Alumni Newsletter
September 2025
Upcoming Events
October 1—Science Matters: Spotlight Sessions, "Risky Business: Neural Navigation of Decision-Making"
Nikki Crowley, Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, associate professor of biology and of biomedical engineering, and director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute at University Park, will discuss how the brain assesses risk, the factors that influence our choices to take risks, why risk-taking can be both adaptive and necessary, and how this process changes during development and aging.
Following Nikki’s presentation, you’ll hear from Eberly College alumna Jayatri Das (Class of 1999), now chief bioscientist at the Franklin Institute. As the lead developer of Your Brain—a national award–winning exhibit about the neuroscience and psychology of the human brain—she will share information with you to allow for a self-guided tour through the space.
Finally, join Dean Tracy Langkilde, Nikki, and Jayatri for a reception to answer questions and continue the conversation.
ICYMI: If you weren't able to attend the inaugural Science Matters: Spotlight Session on September 5 celebrating Penn State's milestones in physics, including the unveiling of Erwin Müller's historic instruments, a "Heard on Campus" recap—including a video recording of the event—is available on the Eberly College website.
Coming to Campus? Join a Tour!
This fall, the Eberly College of Science and the Penn State Materials Research Institute will be hosting special tours for the public to see Müller's early, groundbreaking instruments—including the field ion microscope of his own invention, which enabled him to "see" the atom for the first time in history—as well as the modern version of the equipment: state-of-the-art atomic resolution microscopes at the Materials Characterization Lab.
On home football game Fridays between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., visitors can tour the original, historic Müller equipment in Osmond Lab and then walk over to the lobby of the Materials Research Institute entrance of the Millennium Science Complex to tour imaging equipment in the Materials Characterization Lab, one of three core facilities in the institute that fuel the interdisciplinary, life-changing innovations of Penn State’s materials research.
Tour dates include September 26, October 10, and November 7 and 21.
October 10—Alumni and Friends Homecoming Tailgate
Don't miss out on an ideal spot to watch the Homecoming parade and network with college faculty and staff!
The tailgate will be held rain or shine, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., in front of the Millennium Science Complex.
New this year, there will be student organizations participating—a chance for alumni and friends to meet some of our current students.
Visit science.psu.edu/PublicEvents for a full listing
of upcoming public events in the college.
Our events and programs are open to all individuals regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other protected class. The Eberly College of Science is committed to building a community of belonging for all.
In the News
Biology Professor Kateryna Makova Featured in New Scientist
Human eggs appear to be protected against a certain type of age-related mutation. In a small study, researchers found no signs that mutations accumulate in the mitochondrial DNA of human egg cells as women get older, which may give us clues as to how they can stay fresh for decades.
“When we think about age-related mutations, we think about older people having more mutations than younger people,” says Kateryna Makova. “But expectation is not necessarily the truth.”
Read the full article, "Human eggs don't accumulate as many mutations with age as we thought," in New Scientist, and check out the related research brief on the Eberly College website.
Graduate Student Pinchen Fan Featured in Forbes Magazine
Astronomers have been scanning the skies for alien radio signals for decades, but so far they’ve heard nary a peep (with one possible exception). But according to a recent study, that could be because they’re not looking in the right place at the right time. Penn State graduate student Pinchen Fan and her colleagues searched 20 years of NASA’s deep space radio communications for clues about when and where our radio signals might be most visible to humans—and where we should look for theirs. The team published their study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Read the full article, "Here’s Where We Should Look For Aliens, According To Astronomers," in Forbes.
Show Your Support
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Support research: Sign the petition. Penn State research keeps Americans safe, healthy, and competitive, but it depends on federal funding. Protecting research means protecting our future.
Alumni Impact
Biology Alumna Julianne Gardner Turns Feeding Struggles into Startup Success
When Julianne Gardner’s second child refused to take a bottle, she tried everything—consulting medical professionals, reaching out to family and friends, and scouring the internet for solutions. Nothing seemed to work.
Gardner, who has a background in managing clinical trials and is a graduate of the Penn State Eberly College of Science, decided to dig into some research around bottle refusal. She found studies showing how a mother’s scent can comfort and soothe infants. She decided to test out this theory and wrapped one of her worn shirts around the bottle. To her surprise, her baby drank from it.
That discovery sparked the idea for Bottimals, a startup that creates bottle-loveys—stuffed animals that wrap around baby bottles and include a removable heart pad mothers can wear against their skin to absorb their scent. The patent-pending bottle-lovey is intended to help ease the transition from breastfeeding to bottle feeding for infants.
Science Alumna Barbara Dalton Has Been Honored with the Alumni Fellow Award
Barbara Dalton, a Penn State Eberly College of Science alumna, is among 12 Penn State alumni who will be honored for their outstanding professional accomplishments and named Alumni Fellows, the most prestigious designation given by the Penn State Alumni Association.
Dalton, class of 1974, is a retired senior managing partner and vice president at Pfizer Ventures, where she led more than $1 billion in biotech investments for 17 years. A leader in advancing rare disease and oncology innovation, she began her studies at Penn State Berks and supports women in science through the Dalton Undergraduate Student Research Fund. She also serves on the Penn State Research Foundation Board.
University Highlights
Professor Andrew Patterson Has Been Named the Huck Institutes' Associate Director for Shared and Core Facilities
Andrew Patterson thrives on asking big questions that push science beyond the boundaries of a single lab. To pursue them, he relies on collaboration, cutting-edge technology and the expertise found in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences’ core facilities—shared laboratories that make transformative discoveries possible across Penn State and beyond.
The core facilities house state-of-the-art instruments, technologies and expert staff. At the Huck, they provide researchers across disciplines with access to advanced tools for discovery, from genomics and metabolomics to microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy. The facilities can be used by Penn State researchers and industry partners.
Patterson, who is the John T. and Paige S. Smith Professor, professor of molecular toxicology and of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Huck Chair in Molecular Toxicology at Penn State, has been named associate director for shared and core facilities at the Huck Institutes. In this new role, he will champion the resources that he said have helped to define his career. He will guide the strategic direction of Huck’s shared laboratories, working closely with their directors and faculty advocates to raise visibility, expand faculty use, support cutting-edge technology and foster collaboration on complex, multi-investigator projects.
Research Professor Cheryl Keller Has Been Appointed the New Director of the Huck Institutes' Genomics Core Facility
Research Professor Cheryl Keller has been named the new director of the Genomics Core Facility in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. Previously the director of the Genomics Research Incubator—a collaboration between the Huck Institutes and the Eberly College of Science—she steps into a role made available by Craig Praul’s promotion to director of core facilities last year.
Keller has a long association with Penn State: She obtained her doctoral degree biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology from the University in 1999 and has worked in number of postdoctoral and research-related roles for multiple labs, starting out with research utilizing genetic and molecular approaches to gain insight into embryonic muscle development in Drosophila before transitioning to neuroscience, where she explored potential mechanisms of GABAA receptor clustering in mice systems using a variety of genetic, molecular and cellular biology methods. She has more than three decades of research experience with dozens of publications and direct involvement with the sequencing of more than 6,000 biological samples.
Biology Graduate Student Shane Connolly Has Been Named a Doctoral Training Fellow by the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center
The One Health Microbiome Center in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State has selected biology graduate student Shane Connolly as one of the 2025–26 recipients of its Biotechnological and Integrative Opportunities in Microbiome Science doctoral training fellowship. In this inaugural year, the $2.6 million training grant funded by the National Institutes of Health will support 11 doctoral students in their second or third years and representing four departments at the University Park and Hershey campuses. The fellows also represent the breadth of interdisciplinary research underway in the center, with their research areas spanning from amphibian disease ecology to the role of the gut microbiome in Parkinson’s disease.
Undergraduate Student Yun Song Has Received the 2025 Changemaker Scholarship from the Schreyer Honors College
Fourth-year Schreyer Scholar Yun Song, majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, has been awarded the 2025 Neil C. Patel Changemaker Scholarship honoring her community engagement and academic excellence. Throughout her time at Penn State, Song has shown commitment, leadership and a passion to help others.
An immigrant from South Korea, Song said her outlook on life has been heavily impacted by her grandparents. When she decided to study abroad in the United States at age 14, she had to leave her grandparents but continued to let their mentorship and influence guide her. She said the love she feels for her grandparents led her to major in biochemistry and minor in gerontology, the study of aging. Song plans to specialize in geriatric medicine, where, she said, she would like to use her lived experience to help provide ethical care for older adults who might feel powerless.
College Highlights
Chemistry Professor Joey Cotruvo Has Been Named a Finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists
Joseph Cotruvo Jr., professor of chemistry at Penn State, has been named as a 2025 finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, in the Chemical Sciences category. The awards, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and independently administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, recognize exceptional scientists in the early years of their professional careers. The awards are open to scientists under the age of 42 who are working in the fields of chemical sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and life sciences. Honorees are selected based on the quality, novelty, and impact of their research and their potential for further contributions to science.
Cotruvo is being recognized for the second time, having also been a finalist in 2024, for “discovering and engineering proteins that selectively extract rare earth elements, enabling sustainable recycling and purification of metals critical to technology supply chains.”
Black Holes Everywhere! Penn State's LIGO Team Celebrates 10 Years of Gravitational Waves
On September 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes that had spiraled together and merged. The signal had traveled about 1.3 billion years to reach us at the speed of light—but it was not made of light. It was a different kind of signal: a quivering of space-time called gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years prior.
On that day 10 years ago, the twin detectors of the US National Science Foundation Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (NSF LIGO) made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, whispers in the cosmos that had gone unheard until that moment.
In Photos: First Day of Classes
Welcoming everyone back on the first day of classes for the fall semester, the college's communications office hosted a photo booth for students and faculty to take pictures with our first-day-of-school signs. Especially noteworthy were Professor of Chemistry Miriam Freedman (bottom left), Verne M. Willaman Dean Tracy Langkilde (bottom center), and Head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Randy McEntaffer (bottom right). View the full gallery on the Eberly College website.
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