News

As an international perfumer and senior majoring in materials science and engineering at Penn State, Tianyou Lou sees parallels between the two disciplines. After all, the creation of both fragrances and materials are traced back to producing a specific thing with unique and tailored properties using a nearly infinite number of source materials.

When used as wearable medical devices, stretchy, flexible gas sensors can identify health conditions or issues by detecting oxygen or carbon dioxide levels in the breath or sweat. They also are useful for monitoring air quality in indoor or outdoor environments by detecting gas, biomolecules and chemicals. But manufacturing the devices, which are created using nanomaterials, can be a challenge. 

Taylor Rosen has been selected as the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' student marshal for the University’s fall 2022 commencement ceremony. The ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17, in the Bryce Jordan Center on the University Park campus.

A new type of active pixel sensor that uses a novel two-dimensional material may both enable ultra-sharp cellphone photos and create a new class of extremely energy-efficient Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, according to a team of Penn State researchers.  

At a large school like Penn State, it can sometimes be hard to find your niche — however, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Academy for Global Experience, or EMSAGE, encouraged senior Mufaddal Gheewala to discover his place on campus.

The Materials Research Institute (MRI) offers a series of seed grants to Penn State researchers that encourage high-risk, high-impact collaborative projects across multiple disciplines with great potential for societal benefit. Currently, calls for proposals are open for two seed grant programs.  

Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering and physics at Penn State, remembers fondly the tidy, patterned shapes called "kolams" that adorned the entrances of homes in Southern India. The ancient practice of drawing symmetrical patterns which snake around a grid of dots, also called "pulli kolam" in Tamil language, is drawn daily by millions conventionally using rice flour.

Allison Beese, associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering, will serve as co-director of the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition, effective Jan 1.

Sometimes friction is good, such as the friction between a road and a car’s tires to prevent the vehicle from skidding. But sometimes friction is bad — if you did not put oil in that very same car, there would be so much friction in the bearings of the engine that the car could not operate. 

Whether you are perusing this article on an electronic device driven by a semiconductor chip or via a paper printout, the ability to read these words is in a large part due to innovative materials research that led to a product in use in society. And the future holds more innovation in materials research, including at Penn State. The 2022 Materials Day event, presented by the Materials Research Institute with the theme “Materials Impacting Society,” featured a look at what might be on the horizon as far as materials research with positive societal impact.