Hilal Ezgi Toraman, Penn State assistant professor of energy engineering and chemical engineering, has been named the Virginia S. and Philip L. Walker Jr. Faculty Fellow in Materials Science and Engineering and Fuel Science Program. The fellowship was awarded to Toraman for her contributions to teaching, research and service in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.

A Penn State researcher is a part of a multi-university team that received a $513,000 grant to study the decision-making process that governs how people in the U.S. receive electricity. Seth Blumsack, professor in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and director of the Center for Energy Law and Policy, is co-leading an interdisciplinary team investigating how the rules for the power grid are made and how they affect the real world.

Zuleima Karpyn, professor of petroleum and natural gas, has been appointed associate dean of graduate education and research in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Karpyn will start in her new role effective July 1. 

On April 15, 2020, UCFER released its sixth request for proposals (RFP) to the member Coalition. The RFP will close on June 10, 2020 at 5 p.m. EST. The proposals received will be reviewed by the Technical Advisory Council, Core Competency Board, external reviewers, and the Executive Council.

Two researchers have become cofunded faculty members in the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE): Hee Jeung Oh, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering, and Hilal Ezgi Toraman, an assistant professor in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences with a joint appointment in the College of Engineering.

The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ annual celebration of accomplishments was hosted virtually on Sunday, April 26, 2020.

A multi-disciplinary collaborative relationship, developed between Penn State EMS Energy Institute researchers and a Pittsburgh-based start-up company, may hold the answer to reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while also paving the way to disrupt the chemical and material industries.

Dr. Caitlin Ting has been named the interim director of the University Fellowships Office (UFO), effective May 8.

Ting said her academic journey at Penn State has followed a common thread: aiding undergraduate students.