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3/17/2023
Houtan Jebelli, assistant professor of architectural engineering, will use a three-year, $600,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop a virtual-reality based training environment for working with construction robots.
3/3/2023
A team that includes Penn State researchers examined the impact of human presence on indoor air quality and found that human skin oil can react with indoor ozone to produce hydroxyl radicals, which, in turn, react with other molecules to produce sometimes hazardous byproducts.
3/2/2023
“I Engineer” highlights excellence across the Penn State College of Engineering, as well as how the college is made stronger by the diversity of perspectives, experiences and backgrounds of those in the engineering community. Featured here is Eden Binega, doctoral student in the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering.
2/28/2023
Penn State Global sponsored two Penn State professors, Anne Hoag, associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications and director of the Center for Penn State Student Entrepreneurship, and Esther Obonyo, associate professor of engineering design and of architectural engineering and director of the Global Building Network, to attend the December 2022?Blue and Green Technology Conference?in Auckland, New Zealand.
1/19/2023
Research led by Houtan Jebelli, Penn State assistant professor of architectural engineering, to improve construction worker safety on job sites was featured in an EHS Today article.
1/18/2023
James Freihaut has been named interim head of the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering, effective Jan. 1.
1/13/2023
With a four-year, $1,800,000 National Science Foundation grant, Houtan Jebelli, assistant professor of architectural engineering, is leading a research team to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled, real-time and context-aware holistic health monitoring approach for construction workers.
12/22/2022
The Penn State College of Engineering fundraised $46,291 from 254 gifts on GivingTuesday, which took place on Dec. 8. The funds will benefit students largely through scholarships, as well as supplement resources for materials and experiences.
12/16/2022
Penn State researchers are looking for a safer and more efficient way to use machine learning in the real world. They developed and tested a new reinforcement learning algorithm aimed at improving energy consumption and occupant comfort in a high-rise office building.
12/13/2022
Nathan Brown, assistant professor of architectural engineering, is among the Penn State researchers studying whether fungal biomaterials can replace synthetic acoustic insulation and potentially reduce construction waste.
12/12/2022
Research led by Greg Pavlak, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, was recently featured in the December 2022 newsletter from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
11/29/2022
A Penn State-led research collaboration developed a scalable model specifically to control large groups of buildings and their energy demand in realistic operational settings. They published their approach in the Journal of Energy Storage.
11/17/2022
A team of two students from the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering won a $1,000 grant from the Illuminating Engineering Society. The accepted their award at the society’s annual conference held Aug. 3-5 in New Orleans.
11/16/2022
A $1 million gift from PJ Dick and Trumbull Corporation will name classroom 102 inside West 1, a new engineering facility set to open at University Park in spring 2024. The classroom, which is the largest in the building, will be named the George Mezey and Jeff Turconi Classroom.
11/10/2022
Researchers from Penn State’s Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing and the College of Engineering have received a to study the effects of ambient lighting interventions in nursing homes. The collaborative project will focus on nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
11/8/2022
A Penn State-designed window screen system that automatically changes its shape based on indoor and outdoor environmental conditions is part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal through Dec. 5.
11/4/2022
Currently, women and other underrepresented populations make up about 10% of the workforce in construction, but with automation and teleoperation increasing in construction, there may be new opportunities to make construction work more accessible across genders. Yuqing Hu, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, will lead a team to investigate these opportunities with a three-year, $559,757 National Science Foundation grant.
11/2/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering, was featured in an article by SELF magazine that discussed ways to improve home ventilation to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne contaminants and viruses.
10/14/2022
Wearable robots could reduce injuries among construction workers by providing life support, weight dispersion and posture correction, but the risks and challenges of using them on job sites remain largely unknown, according to Houtan Jebelli, assistant professor of architectural engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering. A three-year, $675,000 National Science Foundation grant will enable a team of researchers from Penn State and Virginia Tech, led by principal investigator Jebelli, to study the physical, psychological and sociotechnical risks of powered wearable exoskeletons to construction workers.
10/14/2022
Penn State researchers have received a two-year, $423,000 grant from the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) to develop a data-driven framework for a wireless sensing system that may protect construction workers from severe heat-related illnesses.
10/13/2022
Greg Pavlak, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, was recognized by the U.S. regional affiliate of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA-USA) in September at the 2022 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild in Chicago.
10/11/2022
As the frequency and severity of both heat waves and extreme cold weather events increase across the United States, assessing how well a structure can handle extreme temperatures — known as thermal resilience — becomes critical, according to Penn State Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering Julian Wang. With a four-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation grant, a Penn State team led by Wang is developing a new holistic framework to understand the relationship between thermal resilience and sustainable design strategies for buildings and communities.
10/5/2022
Penn State architectural engineering alumnus Lester Boyer has established the Lester L. Boyer Graduate Research Scholarship through his estate to help full time Penn State graduate students pursuing a degree in architectural engineering.
9/29/2022
Penn State researchers were among those who met with the mayor of Makassar, Indonesia to discuss progress on Smart Garden Alley, the National Science Foundation-funded project taking place in the city.
9/21/2022
Climate change in the Arctic is evident as temperatures rise and Alaskan coastal Indigenous communities face severe, urgent and complex social and infrastructural challenges. Penn State research in the region, driven by social sciences and in collaboration with engineering and natural sciences, will address these challenges.
9/19/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, joined contemporaries from around the world to examine how past medical maladies involving respiratory diseases may have delayed learning that COVID-19 is airborne-transmissible.
9/13/2022
Working together across disciplines, researchers from Penn State and the University of Freiburg are applying materials that adapt, respond to the environment, self-power and regenerate to meet the challenges of adaptive architecture.
9/6/2022
An interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study food, energy and water security in remote Alaska communities.
8/30/2022
Sven Bilén, professor of engineering design, electrical engineering and aerospace engineering, and Ali Memari, Bernard and Henrietta Hankin Chair in Residential Building Construction, director of PHRC and professor of architectural engineering and civil and environmental engineering, were recently featured in a Daily Collegian article.
8/26/2022
Penn State architectural engineering students won first- and second-place awards from the American Society of Heating for projects focused on a new energy-efficient performing arts building on a university campus in Sydney, Australia.
8/26/2022
John Messner, Charles and Elinor Matts Professor of Architectural Engineering at Penn State, has been inducted into the National Academy of Construction.
8/18/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering, discusses how the COVID pandemic provided an opportunity for U.S. schools to address the long-term problem of poor indoor air quality in the classroom.
8/8/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering, was recently featured in a Los Angeles Times article about air filtration devices and how they can help stop the spread of COVID-19.
7/27/2022
An interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers has received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead a three-institution team developing the “Sustainfood Network,” which links scientists, communities and policymakers to address challenges in Africa at the nexus of water, energy and food security.
7/18/2022
Penn State researchers develop a modeling framework to study how indoor ozone levels react with common indoor surfaces, such as carpet.
7/14/2022
Houtan Jebelli, assistant professor of architectural engineering, was featured in the summer 2022 issue of the Keystone Contractor Association’s magazine, “The Keystone Contractor.” In the article, “Innovation for the Future,” Jebelli discusses the use of self-optimizing collaborative robots, artificially intelligent heavy machines and unmanned vehicles on construction sites. He highlights the challenges of robots operating in dynamic job sites, a focus of his work in Penn State’s Robotics, Automation, and Intelligent Sensing Lab, where Jebelli serves as the director.
6/27/2022
Two students in the Penn State College of Engineering were named Fulbright finalists for the 2022-23 academic year.
6/21/2022
A team of engineering and architecture students from Penn State brought home third place in the Retrofit Housing Division of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2022 Design Challenge Competition on April 23 at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
6/10/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering and chair of the American Society of Heating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ Epidemic Task Force, was featured in a Scientific American article that discussed the importance and urgency behind upgrading buildings’ ventilation and filtration to decrease COVID-19 transmission and improve health and cognitive performance.
6/9/2022
Three Penn State College of Engineering faculty have received Fulbright Awards for the 2022-23 academic year, according to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the U.S. government's flagship international educational exchange program. Another was named a Fulbright Specialist.
6/3/2022
The Penn State College of Engineering will recognize 11 early career alumni for their achievements and demonstrated commitment to their professions, communities and Penn State at a ceremony on June 17 at University Park.
6/1/2022
Researchers traveled to Dillingham in April to study the social and engineering impacts of the Wood River Bridge on the surrounding rural community.
5/27/2022
Houtan Jebelli, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, is part of a team from Penn State and the University of Michigan that recently had their book, Automation and Robotics in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industry, published with Springer, a global publisher of scientific, technical and medical media.
5/11/2022
With a two-year, $400,000 National Science Foundation Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Synergy award, Obonyo is bringing the community voice to the forefront of design criteria by leading the project, “Developing and Validating a Framework for Measuring Resilience in Low-Income Housing in the Post-Pandemic World.”
5/9/2022
Penn State students won first place in four categories and second place in one category at the 2022 Architectural Engineering Institute International Student Design Competition in Arlington, Texas. The team, named CaliberX, comprises students majoring in architectural engineering, each with a focus in a construction, lighting/electrical, mechanical or structural option area.
5/2/2022
The National Science Foundation has selected five current Penn State College of Engineering students as 2022 awardees for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program and one College of Engineering student for an honorable mention.
4/20/2022
The Penn State Materials Research Institute has announced the 2022 recipients of seed grants that will enable University faculty to establish new collaborations with partners outside their own units for the exploration of transformative ideas for high-impact materials science and engineering.
4/20/2022
Penn State architectural engineering student Madison Canter grew up watching her father work in facilities and property management. Now, the Turner Construction Company Scholarship for Diversity and Inclusion in the Department of Architectural Engineering will give her the opportunity to pursue her career goals in project management.
4/19/2022
The Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification project, an ongoing endeavor run by the Concrete Research Group at Penn State, was recently featured on NASA’s website as one of five research studies contributing to deep space exploration.
4/18/2022
Justin Sembower has been named the spring 2022 student marshal for architectural engineering.
4/12/2022
John Messner, Charles and Elinor Matts Professor of Architectural Engineering, received the 2022 Computing in Civil Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the nation’s oldest engineering society. The award recognizes an ASCE member who has made an outstanding contribution to the application of computers to the practice of civil engineering, according to the ASCE website.
4/5/2022
Applications are open for the inaugural High-Performance Building Summer Camp, an intensive three-week program that introduces participants to the design and construction principles of more sustainable, more efficient and healthier buildings. The day camp will take place from May 31 through June 17 in Pittsburgh, a city classified as a United Nations International Center of Excellence on High-Performance Building.
3/30/2022
The Penn State College of Engineering has added 15 faculty members this semester, with 11 tenured or tenure-line members and four non-tenure-line members.
3/30/2022
Penn State alumnus David Angle’s 41-year career in the building industry has included overseeing everything from hotels and hospitals to universities and synagogues. Each project required different approaches and considerations, but Angle attributes these professional successes to the same strong foundation: his Penn State degree in architectural engineering. To help others have the same opportunity, Angle has established the David Angle Endowed Scholarship in Architectural Engineering.
3/30/2022
Eleven Penn State engineering graduates will be honored on April 4 at the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Engineering Alumni Awards ceremony at Hyatt Place State College. Charlie Blenko, an undergraduate student majoring in civil engineering, will serve as the event’s emcee.
3/30/2022
Researchers at Penn State are at the leading edge of the field now known as additive manufacturing, working to advance the capabilities of 3D printing with a goal of addressing pressing problems in human health, housing and transportation, among other areas.
3/28/2022
William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering, was quoted in the New York Times story, "The White House emphasizes the importance of indoor air quality as the pandemic moves into a new phase."