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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Ten new faculty members will join the College of Information Sciences and Technology for the 2020-21 academic year. The new faculty will support the rapidly growing college and the addition of three new degree programs: a bachelor’s in enterprise technology integration, a master’s in cybersecurity analytics and operations, and an online bachelor’s in cybersecurity analytics and operations through Penn State World Campus.
Two Penn State students have co-founded Xora, a platform aimed at allowing more people to create augmented reality experiences by making them easier to develop, and one of seven startups selected to participate in this year's Summer Founders Program.
Penn State researchers have observed that social media users who may be looking for ways to stay connected during isolation appear to be sharing more personal information online. This is a concern because we know that personal information shared voluntarily through social media is vulnerable to collection and misuse, says Sarah Rajtmajer, assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State.
A new Army Research Office grant will support efforts to combat cyberattacks by dynamically changing attack surfaces and system configurations, making it more difficult for attackers and providing insights about their methods.
Seven students in the College of Information Sciences and Technology have been chosen for the prestigious Department of Defense Cyber Scholarship Program in the 2020 cycle. The program is designed to encourage the recruitment of the nation’s top cyber talent and the retention of DoD personnel who have skills necessary to meet the agency’s cyber requirements and help secure the United States against threats of information systems and networks.
An artificial intelligence algorithm developed by researchers at the College of Information Sciences and Technology could help predict susceptibility to substance use disorder among young homeless individuals, and suggest personalized rehabilitation programs for highly susceptible homeless youth.
Last academic year, four Penn State instructors worked with teams from Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) to enhance the spaces where students learn. With preparations underway for the new academic year, the most recent cohort of TLT Faculty Fellows; Ed Glantz, Siu Ling (Pansy) Leung, Pierce Salguero and Priya Sharma can share lessons learned from their work.
This summer, three undergraduate students from three higher education institutions got an exclusive, in-depth introduction to research topics focused on machine learning in cybersecurity through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates site program sponsored by National Science of Foundation and hosted by Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Jessica Strait, a Penn State junior studying Applied Data Sciences, has earned a spot in the 2020 Cargill Global Scholars program.
The College of Information Sciences and Technology has named Candice Sheaffer as student marshal for the University’s summer 2020 commencement. Sheaffer will earn her degree in security and risk analysis, information and cyber security option, through Penn State World Campus.
Following his trip last summer to Kazakhstan, Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Alan Peslak and a contingent of University representatives traveled to New Zealand this past winter to engage in a development workshop with faculty members from the University of Auckland.
Jeffrey Bardzell has been named associate dean for undergraduate and graduate studies in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, effective Aug. 1.
When College of Information Sciences and Technology alumnus Kurt Heslop needed to update the website for an Oregon-based animal shelter, for which he serves on the board, he sought out a Penn State student to help complete the task.
This spring, students in the data sciences capstone course at the College of Information Sciences and Technology worked with a team of MIT Lincoln Laboratory Beaver Works researchers to make real-world contributions toward improving image classifiers for disaster response.
Joe Lewis, a 2010 graduate of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, created a nonprofit organization to give children in underserved communities in Atlanta the opportunity to learn about and experience technology after noticing disparities that existed in the city's school systems compared with what he experienced as a child.
Penn State students are using artificial intelligence to analyze how COVID-19 is affecting the number of people who telework and the impact that will make on public transportation in Philadelphia.
Shara Beach Ryan’s list of career experiences is quite extensive — she has worked as an advertising campaign manager, front-end developer, business analyst, project and product manager, marketer and user-interface designer. But none of that would be possible without the lessons she learned in the College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Educators and instructional and learning designers at Penn State have been key elements of the pivot to remote instruction as the University works to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the novel coronavirus pandemic struck, and many College of Information Sciences and Technology students faced challenges in securing summer internships due to public health guidelines, an IST alumnus rose to the occasion to help students get the experience they needed.
As a child, Rahil Mehta found that many science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) concepts weren't taught in a participatory way. So now as a rising sophomore at Penn State, he is changing the learning environment for young students through his nonprofit organization, Future Engineers Unite, which teaches children ages eight through 11 about STEM using interactive methods.
Courtney Smith, a rising Penn State junior studying security and risk analysis, recently received a 2020 Erickson Discovery Grant to further her research on parasocial relationships between 18- to 25-year-old Tumblr bloggers and celebrities.
The Center for Security Research and Education (CSRE) has selected 13 interdisciplinary projects through its spring 2020 seed grant program. CSRE is providing a total of $300,000 in funding for the projects, with an additional $300,000 in matching and supplemental funding from other colleges, departments, and institutes.
With students in the College of Information Sciences and Technology having offers rescinded from their internship placements, one alumnus launched an eight-week virtual hacker bootcamp to give a group of students professional experiences this summer.
A new study from Penn State tracked excess influenza-like illness data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to estimate that the number of early COVID-19 cases in the U.S. may have been more than 80 times greater and doubled nearly twice as fast as originally believed.
With the shift of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development to a virtual format due to COVID-19, general chair Carleen Maitland led a team effort to bring the international conference online.
Professor James Wang and Assistant Professor Xinyu Xing — both from the College of Information Sciences and Technology — are among 51 computing experts representing 39 universities worldwide to receive 2019 Amazon Research Awards.
This summer, as many students acclimate to virtual internship experiences due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, one Penn State World Campus student has just successfully completed an eight-month remote internship with the federal government.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program in 2020-21 will include six new fellows from Penn State.
Lauren Pearl never imagined she would become so involved with the newest major at the College of Information Sciences and Technology during the first semester of her first year at Penn State, let alone be elected president of a club for its students. But she’s found her niche as an advocate for the program that focuses on human-centered design and development in technology.
The College of Information Sciences and Technology will launch a residential master's degree in cybersecurity analytics and operations this fall to help meet the growing demand for professionals who can protect digital information.
A paper co-authored by Peng Liu, Raymond G. Tronzo, MD Professor of Cybersecurity in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been selected as one of the two winners of the prestigious 10-year Test-of-Time Award from the 2020 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) — a top conference in fault tolerance and dependable computing.
Penn State Scranton IST professor Alan Peslak has received the International Association for Computer Information Systems’ 2020 Ben Bauman Award for Excellence. Meanwhile, he was reappointed to serve as University College IST discipline coordinator for the 2020-21 academic year.
A new bachelor of science degree in enterprise technology integration degree offered by Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology will launch this fall to help prepare professionals to solve organizational problems through technology systems solutions.
Javad Khazaei, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Penn State Harrisburg and affiliate professor of architectural engineering in the College of Engineering, is leading a 15-month seed grant-funded project that will investigate the vulnerability of infrastructure systems and develop detection methodologies to counteract such criminal acts.
Camilla Beaderman, a rising junior studying Cybersecurity Analytics and Operations in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, is one of 15 students nationwide to be selected for the Foreign Affairs Information Technology Fellowship program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Early this spring semester, Joanne Peca led several organic in-class conversations in her Information Security Management course for graduating seniors about to head into their professional lives. Topics included negotiation, industry certifications and other practical topics relating to information security that would be relevant in the students’ early careers.
When Penn State swiftly transitioned to a remote learning environment this spring due to COVID-19, College of Information Sciences and Technology teaching professor Ed Glantz was more than prepared. For the last three semesters, he has been recording his residential courses using Zoom and posting his lectures to Canvas to provide continuity of education for students who needed to be absent from class for professional travel, illness or emergencies.
For the past three years, WPSU, Penn State University Park’s local NPR and PBS affiliate station, and the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PennTAP) have collaborated to host the statewide Inc.U undergraduate student startup competition. The competition culminates in the six finalists competing head-to-head on the live “Shark Tank-style” TV show, "The Investment."
A new grant is helping researchers explore how attitudes toward privacy change during times of crises, and whether oversharing has been expedited or even encouraged during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Administrative Fellows Program offers Penn State faculty and staff the opportunity to work with senior University officers to gain knowledge and experiences pertaining to the challenges of leadership in the academic community. The Administrative Fellows for 2020-21 are Andrea Tapia, Linghao Zhong and Moradeyo Olorunnisola.
The Penn State Alumni Association has selected 11 recent graduates as 2020-21 Young Alumni Ambassadors. These young alumni will share a yearlong experience aimed at developing their skills to become the University's future volunteer leaders.
Carleen Maitland, associate professor of information sciences and technology, is a recipient of a Fulbright Global Scholar award.
Sometimes, the greatest lessons come from someone who has lived them. That’s why the College of IST has revitalized its alumni mentorship program — to give students meaningful, real-world and professional guidance from alumni who have experience in the industry.
The College of Information Sciences and Technology recently announced six projects that will receive funding from the college’s seed grant program. Each project will take different approaches to tackle various challenges and needs related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
There are many health conditions that individuals experience — especially those that are rare or underrepresented — which could benefit from new technologies. And issues that individuals with those conditions face are what students in a recent College of Information Sciences and Technology class studying health information technology focused on solving through technology this spring.
A College of Information Sciences and Technology student has created a way to help new students, particularly those who are underrepresented, discover community on campus at the touch of a button.
For their contributions to the teaching mission of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, nine faculty members have been selected as recipients of the 2020 Dean’s Circle of Teaching Excellence award.
Penn State researchers have developed a comprehensive online tutor to educate the general public about the science behind COVID-19 and appropriate steps anyone can take to help reduce its transmission.
The Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, in conjunction with several Penn State colleges, awarded more than $725,000 in seed grants to fund 32 new computational and data sciences projects. The 57 researchers involved in the awards represent 12 Penn State colleges and 31 academic departments.
As a student in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology, Steve Ney learned critical skills, from coding to data design and architecture. Today, he applies that foundation in his "dream job" as a healthcare data analyst for Geisinger Health, where he uses those skills to help produce visual outputs for doctors and staff to utilize in caring for patients.