Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems
What if the same technologies that help us grow more food could also conserve our ecosystems and help our communities flourish?
The College of Agricultural Sciences envisions a future where advanced technologies help create sustainable, resilient agricultural systems interconnected with the living systems that sustain them.
A new vision for twenty-first century agroecosystems
The Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems (TALiS) initiative is a unique, holistic approach that balances the need for increased food productivity and efficiency with a dedication to conserving our vital living systems.
These living systems include agriculture but also the adjacent forests, wetlands, and waterways—along with the biodiversity of plants, insects, and animals, and the resilience of our rural and urban communities. Pennsylvania’s landscapes offer an excellent testbed for integrating technologies across these different types of agriculture, natural, and social ecosystems. We envision Pennsylvania as a leader in developing and testing these integrated agroecosystems, serving as a living laboratory for scalable and practical solutions.
The TALiS initiative establishes a framework and roadmap to grow and support an entire pipeline of technological solutions, from early development to real-world application. These innovations in farming and ecology dramatically improve our ability to monitor and manage production and access to food, biodiversity and natural resources, and human health and wellbeing. This approach ensures a stable food supply, promotes environmental conservation, and boosts the economy of Pennsylvania by fostering innovation and creating new job opportunities.
Leading balanced innovation through the TALiS initiative.
Developing and testing emerging and advanced technologies from the lab to the field.
About the Symposium The Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems Symposium initiates and fosters the productive partnerships necessary for the integration of emerging and advanced technologies to address the complex challenges we face with climate change, resource protection (soil, water, air), biodiversity losses, rural and urban health, and social and economic shifts within our communities.
TALiS Practitioners at Penn State are faculty from the College of Agricultural Sciences who are experts in their fields and practice under one or more of TALIS's three pillars: Robotics and Automation, Biotechnology, and Monitoring, Sensing, and Prediction.
Latest News
May 25, 2026
Digital platform Kumbu Connect wins 2026 Ag Springboard Competition
Penn State students had the opportunity to showcase their entrepreneurial aspirations at the 2026 Ag Springboard student business pitch contest, which took place last month in State College.
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May 19, 2026
New Beescape updates include county-level plant recommendations for pollinators
Penn State’s Beescape tool is gaining a new feature that allows users to download county-specific lists of pollinator-attractive plants, offering a more localized approach to improving pollinator habitats across Pennsylvania.
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May 6, 2026
Drones match farm planning effectiveness of more expensive tech, study finds
Environmental scientists and water resource managers need precise, high-resolution maps to reveal areas that farmers should avoid when planting crops, to limit polluting waters with phosphorus from fertilizer or manure. Making those maps has depended on an expensive, sometimes unavailable technology, but a team led by Penn State researchers has developed a cheaper approach that can be just as effective.
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March 24, 2026
Low-cost sensor system could warn farmers of salt stress in plants
Excessive salts in soil can restrict a plant’s water and nutrient uptake, hindering crop growth and reducing yields on roughly 30% of U.S. irrigated land. To help growers identify and mitigate salt stress, in a proof-of-concept study, a team led by Penn State researchers built a low-cost sensor system that detects signals released by plants in trouble.
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Meet the Director
- Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
- Director, Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems Initiative, College of Agricultural Sciences
Areas of Expertise
- Specialty crop mechanization and automation
- Precision agriculture applications for specialty crops
- Applications of artificial intelligence to agricultural systems management and control
- Email hzh@psu.edu
- Office 814-865-2633
