Recent and Upcoming Events

Celebrating Women in Energy and Water Research Lecture Series launched fall 2021

A new seminar series was established by EME to celebrate women conducting energy and water research, to highlight their successes, to engage women students, and to provide an opportunity for faculty to establish and expand their professional network and mentoring relationships.

The first two seminars in the Celebrating Women in Energy and Water Research Lecture Series, one experimental and the other technical, were held on September 16, featuring Joan B. Rose, Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University.

The lecture series was established in 2021, with support from the Penn State Educational Equity Equal Opportunity Planning Committee. The series includes both experiential seminars aimed toward a broad, interdisciplinary audience and technical seminars dedicated to the speaker’s research. Recordings of the seminars are available on EME’s YouTube channel.

Energy Days 2022

The theme for the upcoming Energy Days 2022, which will be held May 25 and 26 at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center, is Mobilizing Energy and Climate Solutions. The focus will be on what it will take to mobilize solutions that achieve net zero emissions or beyond. Within this theme, there will be four conference tracks:

1. Advancing Technology Research and Development
2. Addressing Energy Inclusion, Equity, and Justice
3. Catalyzing Capital Investment
4. Achieving Implementation

Keynote speakers, panels, breakout sessions, and a poster session will allow for deep discussion and engagement within these tracks.

Energy of the Future seminar series

The seminar series, Energy of the Future, established in 2019 by the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering (EME) in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, aims to further the discussion on important energy topics and inspire collaboration across institutions. Recent seminars included:

• September 30: “Characterizing and Controlling the Propagation of Mechanical Discontinuity Using Unsupervised, Supervised, and Reinforcement Learning Techniques,” Siddharth Misra, associate professor in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering and the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Texas A&M University.
• October 15: “Climate and Energy Transition,” David A.T. Donohue, technical specialist, businessperson, attorney, and founder and president of the IHRDC and the Arlington Group.
• October 21: “Control of Plasma Chemistry and Dynamics for Low Carbon Energy Conversion,” Yiguang Ju, Robert Porter Patterson Professor at Princeton University.
• November 11: “Locally Desirable Energy Development,” Hannah Wiseman, professor of law and Wilson Faculty Fellow in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State.
• December 2: “Battery Systems Engineering—Enabling Mobility and Grid Independence,” Christopher D. Rahn, associate dean for innovation and J. Lee Everett Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering at Penn State. He also is the director of the Mechatronics Research Laboratory and co-director of the Battery and Energy Storage Technology Center.

Dope Labs Science Communication Week at Penn State

The topic-specific workshops were designed to introduce early career faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to the broader science communication community and teach them to use social media, storytelling, and a web presence to network with other scientists and engage with diverse audiences. The event was run by Dope Labs Podcast creators and hosts Zakiya Whatley and Titi Shodiya and sponsored by the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute with support from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the EMS Energy Institute, and the college’s Department of Geosciences, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.

Dope Labs Science Communication Week took place in February via Zoom.