Penn State hosts 15 new NSF graduate researchers
The Graduate School at Penn State is pleased to host 15 new National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award recipients for the 2017-18 academic year.
The Graduate School at Penn State is pleased to host 15 new National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award recipients for the 2017-18 academic year.
Jennifer Baka, assistant professor in the department of geography, has been at Penn State for a little more than a year, but she has a lifetime of experience assessing the implications of energy. She grew up in a coal mining region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and watching the relationship a rural community has with a global enterprise factored into her choice to become an energy geographer. It's a field that combines political and industrial ecology to look at how energy projects impact all segments of society.
CAUSE 2018: Living on the Edge – Plate Tectonics and Society (EMSC 470 Sp/Su/Fall 2018) is an exploration of plate tectonics, from its mechanics to the role it plays in our society. The three semster course includes travel during Maymester 2018 where students will be able to trace the evolution of the western U.S. from Portland to San Francisco. Students will carry out individual and team-based projects of their choosing, and will work together virtually and in person across the three semesters.
A newly released report examines how flooding and recent changes to the federal flood insurance program are impacting rural Pennsylvania in unique ways.
Robert Brooks, Ruby S. and E. Willard Miller Professor of Geography and Ecology and director of Riparia, was elected a Fellow of the Society of Wetland Scientists, the society's highest honor, during a ceremony in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in June.
In the Rio Studio, advanced architecture and landscape architecture students used digital technology, including virtual reality, to explore design solutions for a Brazilian favela. Jose Duarte, Stuckeman Chair in Design Innovation at Penn State, has long been interested in how these unplanned communities take shape, and how they evolve. What are the hidden rules that underlie their emergence and growth? By decoding these rules, he says, we can both improve existing settlements and better face the design challenges of the future.
As rows of tents dotted the countryside, the Grange Fair offered a chance to get back to more simple times. But for members of the group WE ARE for Science, it was a chance to shape the future of science policy, education and public outreach. About 40 members of the group recently spent a day at the fair fielding questions from kids and parents alike, in areas such as astronomy, entomology and geosciences at their "Ask a Scientist" event.
The Department of African American Studies at Penn State is sponsoring a teach-in titled "Charlottesville: What Happened? What Now?" from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5, in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, at University Park.
The event is designed to help students and the larger Penn State community make sense of the events that unfolded in mid-August in Charlottesville, Virginia, and place them in a broader historical context.
Robert J. Farnsworth, a retired U.S. Army reconnaissance engineer and Penn State alumnus, was selected to receive the 2017 Lt. Michael P. Murphy Award in Geospatial Intelligence. He was honored during the 2017 United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) Symposium in San Antonio on June 5.
During the civil rights movement, activist groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) used geography and geospatial intelligence to identify protest sites and to plan civil rights protests. A new $373,000 National Science Foundation grant is letting researchers dig into those geospatial tactics to see what can be learned about patterns of racial inequality and how the SNCC collected and leveraged geospatial intelligence data to bolster its activist efforts.