Technology for Living Systems Center
A commitment to a healthy planet and healthy people
The Technology for Living Systems Center offers a holistic approach that leverages advanced and emerging technologies to address key challenges in improving productivity and sustainability of crop and livestock systems, managing and expanding our natural resources, ensuring access to clean water, combatting biodiversity losses, and helping rural and urban communities thrive.
What we do
- Leverage technology, artificial intelligence, modeling, and data visualization (including artificial and immersive realities) to support human decision making
- Study the challenges that face farms, forests, wetlands, waterways and cities
- Improve resiliency of our crops, forests, and community health
- Promote biodiversity
- Co-develop projects with our stakeholders and focus in at scales that appropriate to our unique landscapes
Research Areas

Livestock and wildlife monitoring

Insect population and community monitoring

Plant disease monitoring

Robotics for management and harvesting

Controlled environment agriculture

Habitat quality monitoring

Modeling for crop management and conservation

Decision support tool development
Latest News
January 22, 2025
‘Buzz me in:’ Bees wearing itty bitty QR codes reveal hive secrets
Several hundred bees in rural Pennsylvania and rural New York are sporting tiny QR codes on their backs to track when they go in and out of their hives. The work, a collaboration among entomologists and electrical engineers at Penn State, is the first step in solving a long-standing mystery of how far bees travel from their hives to collect pollen and nectar.
Read More
December 18, 2024
New treatment for dairy cows could help fight antibiotic resistance, study finds
A concentrated sugar solution could be just as effective as antibiotics at treating a common infection in dairy cows, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State.
Read More
November 22, 2024
Alternate stream water-testing method detects emerging contaminants
Pollutants known as “contaminants of emerging concern” or chemicals that could potentially harm human health and have been found in the environment, including pesticides, ingredients from personal care products, pharmaceuticals and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are increasingly found in streams and lakes. A team led by researchers at Penn State recently demonstrated the accuracy and utility of a new method to find even very low levels of these substances in surface waters. They reported their findings in the Science of the Total Environment.
Read More
November 19, 2024
Nittany AI Alliance fuels friends’ efforts to make an impact one yard at a time
Two best friends who met as undergrads at Penn State never knew how powerful their friendship could be until they joined together to form a Nittany AI Challenge team. With the continued support of the GeoEd Foundation and the Nittany AI Alliance they are developing Project Green Thumb, an application to help builders, homeowners, landscapers plant and maintain native, eco-friendly landscapes that support wildlife.
Read More
For more information on gifts to the Technologies for Living Systems Center, please contact
- Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology
- Email cmgrozinger@psu.edu
- Office 814-865-2214
Director, Technologies for Living Systems Center
- Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology
- Email cmgrozinger@psu.edu
- Office 814-865-2214