Millennium Café

Our design and use of technology are fraught with moral implications that involve autonomous agency, value assumptions, unintended consequences, and even justice. Algorithmic bias, questions of moral agency for robots, datamining practices and policies, the social effects of AI and the consequences of increasingly pervasive surveillance technologies – all pose central questions in the field of technology ethics. My talk is aimed at encouraging avenues of critique that examine our technological ethos that often prioritizes efficiency, promotes datafication, and encourages a “cyber-centric” view of life.

Presenter: Patrick Lee Plaisance  |  Bellisario College of Communications

Quantum materials show great promise for next generation optical, electronic, and spintronic devices as well as other areas of technological interest. In this talk, I will explain what quantum materials are, how we make them one atomic layer at a time using molecular beam epitaxy, and how we are leveraging them for applications in the mid-infrared and terahertz spectral ranges.

Presenter: Stephanie Law  |  Materials Science & Engineering

I will talk about opportunities available through the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program. The I-Corps program offered through Invent Penn State will be running a 3-week virtual short course starting March 10^th to help faculty members and/or graduate students explore the commercial potential of their research. The short course will qualify individuals to participate in the I-Corps National Teams Program, which provides $50,000 in grant funding, and significantly increases the chances of securing future SBIR / STTR funding.

Presenter: Derek Goss  |  NSF I-Corps Program Manager – Office of the Senior Vice President for Research

A stream of photons can carry enormous amount of information through variations in the frequency of photons emitted over time by a particular source. In my lab, we produce spectral imaging from biological materials using X-rays and visible light.  I will discuss an emerging photon counting x-ray technique that uses energy-resolving detectors to count photons and quantify their energy to produce images in color.  A new era of medical imaging awaits with photon-counting x-ray/CT.  The power of light and hyperspectral imaging to acquire the spectrum for each pixel in a biological image will also be discussed as well as how combining nanomedicine with biosensing will transform biosensing applications. The discussion will cover a few seminal preclinical and clinical works from my lab covering a wide range of applications to human diseases. 

Presenter: Dipanjan Pan  |  Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering

Penn State's Sustainability Institute is in its 10^th year with much accomplished during that time. I will give a quick update on past accomplishments for sustainability at Penn State in operations, education, outreach, and research. After 6 months of intensive engagement with numerous stakeholders within and beyond Penn State, I will share ideas about what might come next. Ideas and feedback are desired!

Presenter: Lara Fowler  |  Interim Chief Sustainability Officer & Director of the Sustainability Institute

The field of inorganic nanoparticle synthesis lacks what the synthetic organic community has spent decades developing – a set of guidelines to provide a reasonable synthetic route to a given product.  Current synthetic guidelines for multi-component inorganic nanostructures are underdeveloped in comparison to the scope of potential applications for these materials. I will discuss recent developments from my work which aims to assess design guidelines for heterostructured inorganic nanoparticles.

Presenter: Sarah O’Boyle  |  Schaak Group