The Millennium Café runs 10-11am in the 3rd floor Café Commons of the MSC Bldg. Join researchers from across campus for a stellar cup of coffee and two <10 min interdisciplinary talks. All Millennium Café events are free and open to the Penn State community, include coffee and breakfast pastries, and are held in the third floor Café Commons of the Millennium Science Complex at University Park.
Do You Want To Go To The Land Down Under?
Jenni Evans | Director, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences
Penn State and Monash University (in Melbourne, Australia) share some important characteristics: our intellectual culture and our research strengths are very well aligned. Penn State and Monash are now official partners, with a Memorandum of Understanding having been signed last September by President Neeli Bendapudi and Monash President Margaret Gardner (a good question to ask will be “where is Margaret now?”). This partnership opens up a world of opportunities for researchers at both universities. I've just returned from a visit to Monash and will share with you what I've learned and as much as I can from your questions. Get ready to pack your bags and to taste test Vegemite!
The Role of Nuclear Materials in Advancing Nuclear Forensic Examination
Jon Schwantes | Nuclear Engineering
The International Atomic Energy Agency defines nuclear forensics as …the examination of nuclear or other radioactive material, or of evidence that is contaminated (or comingled) with radionuclides, in the context of legal proceedings under international or national laws related to nuclear security. Historically, isotopic analyses of uranium and plutonium have been relied upon to provide key insights into the reactor or enrichment operations used to create special nuclear materials found outside of regulatory control (MORC). However, isotopic information provides no clues to the chemical process history of unknown materials. For this, scientists are attempting to exploit, among other things, morphological and microstructural features to reconstruct the process history of MORC…but many challenges remain.
After Café: “Characterization of Organic Thin Films and Surfaces” immediately following the Café on Tuesday will be a 30 minute multi-technique and interdisciplinary talk highlighting advantages and complications of several approaches for determining the structure and composition of organic thin films (less than 100 nm) with an emphasis on vibrational spectroscopy (FT-IR and Raman) while also highlighting other select techniques such as AFM-IR and XPS. The pros, cons, and sampling considerations for each technique will be demonstrated using various examples from work performed in MCL and literature.