Latest News

January 13, 2020

When Jay Stauffer made his first trip to Lake Malawi in 1983, just before joining the faculty in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, he never dreamed that the trip would be the genesis of his career focus and that it would yield valuable partnerships for the University.

January 6, 2020

As a longtime professor of environmental soil science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, Rick Stehouwer has studied this famed “chernozem” soil, knowledge he acquired through books, lectures and lab samples.

December 9, 2019

Animal infectious illnesses such as avian influenza and African swine fever pose a significant threat to animal health and welfare and can cause economic instability and food insecurity for people all over the world.

December 9, 2019

Chocolate-producing cacao trees that are resistant to a major pathogen were identified by an international team of plant geneticists. The findings point the way for plant breeders to develop trees that are tolerant of the disease.

December 9, 2019

The NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium (PSGC) is currently accepting applications to its graduate research fellowship program. The program offers funding to outstanding students in the STEM, education and humanities fields who are conducting research related to NASA’s science and outreach missions. The deadline to apply is March 1, 2020.

December 9, 2019

People who eat wildebeests, warthogs and other wild African animals may be at risk for contracting potentially life-threatening diseases, according to an international team of researchers. The team analyzed samples of bushmeat — meat derived from wildlife — in the Western Serengeti in Tanzania and identified several groups of bacteria, many of which contain the species that cause diseases such as anthrax, brucellosis and Q fever.

December 2, 2019

A research team developing artificial-intelligence-based solutions for diagnosing and managing threats to crop health has received a grant to expand the technology to assist more smallholder farmers around the world.

December 2, 2019

A transition from wild collection of herbs to forest farming needs to occur in Appalachia to make the opaque, unstable and unjust supply chain for forest medicinal plants such as ginseng sustainable, according to a team of researchers who have studied the market for more than a decade.

November 19, 2019

Terry Etherton, head of the Department of Animal Science in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, received the 2019 Distinguished Service Award at the recent annual meeting of the Northeast Section of the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) and the Northeast Branch of the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) in Hershey.

November 19, 2019

Three organic-agriculture projects led by faculty members in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have received grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

November 19, 2019

Jayson Harper, who had been interim director of the Fruit Research and Extension Center in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences since March 1, has been named to the post on a standing basis.

November 19, 2019

Rick Roush, dean of Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, has been elected as an Entomological Society of America Fellow, an honor that acknowledges his outstanding contributions to entomology in research, teaching, extension and outreach.

November 19, 2019

Urban development in the eastern United States results in an increase in flash flooding in nearby streams, but in the arid West, urbanization has just the opposite effect, according to a Penn State researcher, who suggests there may be lessons to be learned from the sharp contrast.

October 31, 2019

A unique undertaking in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will shine a light on how solar farms can contribute to healthy ecosystems and boost pollinator populations.

October 21, 2019

A unique thesis project in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences showcases the stories of women in urban agriculture through photographs captured by the participants themselves.

October 21, 2019

Two graduate students from South Africa recently had the opportunity to expand their research, develop a mentorship network and increase multicultural fluency as a result of a strategic partnership between the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria.

October 10, 2019

$7.3 million grant awarded to Penn State will support an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers as they conduct research and develop strategies to combat the spotted lanternfly.

October 7, 2019

A nearly $4 million grant awarded to Penn State will support an interdisciplinary, multi-university team of researchers as they explore bacterial pathogens causing leaf spot diseases that are damaging valuable agricultural crops such as watermelon and pumpkin.

October 3, 2019

Hangsheng "Henry" Lin, a highly respected soil scientist who was widely regarded as the founding father of hydropedology and a much-loved friend and Penn State colleague, died Sept. 26, at the age of 54 in his State College home after a battle with lung cancer.

October 2, 2019

Victoria Braithwaite, a highly regarded expert on animal behavior and cognition and a much-loved friend and colleague, died Sept. 30 at the age of 52 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

October 2, 2019

Undergraduate students from the Penn State chapter of Engineers Without Borders have launched a collaboration with the Namutamba community in Uganda to improve the community’s access to potable water.

October 2, 2019

Cassidy Prince has learned a great deal about foodborne pathogens while working in the lab of Jasna Kovac, Penn State assistant professor of food science. She also has learned how gratifying it can be to pass what she has learned onto others.

October 2, 2019

Research Unplugged, the popular series of stimulating conversations with Penn State researchers, returns to Schlow Centre Region Library in October.

October 2, 2019

The Pennsylvania child-welfare system places thousands of children from across the state into adoptive families. Penn State researchers recently received a $3.8 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to explore successful post-adoption development in children.

October 2, 2019

Undergraduate students from across the country are returning to Penn State next week for the first international conference on the science of drawdown, the point at which greenhouse gases in the atmosphere begin to decline. The students, participants in this past summer’s Penn State Drawdown Scholars Research Experience for Undergraduates Program, will present results from their summer research projects from Sept. 16-18.

October 2, 2019

A new way of measuring how relationships in a network change over time can reveal important details about the network, according to researchers at Penn State and the Korean Rural Economic Institute. For example, when applied to the world economy, the method detected the greatest amount of network change during 2008-09, the time of the global financial crisis.

October 2, 2019

A new study provides an updated picture of the prevalence of the sheep and goat plague virus (PPRV), a widespread and often fatal disease that threatens 80 percent of the world’s sheep and goats, in northern Tanzania.