Alumni News

It was around 11 a.m. — about an hour after the morning’s frost had lifted — and Garrett Bastardi, flanked by about 100 other golfers, was still patiently waiting with friends for a 9:30 a.m. tee time at a North Carolina golf course.

Jim McCrory, the senior line pilot at Aspen Helicopters in Oxnard, California, has always been fascinated with location.

The subpoena arrived at 9:45 p.m. on Friday, ordering the fictitious Wolfhelm Mining Ltd. executive team to appear in court.

When Tom Rauch left Penn State in 2013 with dual degrees in mining engineering and energy business and finance, he entered the extractive industries set on making an impact with his unique skill set of business acumen and passion for solving critical societal needs.

Titilayo Shodiya, a graduate of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, was one 16 recipients selected to receive the Alumni Achievement Award from the Penn State Alumni Association. 

Carl Chelius had a pretty exciting job as assistant professor and senior research pilot for the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences — flying Twin Commander 680E airplanes for research — but the thing he most loved was teaching and interacting with the students.

Penn State alumnus Joe Gofus remembers precisely when he knew that he wasn’t going to become a weather forecaster.

Marilyn Fogel, who graduated in 1973 with a degree in biology, may have come to Penn State for the football games, but she left with an appreciation for the interdisciplinary research that would define her career.

The Penn State and materials research communities are mourning the loss of Della M. Roy, emeritus professor of materials science and a founding member of the Penn State Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), now the Materials Research Institute (MRI). Della died on March 27 at age 94. 

There’s an old adage that goes if you can instill in someone a piece of advice, a bit of knowledge, then through them that lives forever. What you started passes on through generations.