularly the type of shock wherein food production or distribution loss in one location propagates through the food supply chain to other locations. Analogous to biodiversity buffering ecosystems against external shocks, ecological theory suggests that food supply chain diversity is crucial for managing the risk of food shock to human populations. In this talk, Mejia shows that boosting a city’s food supply chain diversity increases the resistance of a city to food shocks.

Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is a remote sensing technique that uses Earth-reflected navigation signals opportunistically for science applications. NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) constellation of eight GNSS-R microsatellites have been orbiting and observing the Earth’s tropics since December 2016. CYGNSS provides rapid revisit, high resolution, near-surface wind speed data over the ocean, which are uninhibited by rain contamination.

Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEP) seminar: Regulating on the Rotor: Energy, Climate and Political Polarization Presented by David Spence, Baker Botts Chair in Law, University of Texas School of Law; Professor of Business, Government & Society at UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business  

Spring 2021 ESSC Brown Bag Series presents Climate and human influences on fire in California forests with Dr. Alan Taylor, Geography, Penn State To maintain social distancing as much as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, seminars will be conducted via Zoom this semester.