News

Penn State’s research expenditures reached a record high for the third year in a row in fiscal year 2018-19, according to incoming Senior Vice President for Research Lora Weiss. The total figure of $968 million represents a $47 million increase over last year’s figure, and includes a record $593 million in federal funding, as well as $375 million from a combination of private funders, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and University sources. 

Zi-Kui Liu, Penn State distinguished professor of materials science and engineering, is a co-principal investigator for the study and is part of the team that will design an integrated computational and experimental workflow driven by data science and machine learning tools. 

A team of researchers, led by Long-Qing Chen, Donald W. Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, received a four-year grant to advance the science of quantum materials at the mesoscale.

Katelyn Kirchner, a MatSE senior, earned a prestigious Astronaut Scholarship which recognizes outstanding students from the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In 2018, Penn State and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia launched the Joint Collaboration Development Program, a jointly financed seed-fund program with the aim to collaborate on research projects. The first round of seed funding saw 23 projects funded. The two institutions have committed these seed funds for a second year, around the intersection of health and the environment.

Joe Sinclair, the first graduate of the master of engineering in additive manufacturing and design master’s (AMD) program through Penn State World Campus, just launched his third business — Verde Mantis, LLC, which focuses on bringing 3D printing or additive manufacturing to the masses with its latest product, the 3D Mantis Printer.

The winners of the 11th annual Materials Visualization Competition, a scientific visual and artistic competition sponsored by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute at Penn State, have been announced.

Penn State will host the 2019 Materials Science Undergraduate Education Conference to address the dramatic growth of undergraduate student enrollment in materials science and engineering programs and the impacts on all stakeholders.

Undergraduate students from across Penn State and the world capped off their Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs with a research symposium on July 30. 

Sarah Lowum, a materials science and engineering doctoral student in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS), received a 2019 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to investigate how to improve the cold sintering process (CSP).