Advance your expertise in agricultural conservation through hands-on learning, expert insights, and invaluable connections—all designed to strengthen conservation efforts and impact.
Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar
A collection of upcoming energy and environment events from around Penn State and beyond.
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a powerful technique for determining the structures of diverse biological systems, ranging from individual proteins and viruses to entire cells and tissue sections. This method involves flash-freezing samples in liquid nitrogen, followed by high-resolution imaging with advanced electron microscopes. The resulting images are then computationally processed to reconstruct detailed 3D structures, revealing the precise arrangement of molecules and atoms.
Flooding is the most frequent and costly disaster to occur in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Climate change is expected to exacerbate heavy rainfall in our region, and aging flood protection infrastructure in under-resourced communities compound concerns about future flooding. This talk will focus on the components of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability that are making Pennsylvania riskier when it comes to severe flooding.
Advance your expertise in agricultural conservation through hands-on learning, expert insights, and invaluable connections—all designed to strengthen conservation efforts and impact.
Join Stefan Streckfus, CTO of Renewell Energy, for a free, one-hour webinar exploring the untapped potential of inactive wells. With a career dedicated to developing and deploying new technologies, Streckfus offers a fresh perspective on these wells—not as obsolete infrastructure, but as valuable assets with a new purpose. Discover how Renewell Energy is pioneering gravity energy storage to transform inactive wells into critical components of a sustainable energy future.
David Newburn, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, will give the talk, “Interacting Incentives for Agricultural Conversation Subsidies and Trading Programs: Implications for Water Quality and Carbon Sequestration Benefits in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed,” at noon on Wednesday, April 2, in 157 Hosler Building on the University Park campus.
Advance your expertise in agricultural conservation through hands-on learning, expert insights, and invaluable connections—all designed to strengthen conservation efforts and impact.
A Workshop Organized by the Penn State PIE InitiativeFeaturing a mix of panels and engaged discussions, this workshop will introduce the emerging field of political-industrial ecology with a focus on how to do political-industrial ecology research.
The chemicals and materials industry (CMI) is a major economic driver across the world and its products are essential for our well-being. However, this industry is responsible for 30% of direct greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to ecological degradation due to products such as plastics, artificial fertilizers, and novel chemical entities.
Microplastics, small plastic particles ranging in size from 1 to 5000 microns, are present in diverse environmental matrices and pose significant threats to human health and ecosystems. The Environmental Contaminants Analytical Laboratory (ECAL) and the Materials Characterization Laboratory (MCL) will review physical and chemical characterization techniques for microplastics in a wide range of environmental and biological matrices.
Discover how invasive European earthworms are reshaping North American ecosystems in this compelling one-hour webinar with Dr. Sam Reed. Learn how these silent invaders, combined with white-tailed deer browsing, create powerful disturbances that ripple through entire landscapes—threatening native plants, wildlife, and forest health. Explore the latest research on this ecological synergy, its far-reaching impacts, and strategies to mitigate these dual threats.Who is this for?
Dr. Maureen Reed is Distinguished Professor and UNESCO Chair in Biocultural Diversity, Sustainability, Reconciliation and Renewal in the graduate School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Reed is a geographer by training and now identifies as a transdisciplinary scholar. She conducts research with Indigenous, rural, and local communities in support of sustainable and equitable rural livelihoods and development.
The Penn State Interdisciplinary Environmental Research Symposium (PIERS) is a student-led symposium that brings together researchers from diverse fields related to environmental studies. Graduate and undergraduate students from all institutions are invited to present posters and oral presentations in disciplines such as biology, chemistry, engineering, policy, sociology, and beyond.In addition to student presentations, the symposium will feature:
Quentin Ramasse, SuperSTEM Laboratory and University of Leeds, UK
Josh Murray, post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University, will present on "Palaeozoic ophiolite obduction and weathering as a control on steady-state climate".
Geography Coffee Hour: Richard Alley - Penn State Geosciences
The Penn State Department of Geography’s GeoGraphics Lab will host its first Community Mapping Day on Saturday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Walker Building at University Park. The event, free and open to the public, will kick off with an optional breakfast at 8 a.m. and bring together students, faculty and community members for a day of hands-on mapping, creative geospatial storytelling and collaborative problem-solving centered on sustainability and local climate action.
The Penn State Interdisciplinary Environmental Research Symposium (PIERS) is a student-led symposium that brings together researchers from diverse fields related to environmental studies. Graduate and undergraduate students from all institutions are invited to present posters and oral presentations in disciplines such as biology, chemistry, engineering, policy, sociology, and beyond.In addition to student presentations, the symposium will feature:
Meryl Mims is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech and an affiliated faculty member with Virginia Tech's Global Change Center and Invasive Species Collaborative. Meryl received her PhD from the University of Washington in 2015 and held a postdoctoral fellowship with the U.S. Geological Survey before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech. Along with members of her lab, Meryl studies how species' traits interact with the environment to influence populations and communities of organisms and their vulnerability to climate change.
For 2025's annual Colloquium on the Environment, Penn State Sustainability is excited to welcome sociologist, scholar, and author Eric Klinenberg. His latest work looks at the COVID pandemic and other social crises and examines the sociological factors that contributed to better outcomes, highlighting the importance of social capital and social networks in keeping us healthy, happy, and better adapted to cope with disasters.