Yinming Shao named Downsbrough Early Career Professor of Physics

Man with glasses in gray suit jacket posing outside

Yinming Shao, assistant professor of physics at Penn State, has been honored with the Downsbrough Early Career Professorship in Physics in recognition of his research contributions, teaching and service to the Department of Physics and the Eberly College of Science. This professorship was established in 2004 by George A. Downsbrough, a physicist whose extensive volunteer work at Penn State included the Armsby Committee, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and the Eberly College of Science's Grand Destiny Campaign Committee. Downsbrough was named an honorary alumnus of Penn State in 2003.

Artificial eyes could bring human-like sight to self-driving cars, robots

The advanced sensors and cameras that power self-driving cars struggle to adapt to changing lighting. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer at Penn State, is taking inspiration from human biology to potentially solve this problem. Credit: Andrey Rykov/Getty Images. All Rights Reserved.

By Ty Tkacik

Although self-driving cars and sophisticated robots use advanced cameras, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to picture their surroundings, these artificial eyes struggle to remain reliable in mixed lighting conditions. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer from Penn State, has proposed a solution that mimics the mechanics of the human eye to adapt from bright to dark light in seconds.