Millennium Café

The Penn State Sustainable Labs Program has been internationally recognized for its unique educational and experiential learning approach to incorporating sustainability practices into the research laboratory.  Instead of excusing research as a necessarily energy intensive and waste producing endeavor, participating researchers improve their lab operations while developing a sustainability-focused mind and skillset towards the daily habits and decisions that are essential for building and leading a strong culture of sustainability in the scientific workforce.  30 research labs is currently being recruited for the 2024-25 cohort - come and discover how to start running a more sustainable research lab with this programmatic opportunity. 

Speakers: Kristin Dreyer (Center for Nanoscale Science) |  Jack Rumery (PSU Sustainability) 

The Center for Pollinator Research integrates research, education, outreach and extension to improve management and conservation of pollinators.  Here, I will highlight our Beescape platform, which is a mapping tool that helps people evaluate the quality of their landscapes and habitats for bees, as well as our new NSF funded INSECT NET graduate training program which seeks to develop non-lethal, automated monitoring systems for bees and other insects, which will help us model how land use and climate influences insect  diversity and abundance.  We are intersted in new ideas for the integration of data science, computer science, and engineering to address bee declines.

Speaker: Christina Grozinger

The Millennium Café will return in January 2024.  Thank you for your contributions to make the 2023 Millennium Café a success! Enjoy your winter break.

No Millennium Café due to Thanksgiving Break.

As Pennsylvania’s land-grant (and sea-, sun-, and space-grant) institution, Penn State has always emphasized the "practical or theoretical aspects" of our work. Now that artificial intelligence (AI) is seemingly everywhere, our university is demonstrating what our historical land-grant status means in the AI space.  Funded by Penn State’s Office of the Senior Vice President for Research via the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, the AI Hub is a forum for promoting these activities and inform multiple audiences.  The hope is that someday the AI Hub will be able to make the same claim as the Millennium Café: That many collaborations have been catalyzed by the Hub due to a diverse audience and the fact that work is presented in a manner allowing many folks to take something away.  (So far, we haven’t figured out how to replicate the good coffee.)

Speaker: David Hunter  |  Penn State AI Hub

Technologies such as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, and MR) are becoming more ubiquitous and accessible. However, how they can be implemented and utilized in universities and industries is still being explored. The Center for Immersive Experiences will be making available virtual and mixed-reality headsets, 360 cameras, and devices for capturing LIDAR data. So, you can get a hands-on experience with this new immersive frontier.

Speakers: Patrick Dudas & Jessica Menold  |  Center for Immersive Experiences