Latest News

• share
• favorite_border

The Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (LTI) today announced that Leslie S. Richards, Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation, will serve as keynote speaker at the 24th Annual Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference (TESC), to be held December 5-7, 2018, at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center. Richards is scheduled to speak on December 5, between noon and 1:15 p.m.

• share
• favorite_border

Snow days at Penn State may have become even more rare, thanks to the work of a recent industrial engineering graduate.

• share
• favorite_border

Saurabh Basu, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, is working on making additive components more reliable thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation.

• share
• favorite_border

The Penn State Department of Chemical Engineering’s cutting-edge work in the nascent field of artificial water channels was the subject of a recent Faraday Discussions conference held by the Royal Society of Chemistry and a breakthrough paper in the journal Nature Communications.

• share
• favorite_border

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of the workforce is employed in the service sector. Penn State and the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers have collaborated to create a new award that celebrates outstanding innovation in service system engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

A self-healing membrane that also acts as a reverse filter can block small particles and let large ones through is possible, according to Penn State mechanical engineers who say it is "straight out of science fiction."

• share
• favorite_border

To ensure the continued security and safety of our nation’s nuclear enterprises, the Penn State College of Engineering is formally introducing a nuclear security option in its nuclear engineering master’s program.

• share
• favorite_border

Through a recently awarded Penn State Teaching and Learning with Technology Fellowship, Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, will develop an experimental framework, using immersive social spaces, to investigate how social, artificially intelligent robots in higher education can foster and enforce ethical behavior and academic integrity with students.

• share
• favorite_border

Tonya Peeples has been appointed the Penn State College of Engineering’s associate dean for equity and inclusion, effective August 15.

• share
• favorite_border

David B. Spencer, professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, has been named the recipient of the 2018 International Astronautical Federation Frank J. Malina Astronautics Medal.

• share
• favorite_border

Administering needle-based procedures in anesthesiology, such as epidurals, is a complex and delicate procedure. However, the current training methods for doctors are costly and fall shor

• share
• favorite_border

Improving the durability and extending the life of transportation infrastructure will be the primary focus of a multi-university transportation research program led by Penn State, as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) 2017 Region 3 University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of Penn State Aerospace Engineering faculty and students is one step closer to making electric-powered human flight a reality after winning a Phase I award for the GoFly Prize, a worldwide competition to build the world’s first personal flying device for anyone, anywhere.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Penn State and Geisinger Health System developed a model to predict a patient's risk for needing further medical care three days after being discharged from the hospital.

• share
• favorite_border

Penn State researchers have received more than $535,000 to install a state-of-the-art “super-finishing lab” for 3D-printed metal parts.

• share
• favorite_border

After completing an extensive evaluation of institutions of higher learning in the United States and Europe, Solar Turbines Incorporated has chosen Penn State as a university partner to establish a center of excellence in gas turbines. The center involves numerous faculty across Penn State’s College of Engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

Hallgren is one of 11 distinguished faculty to be named to the 2018 Class of Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows (VBFF) by the DoD. The program provides awards to top-tier engineers and scientists from U.S. universities to conduct “high-risk, high-payoff” research in areas of interest to the DoD over five years, with up to $3 million in support.

• share
• favorite_border

Kostas Papakonstantinou, assistant professor of civil engineering at Penn State, will advance innovation in optimal structural engineering decision-making, thanks to a respected National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career (CAREER) award.

• share
• favorite_border

Esther Gomez, assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering, Penn State, has received the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Early Career (CAREER) award to better understand the mechanobiology of mesenchymal-epithelial transition.

• share
• favorite_border

A group of undergraduate students from the department of physics and electronics at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao will attend the CNEU-hosted Nanotechnology Summer School at the Penn State University Park campus to continue their nanotechnology education in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

• share
• favorite_border

Through their research in the Penn State Department of Mechanical and Engineering, the team has created a liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS) coating, an innovative spray-able, anti-fouling coating that dramatically decreases the amount of water needed when flushing a toilet.

• share
• favorite_border

Vikash Gayah, assistant professor of civil engineering at Penn State, will research urban traffic network dynamics from a network-wide perspective, thanks to a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career (CAREER) award.

• share
• favorite_border

Christopher Gorski, assistant professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, will develop devices that use electricity to desalinate water and can also generate their own electricity, thanks to an esteemed National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career (CAREER) award.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Penn State have developed a water filtration system that removes contaminants and reduces toxicity in hospital wastewater.

• share
• favorite_border

Historically mapping the amount of water content in soil is essential to determine whether crops will flourish, wildfires will ignite or floods will destroy the land. Employing deep learning technology to existing soil moisture data can help accurately predict these moisture changes over time, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Conrad Tucker, associate professor of engineering design and industrial engineering, has received funding from the U.S. Air Force to investigate whether crowd-sourced data from social media can be used to not only detect threats, but also prevent catastrophic events from happening in the future.

• share
• favorite_border

Overtrust frequently occurs with autonomous vehicles and robots—and it can have serious physical, and even fatal, consequences for humans in both the military and society, but Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, is investigating the factors that cause overtrust, and developing techniques that will allow autonomous systems to recognize it and prevent it, thanks to funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the Penn State Department of Aerospace Engineering are part of a team led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) whose proposal for a revolutionary rotorcraft to investigate Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has been selected by NASA as one of two finalists for the agency’s next New Frontiers mission.

• share
• favorite_border

Providing safer drinking water to those in need may be a little easier. According to Penn State researchers, a new desalination technique is able to remove salt from water using less energy than previous methods.

• share
• favorite_border

To help fill the need for six million workers trained in nanotechnology and nanofabrication, Penn State's Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization and its Nanotechnology Professional Development Partnership are offering free live stream nanotechnology workshops for educators.

• share
• favorite_border

Transportation professionals from around the state, mid-Atlantic region and country will gather for the 23rd annual Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference (TESC). Held December 6-8, at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center and hosted by the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, TESC brings together experts in industry and academia to discuss some of the most important issues in transportation.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Science Foundation has awarded more than $446,000 for a new collaborative engineering project that will allow drivers to make more informed travel decisions and allow government organizations to better regulate travel within heavily congested major metropolitan areas.

• share
• favorite_border

The addition of a nature-like fish passage to a Susquehanna River dam in Pennsylvania should allow migrating fish to more easily reach spawning grounds, according to Penn State researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

A Penn State-led research team is hoping to enlist insects as allies in an effort to make crops more tolerant of environmental stressors, after the crops are already growing in the greenhouse or field.

• share
• favorite_border

Penn State researchers are using DARPA funding to teach computers how to generate original design ideas and then determine if those ideas are feasible in the real world.

• share
• favorite_border

Industrial engineering graduate students on a Service Engineering Academic Learning team explore drone-enabled services with a new initiative called SmartPark. This drone-based intelligent parking system aims to revolutionize the parking industry by identifying the nearest vacant parking spot in real time using an innovative mobile app.

• share
• favorite_border

Judith A. Todd, P.B. Breneman department head chair and professor of engineering science and mechanics, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of ASM International.

• share
• favorite_border

Scarlett Miller, associate professor of engineering design and industrial engineering, and a team of researchers are trying to create a unified, cross-disciplinary system to measure creative ideas.

• share
• favorite_border

With two grants awarded by the National Science Foundation, the Penn State Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization will develop a Nanotechnology Professional Development Partnership to continue providing leading-edge nanotechnology education.

• share
• favorite_border

Given Pennsylvania’s abundant natural resources, it’s no surprise that the commonwealth has become a mecca for hydraulic fracturing. Researchers, however, have recently discovered that releasing millions of gallons of treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater each year into area surface waters may have longer-lasting effects than originally thought.

• share
• favorite_border

Amy R. Pritchett has been named the department head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State, effective Aug. 15.

• share
• favorite_border

Through the Integrative Seed Grant Program, offered through the Penn State Office for General Education, Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, will develop and teach a course titled "Robots and Their Role in Society."

• share
• favorite_border

Earthquakes and explosions damage thousands of structures worldwide each year, destroying countless lives in their wake, but a team of researchers at Penn State is examining a completely new way of safeguarding key infrastructure, thanks to a $50,000 Multidisciplinary Research Seed Grant provided by the College of Engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

A multidisciplinary team of researchers has received a $25,000 seed grant from the Penn State Institute for CyberScience to develop a modeling platform to predict the deformability and morphological changes of diseased and aged red blood cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Namiko Yamamoto, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, was recently awarded $447,663 through the Office of Naval Research Sea-Based Aviation Airframe Structures and Materials program to study fundamental toughening mechanisms of novel ceramic composites and their use as alternative materials for high-temperature applications in the aerospace industry.

• share
• favorite_border

Penn State researchers have created a new hybrid technology that produces unprecedented amounts of electrical power where seawater and freshwater combine at the coast.

• share
• favorite_border

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State, and a group of multi-university researchers have conceived an inexpensive solar cell that could provide electricity for every home in underdeveloped and emerging economies.

• share
• favorite_border

New research at Penn State addresses the impact delivery trucks have on the environment by providing green solutions that keep costs down without sacrificing efficiency.

• share
• favorite_border

The Penn State Wind Energy Club breezed through the field at the U.S. Department of Energy Collegiate Wind Competition 2017 Technical Challenge, held April 20-22 at the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder, Colorado—earning its third overall victory in four years at the Collegiate Wind Competition.

• share
• favorite_border

Penn State is a member of a multi-university research team led by researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Tickle College of Engineering that was selected by NASA to explore transformative system-level aviation innovations as part of NASA Aeronautics’ University Leadership Initiative.