Research News

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Informatics student to attend MIDAS future leaders summit

Siyu Wu, a graduate student pursuing a doctorate in information in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, was selected to attend the Future Leaders Summit hosted by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS). The event offers outstanding graduate students, postdocs and early-career faculty from around the U.S.

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One Health Microbiome Symposium to convene experts for innovative discussions

Penn State’s One Health Microbiome Center will host the One Health Microbiome Symposium on May 30-31, 2024, at the Huck Life Sciences Building on the University Park campus.

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Competition helps expose demographic and cultural biases in generative AI tools

Competition helps expose demographic and cultural biases in generative AI tools

Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence announced the winners of its first-ever “Bias-a-thon.” The competition, held Nov. 13–16, asked Penn Staters to identify prompts that led popular generative AI tools to produce biased or stereotype-reinforcing outputs.

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IST Professor Alan Peslak receives Meritorious Award for research excellence

IST Professor Alan Peslak receives Meritorious Award for research excellence

Penn State Scranton Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Alan Peslak has been recognized with a Meritorious Paper Award for his outstanding contributions at the Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals (ISCAP) Conference.

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Penn State Scranton professor wins conference award for research excellence

Penn State Scranton professor wins conference award for research excellence

Penn State Scranton Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Alan Peslak has been recognized with a Meritorious Paper Award for his outstanding contributions at the Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals (ISCAP) Conference.

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True: Fact checkers tend to agree on validity of news claims, researchers say

True: Fact checkers tend to agree on validity of news claims, researchers say

Fact-checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact have generally agreed on the validity of news claims, according to researchers from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. 

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Trained AI models exhibit learned disability bias, IST researchers say

Trained AI models exhibit learned disability bias, IST researchers say

Artificial intelligence tools, such as sentiment analysis and toxicity detection models, often exhibit biases toward people with disabilities, according to a new paper from researchers in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. The work won the Best Short Paper Award from the Association for Computation Linguistics.

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Penn State Berks’ Abdullah Konak named IST Faculty Member of the Year

Penn State Berks’ Abdullah Konak named IST Faculty Member of the Year

Abdullah Konak, distinguished professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State Berks, was recently named the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology Statewide Faculty Member of the Year. He was presented with the award at the fall IST faculty meeting on Oct. 27. 

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What if Alexa or Siri sounded more like you? Study says you’ll like it better

What if Alexa or Siri sounded more like you? Study says you’ll like it better

The more Siri or Alexa sounds like you, the better you'll like the service, according to researchers. The multi-institutional team published their findings in the current issue of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.

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$7M grant funds project to develop new ways to protect mushroom crops

$7M grant funds project to develop new ways to protect mushroom crops

A new grant for more than $7 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will fund an upcoming project led by Penn State researchers, who aim to develop new pest management tools for mushroom crops.

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Nittany AI Challenge Ideation Workshop set for Nov. 30

Nittany AI Challenge Ideation Workshop set for Nov. 30

The Nittany AI Challenge Ideation Workshop: Agriculture and Environmental Sustainability on Nov. 30 will connect students with experts and local nonprofit leaders in agricultural and environmental sustainability to explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to address real-world problems in the field.

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$1.45M NSF grant to fund new research into how grasses thrive in dry climates

$1.45M NSF grant to fund new research into how grasses thrive in dry climates

A new $1.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Penn State researchers, including undergraduate students, to explore how pores on plant surfaces work and might be engineered to enhance photosynthesis and efficient water use.

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Renaissance Fund honors Barbara and Edgar Farmer, raises funds for scholarships

Renaissance Fund honors Barbara and Edgar Farmer, raises funds for scholarships

Penn State’s 47th annual Renaissance Fund celebration on Nov. 1 honored local community leaders and education pioneers Barbara and Edgar Farmer. The event hosted more than 300 attendees and helped to raise $193,364 for endowed scholarships to benefit students with financial need.

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World Campus celebrates science and technology programs

World Campus celebrates science and technology programs

Penn State World Campus is highlighting its science and technology programs during its 25th anniversary.

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Penn Staters invited to compete to find bias in generative AI tools

Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence will host “Bias-a-thon,” a competition to expose biases in current-day AI tools. The virtual event will take place from Monday, Nov. 13, to Thursday, Nov. 16, and is open to anyone with an active Penn State email address. 

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Most websites do not publish privacy policies, researchers say

Most websites do not publish privacy policies, researchers say

Penn State researchers crawled millions of websites and found that only one-third of online organizations made their privacy policy available for review. They received the Best Student Paper award at the 23rd Association for Computing Machinery Symposium on Document Engineering, also known as DocEngr'23, for their work. 

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Trustees committee discusses AI and its implications for higher education

Trustees committee discusses AI and its implications for higher education

Artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities far outweigh the challenges for use at universities, according to Penn State Executive Vice President and Provost Justin Schwartz. He led a panel discussion on AI and its implications for higher education at the Board of Trustees’ Committee on Academic Affairs, Research and Student Life meeting on Oct.

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Penn State partners with Gov. Shapiro to shape AI governance and strategy

Penn State partners with Gov. Shapiro to shape AI governance and strategy

Penn State has partnered with Gov. Josh Shapiro to provide expert guidance on artificial intelligence (AI) strategies and governance. This partnership aims to leverage Penn State's AI expertise and resources to help shape responsible AI standards for state agencies, aligning with the growing importance of AI technology in governance.

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IST researchers earn best paper award at natural language generation conference

IST researchers earn best paper award at natural language generation conference

A paper authored by students and faculty from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology received the Best Long Paper award at the 16th International Natural Language Generation Conference.

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Human body movements may enable automated emotion recognition, researchers say

Human body movements may enable automated emotion recognition, researchers say

Penn State researchers combined computing, psychology and performing arts to develop an annotated human movement dataset that may improve the ability of artificial intelligence to recognize the emotions expressed through body language. Their work was featured on the cover of the journal Patterns. 

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Tenured, promoted faculty honored through books at Oct. 2 recognition program

Tenured, promoted faculty honored through books at Oct. 2 recognition program

Recently tenured and promoted Penn State faculty across the University were honored Oct. 2 through Penn State’s Promotion and Tenure Recognition Program, now in its 21st year, during a private event held in the Paterno Family Humanities Reading Room on the second floor of Pattee Library at the University Park campus.

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Media Mention: “Chat GPT for Software Security — How it Assists Attackers & Security Analysis”

Where: Cyber Security News, “ChatGPT for Software Security: How It Assists Attackers & Security Analysts”

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Media Mention: “Going Phishing on Campus”

Where: Inside Higher Ed, “Going Phishing on Campus”

Who: Shomir Wilson, assistant professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST)

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Stuckeman symposium to highlight issues surrounding displacement in architecture

Stuckeman symposium to highlight issues surrounding displacement in architecture

The Stuckeman School will host a research symposium Nov. 13-14 to examine the relationship between refugee displacement, climate and architecture.

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Center for Socially Responsible AI invites seed funding proposals

Center for Socially Responsible AI invites seed funding proposals

The Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence invites short proposals for its annual seed funding program. Penn State faculty are can submit proposals for research that advance the center's mission of promoting, practicing and studying socially responsible ways of using, building and deploying AI technology.

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IST researcher among recipients of $29 million fusion energy sciences grant

IST researcher among recipients of $29 million fusion energy sciences grant

Romit Maulik, assistant professor in the Penn State College of IST, is one of 19 recipients funded with this U.S. Department of Energy grant and will explore machine learning for improved nuclear fusion disruption mitigation.

 

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Human abstractness may make smart contracts smarter, researchers report

Human abstractness may make smart contracts smarter, researchers report

Smart contracts, or computer programs that automatically execute certain agreed-upon actions when agreed-upon conditions are met, are considered safer for online transactions than traditional contracts, but they are not error-proof.

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New filtering approach may improve online health information experience

New filtering approach may improve online health information experience

A Penn State research team has proposed a new information-filtering approach for predicting future health information needs of online community participants as they move through different stages in their illness. They published their approach in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

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College of Information Sciences and Technology welcomes nine new faculty members

College of Information Sciences and Technology welcomes nine new faculty members

The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has welcomed nine new faculty members in 2023.

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New course examines opportunities, challenges, concerns around generative AI

New course examines opportunities, challenges, concerns around generative AI

“Emerging Technologies in Popular Culture,” a new course offered by the Penn State College of Information Systems and Technology, invites undergraduates to explore the questions, opportunities and challenges related to generative artificial intelligence.

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Penn State security center announces 2023 grant recipients

Penn State security center announces 2023 grant recipients

The Penn State Center for Security Research and Education has awarded $152,500 in funding to six Penn State faculty through its 2023 grant program.

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More engagement in tech design can improve children’s online privacy, security

More engagement in tech design can improve children’s online privacy, security

Researchers led by the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology reviewed a body of research to better understand the problems and solutions of designing technology with children’s privacy and security in mind. They are presenting their findings at the Association for Computing Machinery Interaction Design and Children Conference

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Penn State announces tenure-line faculty promotions, effective July 1, 2023

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on Penn State News.

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Center for Socially Responsible AI awards Big Ideas Grants to five projects

Center for Socially Responsible AI awards Big Ideas Grants to five projects

The Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence awarded more than $212,000 to advance five interdisciplinary research projects as part of its Big Ideas Grant program. Awarded projects feature researchers from six departments across four colleges and institutes.

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College of IST names first associate dean for undergraduate studies

College of IST names first associate dean for undergraduate studies

The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has appointed Sharon Huang as its first associate dean for undergraduate studies, effective July 1. 

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IST graduate pursues creative business idea with help from Penn State Scranton

IST graduate pursues creative business idea with help from Penn State Scranton

While still a student at Penn State Scranton, Parkston Myers, a May 2023 information sciences and technology graduate, turned a creative idea that stemmed from his passion for video games, which developed at a young age, into a $10,000 business plan.

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What’s next on 'HumIn Focus'? Upcoming episode addresses questions about A.I.

What’s next on 'HumIn Focus'? Upcoming episode addresses questions about A.I.

A series of questions about the wide-ranging potential of artificial intelligence, as well as its limitations and myriad impacts, represents the focus of the seventh episode of "HumIn Focus," which will make its streaming debut on June 16, and its WPSU-TV premiere on June 24.

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What’s next on 'HumIn Focus'? Upcoming episode addresses questions about AI

What’s next on 'HumIn Focus'? Upcoming episode addresses questions about AI

A series of questions about the wide-ranging potential of artificial intelligence, as well as its limitations and myriad impacts, represents the focus of the seventh episode of "HumIn Focus," which will make its streaming debut on June 16, and its WPSU-TV premiere on June 24.

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Penn State hosts Nigerian delegation to discuss partnership

Penn State hosts Nigerian delegation to discuss partnership

A delegation led by the former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and His Royal Majesty Saka Adelola Matemilola, the Paramount Ruler of Owu Kingdom in Nigeria, visited Penn State on May 23-24 to explore opportunities for long term and impactful partnership between Penn State and a consortium of higher education institutions in Nigeria

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