News

An inaugural University-wide undergraduate research symposium will showcase work being conducted by women, minorities and first-year students in STEM fields. The event features research from more than 30 participants through Penn State’s WISER/MURE/FURP program. The symposium will be held from 5:15 to 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 in the atrium of the Steidle Building on the University Park campus.

Careful sample preparation, electron tomography and quantitative analysis of 3D models provides unique insights into the inner structure of reverse osmosis membranes widely used for salt water desalination wastewater recycling and home use, according to a team of chemical engineers.

A wearable energy-harvesting device could generate energy from the swing of an arm while walking or jogging, according to a team of researchers from Penn State's Materials Research Institute and the University of Utah. 

Jason Munro, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering, credits two recent scholarships with allowing him to pursue research that's both his passion and relevant to advancing the needs of society.

According to research by John Mauro power-law distribution explains accidents in the workplace and how best to minimize them.

Ralph Colby has partnered with two other Penn State researchers to get a better basic understanding of how plastics cool from a liquid to solid shape in injection molding.

Glass has been a part of society for thousands of years, so it is easy for this material to become invisible and overlooked, but a Penn State materials scientist has laid out a plan to map the glass genome and advance the future of glass. (The effort is part of the Materials Genome Initiative, which is trying to double the speed of developing new materials.)

For the first time, researchers have created a nanocomposite of ceramics and a two-dimensional material, opening the door for new designs of nanocomposites with such applications as solid-state batteries, thermoelectrics, varistors, catalysts, chemical sensors and much more.

Californians do not purchase electric vehicles because they are cool, they buy EVs because they live in a warm climate. Conventional lithium-ion batteries cannot be rapidly charged at temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but now a team of Penn State engineers has created a battery that can self-heat, allowing rapid charging regardless of the outside chill.

A team led by Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory, in collaboration with the Center for Innovative Processing thru Direct Digital Deposition, has received a $1.4 million grant by the Air Force Research Laboratory to examine the random flaws that arise during the process of powder bed fusion additive manufacturing.