"The two new buildings will strengthen and broaden the college's educational programs, advance its research capabilities, allow us to engage new faculty in emerging areas and deepen the college's impact on society," said Justin Schwartz, the Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering. "In short, we will have not built just new buildings, but new opportunities for faculty and students to elevate their thinking to transform the world." >>
MARCH 2019
FEATURES
NSF CAREER Award focused on brain mechanics dedicated to Institute for CyberScience staff
Bolstered by a new National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Reuben Kraft, Penn State assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, co-hire of the Institute for CyberScience (ICS), and affiliate of the Center of Neural Engineering and Neuroscience programs, seeks to contribute to the understanding of brain trauma by developing advanced computer models that link neuroimaging results, biomechanical assessments, and computational modeling of the brain.>>
Researchers find potential key to a future of flexible electronics
Conjugated polymers, plastics that conduct electricity like copper or silicon, hold promise for the creation of flexible electronics such as bendable displays and implantable biomedical sensors. Understanding charge transfer in these materials is key to creating such next-generation electronics and is the focus of a three-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation.>>
Firefly-inspired surfaces improve efficiency of LED lightbulbs
A new type of light-emitting diode lightbulb could one day light homes and reduce power bills, according to Penn State electrical engineering researchers who suggest that LEDs made with firefly-mimicking structures could improve efficiency.>>
Tiny fibers create unseen plastic pollution
While the polyester leisure suit was a 1970s mistake, polyester and other synthetic fibers like nylon are still around and are a major contributor to the microplastics load in the environment, according to a Penn State materials scientist, who suggests switching to biosynthetic fibers to solve this problem.>>
PoreDesigner process improves water treatment, bioseparations
A team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created PoreDesigner, a fully automated computational workflow process for altering the pore size of a bacterial channel protein. This enables assembly of the proteins into artificial membranes for precise sub-nanometer scale separation of solutes of marginal size difference, which can improve water purification and laboratory bioseparations.>>
Researchers look for successful end to power grid failures
Anyone who has experienced an extended power outage knows that the effects can go well beyond inconvenient and become outright dangerous. Luckily, with the help of a $999,000 National Science Foundation Cyber Physical Systems grant, Nilanjan Ray Chaudhuri, assistant professor in electrical engineering and principal investigator on the project, is working to prevent failures in the power grid and enable a quick recovery when they do occur.>>
RECOGNITIONS & AWARDS
Penn State faculty elected senior members of the National Academy of Inventors>>
Lakhtakia receives prestigious centenary award from IIT (BHU) >>
