News
Apr 20, 2026
Connected habitats help wildlife fight disease, strengthen protective microbes
A team led by Penn State biologists found that amphibians in connected natural forests and aquatic habitats were more likely to host beneficial skin microbes that inhibit a deadly fungal pathogen. But when these habitats become spatially separated due to planted crops, infrastructure development or other human land use, those microbial defenses weaken and pathogen infection levels can increase with potentially deadly results.
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Apr 20, 2026
Sun awarded Robert T. Simpson Graduate Student Award for Innovative Research.
The Graduate Program Core Committee announced that Jiawan Sun has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Robert T. Simpson Graduate Student Award for Innovative Research.
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Apr 17, 2026
Student teams win cash awards for their AI solutions in the Nittany AI Challenge
A panel of industry experts and Penn State faculty selected five student teams as winners of the 2026 Nittany AI Challenge. The teams will use their prize money to continue developing projects that use artificial intelligence (AI) for the good of society.
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Apr 17, 2026
Penn State faculty member named American Physiological Society president-elect
Penn State Department of Kinesiology faculty member Lacy Alexander, professor of kinesiology and research professor in charge, has been named the 2025-26 president-elect of the American Physiological Society.
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Apr 16, 2026
3D-printed brain sensors may unlock personalized neural monitoring
Soft electrodes designed to perfectly match a person’s brain surface may help advance neural interfaces for neurodegenerative disease monitoring and treatment, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers. Neural interfaces are powered by tiny sensors capable of tracking biophysical signals, known as bioelectrodes.
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Apr 16, 2026
Penn State biochemist Melanie McReynolds awarded Hypothesis Fund seed grant
Melanie McReynolds, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been selected to receive a seed grant from the Hypothesis Fund. The Hypothesis Fund aims to advance scientific knowledge by supporting early stage, innovative research — led by scientists at broad swath of universities — that increases adaptability against systemic risks to the health of people and the planet.
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Apr 15, 2026
Four Huck Trainees Among Graduate Student Award Winners
Four Huck graduate students are among the 42 that have been recognized as outstanding scholars with Graduate Student Awards by the Office of the President and the Fox Graduate School.
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Apr 14, 2026
Plant scientists receive $1.96M NIH grant to study plant-bacteria partnerships
A team of plant scientists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has received a $1.96 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund a study of how beneficial plant-bacteria partnerships evolve, persist, and can be harnessed to improve health and agriculture. This grant, called a Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award, supports a lab's long-term research vision rather than an individual project.
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Apr 14, 2026
WATCH: Science graduate students recap international industry internship
Two Penn State graduate students participated in an intensive six-week internship last summer thanks to a partnership between the Huck Institutes’ One Health Microbiome Center (OHMC) and QIAGEN LLC, a leading multinational provider of diagnostic and assay technologies.
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Apr 13, 2026
Communication, Science & Society Initiative awards four interdisciplinary grants
The Communication, Science & Society Initiative (CSSI), a research partnership between Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences in the College of the Liberal Arts, has announced the grant recipients from its 2025 request for proposals. The initiative has awarded $52,000 to four projects that bring together teams of life scientists, humanists and social scientists who aim to address multi-dimensional societal problems.
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