Millennium Café

X-ray microtomography has become a standard for 3D exploration of materials microstructure in engineering and medicine. However, while the form of data remains the same, the techniques used to analyze it qualitatively and quantitatively have advanced at varying rates within different disciplines.  This is where the Penn State X-MEN enter: our mission is to accelerate the translation of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, sharing segmentation strategies, feature extraction, and classification methods. From specimen preparation to a Data-Driven modeling we’ve leveraged the strength of five PSU colleges to get the most out of X-ray micro-CT data.

Anna Madra | Hillman Group

Sebastiaan Van Nuffel | Materials Characterization Lab

Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) is an imaging mass spectrometry technique that is capable of label-free chemical 2D and 3D imaging with a lateral resolution comparable to that of an optical microscope and a depth resolution down to 5 nm. ToF-SIMS imaging is thus possible at the level of a single cell. Furthermore, ToF-SIMS can detect both inorganic and organic molecules, and is sensitive enough to perform trace-element analyses. It is a particularly good technique for imaging lipids due to their high ionization efficiency, but it also allows high-spatial resolution imaging of nucleobases, amino acids, sugars, metabolites and non-native compounds such as drugs and toxins. This presentation will include an introduction to the technique, an overview of my past and current research involving tissue and single cell imaging, and potential areas for new collaborations here at Penn State.

The Cal State LA Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) program, in partnership with the Penn State MRSEC Center for Nanoscale Science, enhances the research and education of undergraduate and masters students in materials science and engineering at Cal State LA. It aims to enable, build, and grow partnerships between minority-serving institutions and DMR-supported centers and/or facilities to increase recruitment, retention and degree attainment by members of groups most underrepresented in materials research. This presentation will provide background on the program, highlight current collaborations, and articulate mechanisms for more PSU faculty to get involved.

There are a number of science, engineering, and technology challenges that must be addressed before fusion can be realized for power production. I will discuss the advancements made in fusion energy research, what remains to be done, and touch on the work done in the BEARS Lab, particularly addressing our research on heat loads to plasma facing components and fusion power safety.  

Leigh Winfrey | Nuclear Engineering

V. Daniel R. Guide | Operations & Supply Chain Management

My research looks at how to create industrial systems that are both environmentally and economically sustainable. This work has shown that firms using a servicizing business strategy provides significant benefits to the environment and are economically viable. There are technical, operational, and market barriers that must be resolved in order to develop a closed-loop supply chain to facilitate servicizing. I will discuss these barriers and areas for potential collaboration.

I became Huck Director on Jan 1, 2019 and the learning curve continues to be very steep (with a positive first derivative).  In this talk, I will reflect on:  the Huck mission, observations that have struck me, and some of the opportunities I’ve seen in these early days.

Andrew Read | Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences