Oct 06, 2025

Core facilities open house welcomes new researchers

More than 120 researchers attended the first-ever Huck Core Facilities Open House last month, which featured informational posters, opportunities to talk with facilities staff, and even some interactive demonstrations.

The winners of a quiz competition held at the 2025 Core Facilities Open House

The Huck’s 11 Core Facilities offer expertise of dozens of professional staffers and access to a variety of cutting-edge instrumentation—with new equipment arriving every semester. It can be difficult for any University scientist to be fully up-to-date on the research capabilities on offer.

“The goal of the open house was to make life science researchers more aware of the instrumentation and services available to them in the Huck Core Facilities,” said Craig Praul, the Huck’s director of Core Facilities. “Many of them are available 24/7 to trained users.”

While the event was attended by a variety of faculty, staff, and students, it was the most recent arrivals—the incoming cohort of new graduate students—that the exhibition was organized to reach. Among the attractions was a quiz open to graduate students. Sophie Olson of the Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (BMMB) program and Shirley Guo of Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Biosciences (MCIBS) tied for first, while Emma Hutchinson of BMMB and Victoria Holmes of MCIBS came in second and third. The winners were presented with medals and coupons to Penn State's Berkey Creamery.

“The event was open to all students, staff, and faculty, but we specifically targeted new grad students,” said Praul. Facilities leadership worked with the staff in the huck’s graduate office to reach the new students and hold the event. “The event was planned and run by Rajeswaran Mani, assistant director of core facilities for public engagement and outreach. Dave Blehi, the Huck events coordinator, played a key role in event promotion and venue setup, and he ensured that everything ran smoothly on the day of the event. Dana Coval-Dinant, the Huck graduate programs coordinator, was instrumental in providing us with grad program contact info from across the campus—allowing us to target life science grad students in our promotional email.”

To learn more about the Core Facilities, visit their pages on the Huck Institutes website.

See our photo album of the event on Flickr.