Yang Yang, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics in the Penn State College of Engineering, has been selected as a recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Program Award for 2025.
Burcu Ozden, assistant professor of engineering and physics at Penn State Abington, received a three-year, $800,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop advanced two-dimensional materials for use in quantum technologies. The project, set to begin in 2026, will be conducted in collaboration with faculty, undergraduates and graduate students at Abington and University Park.
Penn State has launched a new center dedicated to quantum science and germinating cross-disciplinary collaboration. The Center for Theory of Emergent Quantum Matter (C-TEQ) aims to unite researchers across colleges, institutes and departments, catalyze transformative discoveries and enhance the University’s global visibility in quantum science, according to Jainendra K. Jain, Evan Pugh University Professor, Erwin W. Müller Professor of Physics and Eberly Chair in Physics.
Six materials researchers at Penn State have received the 2025 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award, recognizing a wide range of research with societal impact. The award is presented by the Materials Research Institute (MRI) for recent interdisciplinary materials research at Penn State that yields innovative and unexpected results.
A team of researchers at Penn State was awarded a $3 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a graduate training program designed to equip the next generation of engineers and scientists with the tools required to affect transformative change in sustainable materials processing.
America Makes and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining have awarded a team led by Guha Manogharan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, $1.5 million to develop a new approach to casting metal components used in machinery and vehicles. The award comes as a part of a project led by a consortium through the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Manufacturing Technology Program, known as IMPACT 3.0, worth a total of $4.5 million.
Clive Randall, Evan Pugh University Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has been elected as a fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. The academy is an international scientific organization composed of the world’s leading scientists, scholars and engineers, dedicated to promoting excellence in science and technology.
Jainendra K. Jain, Evan Pugh University Professor and Erwin W. Müller Professor of Physics and holder of the Eberly Family Chair in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, has been awarded, along with two others, the 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics for “groundbreaking contributions to quantum matter and its topological potential” that revolutionized “our understanding of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields.”
Three potentially high-impact, high-risk research projects have been selected to receive seed funding for the latest round of the Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) Fund initiative.
