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Professor to tackle large-scale simulation optimization problems

8/14/19

The National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematical Sciences has awarded principal investigator Eunhye Song, Harold and Inge Marcus Early Career Assistant Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State, $140,000 to push the frontier of large-scale discrete simulation optimization. Song’s goal is to create a new algorithm that is computationally efficient while simultaneously providing a statistical optimality guarantee.

Illustration of the heart in a human torso. The heart appears red in an outlined torso against a blue background.

Professor receives NSF grant to model cell disorder in heart

8/12/19

Hui Yang, Harold and Inge Marcus Career Associate Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to study exactly how a process called glycosylation can cause proteins to disrupt the harmony of cell activity.

Privacy policy

Research aims to automatically answer user questions on online privacy policies

7/23/19

Internet users may soon have a way to have their questions about online privacy policies answered automatically, thanks to a new multi-institution research project that includes Penn State. The project aims to enable people to ask questions about the privacy issues that matter to them when reviewing privacy policies.

Big Data

Penn State part of $4 million National Science Foundation big data grant

7/1/19

Penn State is part of a $4 million multi-institution grant aimed at identifying innovative solutions for societal, scientific and industry challenges through strategic data science partnerships. As part of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub, Penn State will continue to collaborate on big data projects that are too large and complex for individual organizations to manage independently.

Anopheles gambiae

Climate warming could increase malaria risk in cooler regions

6/26/19

Malaria parasites develop faster in mosquitoes at lower temperatures than previously thought, according to researchers at Penn State and the University of Exeter. The findings suggest that even slight climate warming could increase malaria risk to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people — including travelers — in areas that are currently too cold for malaria parasites to complete their development.

Twitter news

Can trust in social media news be improved?

5/30/19

More than two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media sites, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center study. But more than half who read news on social media expect it to be inaccurate. Penn State researchers are working to improve the prediction of people’s trust in what they read online. In a new project, they’ll advance state-of-the-art machine learning methods to model the psychological phenomenon known as memory illusion.

Scott Medina, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and National Science Foundation Early Career Award winner

Medina to use NSF CAREER Award for improved precision medicine

3/26/19

Supported by a new National Science Foundation Early Career award, Scott Medina, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is developing new bio-nanomaterial technologies that can be guided and activated by ultrasound to deliver proteins into cells with high precision. This process has multiple potential medical applications, including improved treatment of genetic disorders and cancer drug therapies with fewer side effects.

National Science Foundation I-Corps

NSF I-Corps short course to provide entrepreneurship training for researchers

3/11/19

Academic researchers interested in exploring the commercial potential of their technological innovations are invited to apply for a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) short course to be held in State College from April 5-19. Applications are due by 5 p.m. EST on Friday, March 29.

closeup of purple particles

NSF funds integrated approach to 3D fracture modeling of composites

1/29/19

Understanding the behavior of composite materials is important to advancing their design since attempts to further strengthen or stiffen them can sometimes produce counterproductive results. A $545,000 grant over three years from the National Science Foundation aims to answer some of the central questions about the microstructural mechanisms that lead to composite performance.

Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, and graduate student Sagar Lakhmani adjust a pair of Braccio robotic arms on the latest generation of emergency evacuation robots.

Safety in numbers: Mobile robots could save lives during emergency evacuations

1/17/19

To address the unique challenges that emergency evacuation scenarios present, Alan Wagner, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, and a team of researchers propose to use a coordinated collection of mobile robots as authority figures to direct evacuees for rapid, orderly and safe evacuations, thanks to a $1.5M National Science Foundation grant.

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