Our graduate students are integral to the research we conduct, and they also are dedicated to making a difference in communities. Learn more about their research, outreach efforts, and other projects below.
Doctoral student melds passions for science, helping others in FEMA job
As an emergency management specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Association, Adrienne Kramer is applying her geography skills to build maps, analytical tools and other resources to help the agency improve its response and recovery operations.
Couple pulls from experiences to advance ties in Colombia with Fulbright awards
For both Zuleima Karpyn and Luis Ayala, leaving their home country of Venezuela for a Penn State education seemed like a daunting task. After all, they never could have imagined that it would lead to advancing their education, developing their careers as faculty members or meeting each other, resulting in a marriage that’s produced three children.
Microbes may help astronauts transform human waste into food
Human waste may one day be a valuable resource for astronauts on deep-space missions. Now, a Penn State research team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food with a series of microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimizing pathogen growth.
Century of data shows sea-level rise shifting tides in Delaware, Chesapeake bays
The warming climate is expected to affect coastal regions worldwide as glaciers and ice sheets melt, raising sea level globally. For the first time, an international team has found evidence of how sea-level rise already is affecting high and low tides in both the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, two large estuaries of the eastern United States.
GEOlab researchers shaping future of energy, disaster forecasting
Never has the world been better positioned to predict and respond to natural disasters. The stream of data at our fingertips is seemingly endless. But the size of this mounting trove of information in itself poses a problem. For example, running flood calculations for a city facing heavy rains using a century of data is highly accurate. But the calculation is useless if it takes days or weeks to compute.