The strength of the College of IST is demonstrated through the successes and accomplishments of its students, faculty, alumni, and programs. Read more about how the college and its people are driving innovative change and taking on the challenges of the Information Age.
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Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) will host “Diagnose-a-thon,” a competition that aims to uncover the power and potential dangers of using generative AI for medical inquiries. The virtual event will take place Nov. 11-17 with top prizes of $1,000.
The Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences announced two new co-hires: Dana Calacci, assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and Enrico Casella, assistant professor of data science for animal systems in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
A Penn State faculty project team has received a two-year Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant totaling $104,771 to create and host a National Forum for Privacy Literacy Standards and Competencies. The forum will be held March 10-11, 2025, at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center and online.
James Z. Wang, distinguished professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, will present the college’s annual McMurtry Lecture at noon on Thursday, Nov. 7, in E202 Westgate Building at Penn State University Park.
Faculty and staff in Penn State’s Law, Policy, and Engineering (LPE) initiative were recently tapped by the governor’s office to lead a two-day training program in September in Harrisburg on science and technology policy. The faculty and staff are part of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Science and Technology Policy Program, which is run by LPE and aims to improve public and environmental health, economic and social equity, and public scientific discourse in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Heather M. Costa, director of technology resilience at the Mayo Clinic, will address the Penn State Chapter of the Order of the Sword & Shield National Honor Society on Nov. 4. The College of Information Sciences and Technology established the chapter in 2023 and will induct its second cohort at this year’s ceremony.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, founded in 1999, celebrated its 25th anniversary with two days of events at University Park.
Three graduates were honored at the College of Information Sciences and Technology's second annual Alumni Symposium. The award ceremony was part of two event-filled days celebrating IST’s 25th anniversary.
Twenty-four students from the College of Information Sciences and Technology attended the annual Grace Hopper conference, which celebrates women and nonbinary technologists from around the world.
Romit Maulik, an assistant professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, was granted a three-year, $360,000 Early Career Program Award from the Army Research Office.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization (CCSO) took second place at the Great Lakes Regional Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC), held Oct. 19-20 at Baldwin Wallace University in Cleveland.
The availability of an artificial intelligence system's training data can promote transparency and accountability of that system, according to Penn State researchers.
Robocalls that sound just like the president but aren’t. Videos of political figures doing or saying things they’ve never done. Social media posts created by ChatGPT, not humans. Artificial intelligence is playing a big role in how political—and misinformation — campaigns are run, and its influence could impact the outcomes of 2024 elections around the world.
Where: The Charlotte Observer, 'Over the top' ad features a fake Mark Robinson. What to know about AI in political ads.
Who: Shomir Wilson, associate professor in the College of IST
The J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School at Penn State named 110 graduate students as recipients of the 2024-25 University Graduate Fellowships and Distinguished Graduate Fellowships. The students were honored on Oct. 3 at a reception held at the Bryce Jordan Center.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Andrea Tapia, dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) was among the rappelers at Penn State’s Over The Edge at Beaver Stadium event on October 8.
A team of Penn State researchers has been selected to lead a three-year, $8,552,388 multi-institution project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to identify cognitive threats in mixed-reality systems as part of the Intrinsic Cognitive Security program.
Liam Geyer, a fifth-year Integrated Undergraduate/Graduate student majoring in cybersecurity analytics and operations, leveraged his involvement in the Competitive Cybersecurity Organization at Penn State to land internships and full-time employment.
Penn State and University of Washington researchers found that AI models may cause cultural harms that go beyond surface-level biases
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Generative artificial intelligence (AI) models often contain cultural misrepresentations as a result of the way they were trained. Researchers from Penn State and the University of Washington set out to understand how these biases translate into tangible harms for minority communities.
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 14 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University.
Baking in the test kitchens at The Hershey Company. Studying the effects of space weather on satellite communication with NASA. Working on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as a congressional intern. Planning events at the Arboretum. These activities are just a few of the many experiential learning and professional development opportunities that Penn State students gained through internships this summer.
Sixteen recent graduates were selected by the Penn State Alumni Association as Young Alumni Ambassadors for the 2024-25 academic year. August 2024, December 2024 and May 2025 graduates are encouraged to apply for the 2025-26 class of ambassadors when applications become available.
Penn State and MIT researchers found that analyzing surveillance videos with large language models may lead to inconsistent decisions to call the police.
Where: Tech Brew, ‘AI election roundup: Deepfakes and AI memes are taking off’
Who: Shomir Wilson, associate professor in the College of IST L
Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence invites short proposals for its annual seed funding program. Applications will be accepted through Nov. 1, with projects expected to start in spring 2024 and last up to two years.
Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT), part of Penn State University Libraries, has announced the Teaching and Learning Technologies Faculty Advisory Committee for the 2024-25 academic year. The committee is pivotal in guiding TLT on integrating technology within teaching and learning at Penn State.
Penn State student Maria Rovers is one of thousands who are earning their degrees online through Penn State World Campus.
The Penn State College of IST offers nine integrated graduate-undergraduate degree (IUG) programs. Vinayak Jayaprakash, a fifth-year IUG student pursuing a master's degree in informatics, hopes to encourage more students to follow his path.
Where: The Washington Post, “Why killer AI is such an alluring horror villain”
Who: Dana Calacci, assistant professor
Tanusree Sharma, assistant professor in the College of IST, recently received the 2024 John Karat Usable Privacy and Security Student Research Award for her research contributions while a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her doctoral degree in July.
Seventeen graduate students from Penn State have been awarded research fellowships and six undergraduate students from the commonwealth have been awarded scholarships for 2024 from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium.
Penn State researchers discuss how to spot AI-generated election misinformation and what voters can do to protect themselves.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers received a three-year, $499,796 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office (DOE) of Science to study processes in destructive thunderstorms over the continental United States. The project was one of 20 selected for 2024 Atmospheric System Research (ASR) funding awards.
Researchers from the College of Information Sciences and Technology, the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing received a $432,198 grant from the National Institute on Aging to work on voice assistants to support dementia care.
The College of IST welcomed six new faculty members in 2024 to represent three research areas: data sciences and AI, human-computer interaction and privacy and security. .
The STEM Libraries at Penn State University Park have announced the calendar of events for the fall 2024 semester.
On Sept. 11 and 12, Penn State IT, Teaching and Learning with Technology, the College of Engineering, and the College of Information Sciences and Technology are partnering with Top Hat to offer a series of workshops designed to help faculty increase engagement in their courses. Available to use free of charge for all Penn State faculty and students, the Top Hat platform offers a variety of tools educators can use to deliver interactive, personalized learning.
Sanjana Mendu and Sahiti Kunchay, recent graduates of the College of IST's doctoral program, have joined Ivy League medical schools as postdoctoral researchers.
Where: Psychology Today, ’AI Performance Enhanced With Human Developmental Psychology’
Who: Lizhen Zhu, doctoral candidate in the College of IST
Penn State has announced the selection of 23 faculty members for the Penn State Emerging Academic Leaders program for fall 2024. This initiative highlights individuals who have demonstrated exceptional potential for academic leadership and innovation within their fields.
Penn State University Libraries’ Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) has named 13 recipients of the 2024 Faculty Engagement Award with this year’s theme of “Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Teaching.” Recipients will collaborate with TLT staff to identify potential uses, constraints and best practices for using generative AI for teaching purposes.
Democracy is a process that works best when citizens are informed and engaged. In the internet age, our relationship to information has been profoundly altered by the shifting role of legacy media, the rise of social media and growing challenges involving misinformation, disinformation, polarization and unequal broadband access. How do these changes help or hinder our participation as democratic citizens?
Jeffrey Schulman, a graduate student pursuing a doctorate in informatics in the College of IST, recently presented at HammerCon 2024, the national convention of the Military Cyber Professionals Association. This year’s HammerCon theme was “Our Warfighting Workforce: Talent, Teams, Training, Triumph.”
Aidan Engleka earned a bachelor’s degree in human-centered design and development (HCDD) from the College of IST in 2023. More than a year later, the research he contributed to as an undergraduate student has been published.
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 14 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University.
Rachel Desulme, a fourth-year data sciences student in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, spent her summer internship studying dragonflies in Ghana.
Some TikTok users acknowledge the technology underlying personalized content online but can’t deny sometimes feeling that a higher power is involved, according to researchers from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. The researchers spoke with Penn State News about how and why TikTok users interpret algorithmic recommendations as a kind of divine intervention.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has named Miranda Goodman as its summer 2024 student marshal.
Aiping Xiong, associate professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, has earned a five-year, $585,818 U.S. National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award for a project to develop effective and easy-to-use tools for drivers to increase the situation awareness in connected and automated vehicles.
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 14 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University.