Millennium Café

A traditional science classroom spends the first few weeks teaching students how scientists do their work and the rest of the class telling them what scientists already know. Current reforms in STEM education promote engaging students in the practices of researchers to make sense of disciplinary content. Since most K-12 teachers have little experience in research, this creates a serious challenge. However, teacher professional development workshops based on authentic research projects can build teachers capacity to teach in this way, and can serve as effective broader impacts programs for federally funded research grants.

Matthew Johnson | Center for Science and the Schools

Animals move with remarkable agility and robustness, which is unparalleled by current physical (robot) systems. Major conceptual breakthroughs are needed to synthesize an engineering ‘blueprint’ of animal locomotion. Emphasizing the senses of touch and vision, I will draw on control tasks in running and flying insects to describe how animals implement feedback control. Throughout I will highlight opportunities for multidisciplinary collaborations at the intersection of material science, biomechanics, neurogenetics, mathematics and robotics.

Jean-Michel Mongeau | Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

I will discuss our efforts in investigating molecular orientation at substrate and organic interfaces for the production of artificial “nanograss”. We developed a method for growing oriented single-crystal nanopillars at graphene interfaces for use in high performance organic solar cells. The use of organic single-crystalline devices will have a major impact in accelerating the emerging area of organic electronics, as these highly ordered systems will enable one to extract intrinsic charge carrier transport phenomena that cannot be accurately determined from disordered systems common to amorphous and/or polycrystalline films used in mainstream devices.

Alejandro Briseno | Chemistry

The molecules of life, proteins and nucleic acids are essential parts of every living organism and participate in most processes within cells. Many proteins and some RNA are enzymes that catalyze a number of biochemical reactions. These macromolecules purified from different research labs across Penn State have been studied using a variety of biophysical techniques in our facility. The methods we employ include X-ray crystallography, solution small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), dynamic light scattering, bio-layer interferometry, circular dichroism spectroscopy, micro electron diffraction, molecular modeling, isothermal calorimetry and differential scanning calorimetry. Come learn about some recent examples where the facility has assisted researchers in delineating the structure-function enigmas of various macromolecules.

Neela Yennawar | Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

When molecules are confined in nanopores (0.5-10 nm), their characteristics can be altered significantly. For example: certain molecules can be easily converted into other molecules only if they are trapped in a confined space, which inspired catalytic production of gasoline and diesel in petroleum refining. Our research group studies two types of nanoporous materials: zeolites and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and how material morphology can affect their performance. I will demonstrate how zeolites and MOFs can be used in energy-related gas separations and catalytic production of fuels from natural gas derivatives. I will also mention their potential future applications in biological and medical sciences.

Xueyi Zhang | Chemical Engineering

We communicate in different ways: hand-shaking, texting, speaking, etc. We speak using different languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, etc., and many of us are bilingual or even multilingual. Living cells also communicate with others in their multicellular society. But are cells monolingual or multilingual? It has been long believed that cells only speak a biochemical language, wherein cells communicate through message-passing factors called morphogens. In this talk I will show compelling evidence that living cells also communicate in the language of mechanics. This bilingual cell communication leads to various fundamental biological functions in development and repair, and dysfunctions in disease and injury. To better understand these phenomena requires multidisciplinary collaborations among mechanicians, chemists, materials scientists, and biologists.