Millennium Café is coming back this fall—mark your calendar for September 2, 2025!
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9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - Contestants Make their Pitch to Judges
11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Top Five Pitches Present Live
Sponsored by PPG Industries, the 11th Annual Elevator Pitch Competition is an opportunity for graduate students to pitch their research in TWO minutes or less, using no more than four supporting slides. Graduate students will briefly convey their research to a curious and technically diverse audience, hoping to take home CASH PRIZES and develop new COLLABORATIONS.
Flooding remains the most devastating and costly natural hazard in Pennsylvania. The dynamic nature of flood risk highlights the importance of interdisciplinary approaches—combining hydrology, data science/3D technologies, policy, health, food security, and community impact and engagement—are critical for effective response and mitigation.
Maurie Kelly
Institute of Energy and the Environment
Electrical energy has transformed human civilization and has brought many technological advances and comforts to human beings while leaving damaging footprints to the environment we live in. Our research focuses on "Energy Conversion Materials" and how they can be applied to various platforms towards more sustainable energy.
Bed Poudel
Materials Science & Engineering
Introducing new opportunities aimed at helping graduate students 1) broaden their understanding of how engineering, law and policy intersect and how science/technology can shape policy as well as how policy shapes science; and 2) gain access to hands-on opportunities in bridging research to practice and policy with local governments and non-profits. And, for STEM graduates to serve as non-partisan science policy advisors to the PA legislature and advisory bodies.
Christine Kirchhoff | Law, Policy, Engineering
Established in 2022 by the Penn State College of Medicine, the LION Clinic is a mobile health clinic with a three-part mission of Service-Education-Research. The clinic aims to serve medically underserved communities by providing health care services, educate medical students through hands-on and student-led care provision, and facilitate community-engaged research on rural population health. In this talk, I will describe how our team has used a unique hybrid of research and service to build trust with underserved communities, explore community-identified needs and desires, and adapt the clinic model to respond to those needs and desires.
Kristina Brant | Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education