News
Apr 01, 2026
Molecular entomologist Jason Rasgon named AAAS Fellow
Jason L. Rasgon, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Endowed Chair in Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology at Penn State, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Mar 30, 2026
Q&A: Robots can’t feel; these sensors could change that
A research team, including Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, James L. Henderson Jr. Memorial Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State, is using pressure sensors — tiny devices, roughly the size of a paperclip, that can measure the force applied over an area — to design a highly sensitive electronic “skin” to use alongside robots and prosthetic limbs.
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Mar 26, 2026
Seth Bordenstein named a Fellow of the AAAS
Seth Bordenstein, professor of biology and entomology, the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair of Microbiome Sciences, and director of the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
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Mar 26, 2026
Community Q&A: Brain health and neuroscience research
On March 20, Nikki Crowley, associate professor of biology and of biomedical engineering, Huck Chair in Neural Engineering, and director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute at University Park and Santhosh Girirajan, T. Ming Chu Professor of Genomics and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology visited The Village at Penn State, a local senior living community.
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Mar 26, 2026
Francesca Chiaromonte named a Fellow of the AAAS
Francesca Chiaromonte, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Statistics for the Life Sciences at Penn State, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Mar 24, 2026
Low-cost sensor system could warn farmers of salt stress in plants
Soil salinity is a critical concern in agriculture when excessive soluble salts restrict a plant’s water uptake, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hindering crop growth and reducing yields on roughly 30% of U.S. irrigated land. Caused by irrigation, poor drainage or saltwater intrusion, soil salinity impacts soil structure, reduces fertility and causes economic losses. 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.
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Mar 20, 2026
Penn State Global announces 2025-26 awards recipients
Peter Hudson, Willaman Professor of Biology in the Eberly College of Science and former director of the Huck Institues of the Life Sciences selected for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Hudson and annual recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony in Robb Hall in the Hintz Alumni Center on March 26.
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Mar 18, 2026
Penn State engineers on multiple major projects funded by federal health agency
Penn State has been named as a sub-awardee on four teams selected for funding by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Three of the projects are funded through the ARPA-H Building Resilient Environments for Air and Total Health (BREATHE) program and aim to enhance indoor air quality, and one of the projects is funded through the ARPA-H Personalized Regenerative Immunocompetent Nanotechnology Tissue (PRINT) program and aims to bioprint organs on demand.
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Mar 16, 2026
Four Penn State researchers receive iDEA-TECH awards from Sanofi
Four Penn State researchers and their colleagues have been awarded Innovations in Data Exploration, Analytics & Technology (iDEA-TECH) Awards from Sanofi, a global R&D-driven, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered biopharma company. The awards provide $150,000 in research funding to advance cutting-edge discoveries through novel AI and digital tools and new technologies.
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Mar 13, 2026
Targeting two flu proteins sharply reduces airborne spread
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.
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