Nelson Dzade in front of a banner for ASESMA 2025

Nelson Dzade, Virginia S. and Philip L. Walker, Jr. Faculty Fellow in Materials Science and Engineering and the Fuel Sciences at Penn State, recently participated in the African School on Electronic Structure Methods and Applications (ASESMA), held in June at the University of Ghana.

A man and woman in lab coats checking a chemical bottle in a science lab

Penn State’s Sustainable Labs Program ushers participating labs through a yearlong certification process, guiding them in implementing sustainable practices across multiple domains, including energy efficiency, waste reduction, water conservation, green chemistry and sustainable purchasing. The program will host a virtual information session from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 18, and from 11 a.m. to noon on Friday, Feb. 21, for those interested in learning more or applying for the next cohort.

Trucks and well-logging equipment along a highway at sunrise

Oil produced from shale reservoirs drove record crude output in the U.S. over the past decade, but inefficiencies in extraction often leave as much as 90% of the oil behind, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Pengfei Guo

pkg5323@psu.edu

Title(s)

Graduate Student

Faculty members in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Nutifafa Doumon, left, and Nelson Dzade, recently earned U.S.-Africa Frontiers Fellowships by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to build high-impact research collaboration and strengthen capacity building with African scientists. Credit: David Kubarek / Penn State. Creative Commons

Two faculty members in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences have been awarded the prestigious U.S.-Africa Frontiers Fellowships by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) to build high-impact research collaboration and strengthen capacity building with African scientists. In addition, three African scientists will be visiting Penn State.

Tekin Ozdemir

tqo5131@psu.edu

Title(s)

Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA) Operations Director

More than 30 researchers from seven Penn State colleges received seed funding from the Institute of Energy and the Environment to advance innovative, early-stage work addressing critical energy and environmental challenges. Credit: Brenna Buck. All Rights Reserved.

Ten interdisciplinary research teams have received funding through the Institute of Energy and the Environment’s (IEE) 2025 Seed Grant Program. The program supports basic and applied research that lays the groundwork to pursue external funding and is guided by IEE’s five research themes. This year, the program awarded seed funding to 34 Penn State researchers across seven colleges and 17 departments and units.

GAP funding provides principal investigators with essential support on technology commercialization, including intellectual property protection, go-to-market strategies, marketing assistance and connections to industry experts, along with feedback from industry professionals, investors and entrepreneurs. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons

Eight research projects have been selected for support from the Penn State Commercialization GAP Fund. The GAP Fund is a competitive internal program designed to help promising technologies bridge the gap between academic research and industry adoption.

The Penn State team, “Sunny Valley,” which included Vaughn Kutish, Sophia Warnock, Michael Gurnee, Jaclyn Rawa, Kurt Phillips, and Maria Amalia Abreu, won their division focused on the “University of Oregon District Use Case.” Credit: Courtney Robinson / Penn State. Creative Commons

Six Penn State students recently won a first-place award in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar District Cup division, the second consecutive first-place division win for the University. The national collegiate competition challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model distributed energy systems for a campus or district, learning the industry-relevant skills to become leaders in clean energy. There were 81 teams participating in the competition.

Graduate students from left to right: Levent Taylan Ozgur Yildirim, Rosemary Tosanwumi, Ifeanyi Nwankwo, Nicolas Bueno and Nathan Sutton.

Thirteen Penn State engineering students from the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering (EME) in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences took home several awards and scholarships from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE) this spring.