Latest News

April 17, 2026

Long before she led reforestation efforts in her native Lebanon, Maya Nehme was a graduate student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, researching ways to combat invasive species threatening forests. Even then, her vision extended beyond the lab — helping to inspire what would become the college’s international agriculture and development graduate dual-title degree program, known as INTAD.

April 15, 2026

The Penn State Fox Graduate School Alumni Society has announced the recipients of its 2026 alumni awards, recognizing three graduates whose achievements exemplify the values of leadership, service and professional excellence.

April 14, 2026

A team of plant scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $1.96 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund a study of how beneficial plant-bacteria partnerships evolve, persist, and can be harnessed to improve health and agriculture.

April 14, 2026

To meet global demand for American ginseng, the medicinal plant traditionally collected in the forests of Appalachia and traded and used internationally, the plant now is commonly cultivated on forest farms in the U.S. Northeast. But new research has revealed that much of the seed for that agroforestry enterprise is coming from field-based, artificial-shade ginseng farms in Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada — and it may be influencing the genetics of naturally occurring ginseng.

April 13, 2026

The Communication, Science & Society Initiative, a research partnership between Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences in the College of the Liberal Arts, has announced the grant recipients from its 2025 request for proposals.

April 9, 2026

Planting grass groundcovers within the vineyard row can benefit vineyard soils and reduce the need for herbicide applications.

April 9, 2026

Thirty-one Penn State graduate students earned awards at the 2026 Graduate Exhibition — the premier annual community showcase for graduate student research, scholarship and creative activity across the University — hosted by the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School on Friday, March 27, on the University Park campus.

April 9, 2026

As climate change accelerates and threats from pests and diseases intensify, a growing cohort of Penn State researchers is developing innovative solutions to help crops not only survive but also thrive.

April 8, 2026

Cocoa Potash was named the winner of the inaugural Land Grant Startup Launch Competition held in late March in the Dr. Kiko Miwa Ross Atrium of the Business Building.

April 8, 2026

The Huck Distinguished Lecture Series in April will feature Tanya Berger-Wolf of The Ohio State University and Wah Chiu of Stanford University, highlighting advances in artificial intelligence for biodiversity research and cryogenic electron microscopy for biomedical discovery.

April 7, 2026

Six University faculty members have received 2026 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement: Amy Bridger, assistant research professor of higher education strategy at Penn State Behrend; Cui-Zu Chang, professor of physics in the Eberly College of Science; Alexander Hristov, distinguished professor of dairy nutrition in the College of Agricultural Sciences; Michelle Newman, professor of psychology and psychiatry in the College of the Liberal Arts; Xingjie Ni, associate professor of electrical engineering in the College of Engineering; and David Witwer, distinguished professor of Ame

April 6, 2026

Four Penn State faculty members in the biological sciences, engineering and statistics have been elected to the latest cohort of fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. 

April 6, 2026

A team led by Penn State scientists has developed a way to chemically characterize and identify individual tannins — water-soluble compounds found in both wood and grape skins — in wine that come from oak barrels and contribute to its flavor profile.

April 6, 2026

Not having enough food may have had a greater negative effect on mental health in the United States than unemployment or loss of income during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study led by Penn State researchers.

April 3, 2026

While the COVID-19 pandemic challenged all veterans transitioning to civilian life, female post-9/11 veterans experienced a sharper decline in overall well-being compared to their male counterparts, according to new research from the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State.

April 2, 2026

On a recent episode of “Growing Impact,” Penn State researchers discussed their Institute of Energy and the Environment seed grant project studying groundwater governance in India and the impacts of a large-scale, community-based water management initiative.

April 1, 2026

Jason L. Rasgon, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Endowed Chair in Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

March 31, 2026

Four graduate students have received awards in the 2025-26 Penn State Three Minute Thesis Competition, hosted by the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School. The four students competed against six other students in the final round on Mar. 28 at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus.

March 25, 2026

Deah Lieurance, assistant professor of invasive species biology and management in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, was one of five keynote speakers at the Alien Species in Iceland Workshop hosted by the Marine and Freshwater Institute in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland, on March 16-17, sponsored by the Natural Science Institute of Iceland and Fulbright Iceland.

March 24, 2026

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.

March 18, 2026

When Eva SinhaRoy arrived at University Park a couple years ago, she was a little overwhelmed at the possibilities. The science-minded student knew she wanted to focus on research, but she also wanted to build skills in other areas such as leadership. Since then, she's found her place in undergraduate research, leadership, and campus activities such as THON and the Presidential Leadership Academy.

March 16, 2026

The Penn State community is invited to watch the culmination of the 2025-26 Penn State Three Minute Thesis competition, where 10 graduate students will summarize their research and its impact while competing for monetary prizes of up to $1,000. The event will take place at 3 p.m. March 28 at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus and also will be livestreamed.

March 16, 2026

When farmers apply poultry litter — chicken manure — to fields as fertilizer, it adds nutrients like phosphorus to the soil that plants need. However, phosphorus can dissolve in water and runoff into streams instead of going into crops, causing water pollution and economic loss for farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A team led by Penn State researchers recently demonstrated that the use of a novel soil additive might effectively reduce phosphorus runoff.

March 13, 2026

A long-running debate in vaccine design revolves around whether a vaccine should be optimized to prevent the virus from replicating inside an infected host or prevent the virus from transmitting to others. New research led by Penn State scientists suggests there may not have to be a tradeoff.

March 5, 2026

The inaugural Penn State-Ghana Research Partnerships Seed Grant Program has awarded nine projects to fuel global impact, including crop disease surveillance, removing heavy metals from mining wastewater and understanding multimodal traffic streams.

March 4, 2026

The Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences announced a call for 2026-27 Seed Grant Program funding proposals, due by May 1. Huck seed grants foster innovative, interdisciplinary and collaborative life sciences research with the potential to drive scientific breakthroughs and generate new research directions leading to impactful externally funded research.