Recent Changes

Penn State Extension, working with the landscape industry, is offering a new online workforce training series aimed at new and seasonal landscape industry employees.

World Food Prize Global Guides, a program created and supported by faculty in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, gives secondary teachers the knowledge, tools and resources to integrate global learning and food security into curriculum and practice.

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will host its annual Ag Sciences Career Day on Wednesday, Sept. 27, from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center. During the event, current students will have the opportunity to meet with representatives from a variety of career and academic fields to discuss internships, further education and full-time careers.

David M. Geiser, professor of mycology in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, was elected to the executive leadership of the Mycological Society of America, where he will serve successive terms as vice president, president-elect, president and past president over the next four years.

For longtime State College residents and Penn State alumni Dennis and Sandra Parker Hall, The Arboretum at Penn State holds a special place in their hearts due, in part, to all it offers not only to them as locals and volunteers, but also to the surrounding community and visitors from near and far. With that firmly in mind, the couple pledged a gift of $75,000 to name the future Fountain Garden Terrace.

From 6 to 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6, the public is invited to examine samples of fibers, cloth, dyebaths and the resultant colors. The lecture will cover modern interpretations of historical dye recipes and techniques from around the globe.

The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries — such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia — there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration.

The Penn State Center for Security Research and Education has awarded $152,500 in funding to six Penn State faculty through its 2023 grant program.

Dennis Decoteau, professor emeritus of horticulture and plant ecosystem health, recently retired from Penn State after a distinguished 26-year career in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Invent Penn State’s 2020 Summer Founders program, a 13-week student startup accelerator, wrapped up Aug. 12 in a virtual showcase after funding seven student-startup teams with $15,000 each to work on their startup, nonprofit, or social good full time over the summer. The program also matched teams with resources and entrepreneurial experts who provided mentorship.

Funding of up to $25 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will support a new Penn State-led collaboration with dairy industry associations and producers to develop and implement climate-smart practices on Pennsylvania dairy farms. The project is aimed at generating climate commodities that add value to dairy products along the supply chain and leveraging agriculture’s potential to provide solutions to climate change.

Penn State was named a collaborating institution in a $66 million U.S. Department of Energy Urban Integrated Field (Urban IFL) Program designed to study the impacts of climate change on American cities. The program will study the impacts of climate change in three major U.S. cities — Baltimore, Chicago and Austin — and involves more than 20 institutions nationwide. Penn State, along with eight other organizations, will support the Baltimore project, which is being led by Johns Hopkins University.

An often-overlooked water plant that can double its biomass in two days, capture nitrogen from the air — making it a valuable green fertilizer — and be fed to poultry and livestock could serve as life-saving food for humans in the event of a catastrophe or disaster, a new study led by Penn State researchers suggests

A new publication from Penn State Extension is a must-read for those who want the latest information about the invasive spotted lanternfly.

Penn State Extension is expanding a program that offers educational kiosks at produce auctions across the state. These kiosks provide growers with timely, relevant information on disease and pest identification and management, invasive species, and food safety.

The public is invited to attend “Water, Water, Everywhere!” — an event taking place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, at the Pasto Agricultural Museum. Registration is free.

The Pasto Agricultural Museum, in partnership with the Schlow Centre Region Library and Penn State Office of Community and Government Relations, will host a session of the Spring 2023 “Research Unplugged” series

The Penn State Collegiate Poultry Judging Team earned first place at the 55th National Collegiate Poultry Judging Contest held at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.  

Morgan Bear, a third-year agricultural and education extension major in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, exchanged a typical classroom setting for a mobile agriculture education lab last summer as an educational intern for the Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture Foundation.

An upcoming Penn State Extension webinar will focus on “missing middle” housing, a term that describes a range of multifamily or clustered building types, such as duplexes, rowhomes and courtyard apartments, that are compatible in scale with single-family homes. According to organizers, “missing middle” housing is intended to meet the demand for walkable neighborhoods, respond to changing demographics and provide housing at different price points.

Penn State researchers will study the monkeypox virus to understand the potential for it to spill over from humans to animals, as its pathogenesis — or disease development — in animal and human cells in vitro. In addition, they will study potential targets for therapeutics to treat the monkeypox disease.

Gregory Ziegler, professor of food science in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is the recipient of the 2020 Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award.

The Penn State Berkey Creamery and the Penn State Bakery have teamed up to create various new ice cream cookie sandwiches that can be shipped to most states in the U.S.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Pasto Agricultural Museum will host three “Research Unplugged” presentations Thursday afternoons in October, featuring Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences’ faculty talking about their studies in entomology.

In support of the Penn State Microbiome Center, Indigo Agriculture created the Indigo Agriculture Graduate Fellowship in the College of Agricultural Sciences through a $200,000 gift, matched 1:1 by the University through the now-concluded Graduate Scholarship Matching Program.

The Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences announced two new co-hires: Dana Calacci, assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and Enrico Casella, assistant professor of data science for animal systems in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Penn State’s student Soil Judging Team recently captured third place overall in a regional competition to qualify for the national championships next spring.

With a new $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Carolyn Lowry, a plant scientist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will lead a research team designing cover crop mixtures that are more effective at providing an array of ecosystem services.

A Penn State Extension land-use webinar on Sept. 21 will focus on the adaption-innovation theory, which examines individual and collective problem-solving approaches. Participants can gain insights into the diverse problem-solving styles within their communities and learn how to harness this diversity to drive innovation and create resilient, adaptable solutions. 

A machine vision system capable of locating and identifying apple king flowers within clusters of blossoms on trees in orchards was devised by Penn State researchers — a critical early step in the development of a robotic pollination system — in a first-of-its-kind study.