Neil Sharkey | Vice President for Research
Ruminations on Penn State’s successes and challenges over the last quarter century interwoven with a few thoughts about the future.
“Reflections on the Past, Aspirations for the Future”
“Unraveling the Complex Morphology of Desalination Membranes”
Membrane microstructure is a key component to determining transport properties and, as such, morphological characterization has been of high interest across many areas of membrane research. For desalination membranes in particular, reconstructions of the 3D morphology with transmission electron tomography reveal local heterogeneities not accessible from 2D projections. Quantification of these 3D local heterogeneities is crucial towards elucidating fundamental underpinnings of membrane transport.
Presenter: Tyler Culp
“Faculty Presence and Participation on Campus in the 21st Century”
Chris Marone / Eliza Richardson | Geosciences
How have campus climate and faculty activities been impacted by the digital age and increasing pressure to complete research and teaching obligations off campus? What are the effects on Campus Life of research-related travel, task-overload, and pressure to publish? We have begun a discussion of these issues in the College of EMS and are interested in your thoughts about what the University can do to encourage an environment in which lab benches compete favorably with cyberinfrastructure for our attention and campus venues and activities compete favorably with email as a mode of collegial interaction among faculty, students, and staff.
“Understanding Soft Matter Self-Assembly at the Nano to the Microscale”
Much of the understanding in soft material self-assembly has been from a thermodynamic perspective, although most self-assembly conditions are non-equilibrium. To understand how non-equilibrium conditions impact the resulting morphology, the self-assembly process of both a co-surfactant and a block copolymer system was investigated. In the case of the block copolymer, the self-assembly process resulted in materials that were organized at both the nano and the microscale, which led to interesting structured color properties.
“Nanoscale Characterization of Biological Systems using Correlative Microscopy Techniques”
Markus Kastner | Materials Characterization Lab
The MCL recently acquired capabilities to enable correlated fluorescence and atomic force microscopy (AFM). This upgrade and other investments open up a wide range of new applications: visualization of single virus particles, observing dynamic processes of biomolecules in real-time, mechanical quantification of tissues on the nanoscale, to the analysis of biomolecular assemblies at the single-molecule level. AFM is one of the few techniques that provides label-free sub-nanometer resolution of proteins, nucleic acid-protein complexes, membranes, and other sensitive bio-molecules and is even able to study living cells under aqueous buffer conditions.
“Our Energy Infrastructure is the Most Important Environmental Challenge Facing Humanity”
Most of the energy we use today is derived from fossil fuels, but the transition to a carbon-neutral economy will require more than just capturing solar and wind power for electricity generation. We must consider the energy sustainability of our water, food, and industrial infrastructures by shifting from a hydrocarbon to electrochemical platform based on water, hydrogen and electrons—if we are smart enough to solve some very challenging problems in electrochemistry. The Penn State Energy 2100 Strategic Initiative will help mobilize resources in these directions.