Aerospace Engineering Seminar Series: TBA

Thursday, February 12, 2026; 3:00pm-4:00pm
028 ECoRE
Speaker: from

Hosted by: Jessica Chhan,  jmc7050@psu.edu

Generative AI for High-Stakes Decision-Making with Societal Impact

Tuesday, February 10, 2026; 10:00AM
W375 Westgate Building
Speaker: Dr. Lingkai Kong from Harvard University

Lingkai Kong is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Computational Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research advances generative AI by integrating it with optimization and reinforcement learning to address high-stakes decision-making challenges in public health and sustainability. Dedicated to bridging theory and practice, Lingkai collaborates closely with field partners to translate algorithmic innovations into tangible social impact. His work has been published in top-tier venues such as ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR, and he has delivered tutorials at major data science conferences like KDD. He is also a recipient of the Otto & Jenny Krauss Fellowship.

Hosted by: Emmalia Lutz,  exr123@psu.edu

A Holistic Scientific Understanding for Trustworthy AI

Thursday, February 12, 2026; 10:00AM
W375 Westgate Building
Speaker: Shichang Zhang from Harvard University

BIO

Shichang Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). His research focuses on developing principled methods to understand and improve the trustworthiness of AI systems, with applications in high-stakes domains such as science and healthcare. His work has been published in leading venues, including NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, WWW, and ISR, and was highlighted in a Nature News Feature for its educational impact. He delivered a comprehensive tutorial on Explainable AI at NeurIPS 2025 and has industry experience at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Snap Research. He is a recipient of the J.P. Morgan AI Ph.D. Fellowship, the Amazon Ph.D. Fellowship, and the NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award, and has received multiple Outstanding Reviewer Awards (ICML 2022; KDD 2023, 2025).

Hosted by: Emmalia Lutz,  exr123@psu.edu

Talking to Your Data: Building AI Co-Scientists to Accelerate Scientific Discovery

Friday, February 13, 2026; 10:00AM
W375 Westgate Building
Speaker: Tianyu Liu from Yale University

Tianyu is a PhD candidate from Yale University working on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods for accelerating scientific research. Previously, Tianyu obtained bachelor’s degrees with the highest honors from a joint program between Zhejiang University and UIUC. Having a good understanding for both machine learning concepts and biological knowledge, Tianyu has led multiple research projects based on multimodal AI Agents and Large Reasoning Models for computational biology and chemistry research. He has published several papers in the high-impacted science journals (Nature and Cell series) and ML conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, etc.). The model he designed has also been adopted by some well-known companies such as Genentech. He also served as reviewers and organizers for key conferences in this field. His research is supported by fundings from NIH, NSF, Google, and OpenAI. 

Hosted by: Emmalia Lutz,  exr123@psu.edu

Threading the Innovation Chain: Scaling and Manufacturing Deep Tech in the United States

Wednesday, February 11, 2026; 121 Earth & Engineering Science Building
3:35-4:25 p.m.
Speaker: Melik Demirel from Engineering Science and Mechanics

Prof. Demirel, Lloyd and Dorothy Huck Chair in Biomimetic Materials, is a scientist and innovator (National Academy of Innovators-NAI member) with expertise in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and materials science. He also founded a climatech company for decarbonizing textiles (Tandem Repeat, Inc.) Over the last two decades, Professor Demirel and his research team have focused on developing functional nanoscale biomimetic materials. His team designed, fabricated, and synthesized advanced materials by studying the functional transitions of biomimetic systems, both computationally and experimentally. Prof. Demirel's achievements have been recognized, in part, through his receipt of a Young Investigator Award from the Department of Defense, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, a Wyss Institute Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, an Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter Junior Fellowship, The Nicholas and Gelsa Pelick Biotechnology Innovation Award and the Pearce Development Professorship, and a Penn State Engineering Alumni Society Outstanding Research Award. Prof. Demirel received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, and BS/MS degrees from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Prof. Demirel is well known for his ground-breaking work on bioinspired programmable materials.

Hosted by: Lana Fulton,  lub18@psu.edu

Aerospace Engineering Seminar Series: Erika Alvarez

Thursday, February 19, 2026; 3:00pm-4:00pm
028 ECoRE
Speaker: Erika Alvarez from

Hosted by: Jessica Chhan,  jmc7050@psu.edu

Walking and swimming and flying, oh my: the multimodal biomechanics and fluid dynamics of freshwater insects

Wednesday, February 18, 2026; 121 Earth & Engineering Science Building
3:35-4:25 p.m.
Speaker: Margaret Byron from Mechanical Engineering

Many animals, including humans, can transition between multiple modes of locomotion between diverse environments. Bimodality is common, but trimodality—that is, the ability to successfully navigate between aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial environments—is relatively rare. Multimodality is also challenging to achieve in engineered devices, vehicles, and robots—however, several animals are capable of regularly traversing these environmental boundaries. In this talk, we will outline several of the general adaptations that living organisms use to locomote between land, air, and water. We will then focus on recent research in the Environmental and Biological Fluid Mechanics Laboratory which focus on the biomechanics of aquatic insects, many of which are capable of walking, swimming, and flying within the same life stage. These insects exhibit hybrid walking-swimming gaits when transitioning from land to shallow water; they also leverage surface tension, buoyancy, fluid drag, and aerodynamic forces to take off into flight directly from the water surface. They also display underwater agility, using their legs as paddles to propel themselves rapidly as they seek prey and/or escape from predators. Interesting morphological features enabling these transitions include superhydrophobic wings and hemelytra, and dense setae lining the metathoracic legs which create shape-morphing appendages for efficient swimming. We will present data from all three locomotor modes and discuss their implications for both fundamental biology and ecology as well as bioinspired engineering and technology development.

Bio: Dr. Margaret L. Byron is currently the Martin W. Trethewey Early Career Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University, and is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, and the American Chemical Society Doctoral New Investigator Award. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2010 and her MS/PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2012/2015. She works at the interface of biology, physics, and engineering, with interests including the fluid dynamics of animal locomotion and the transport of irregularly shaped inertial particles in turbulent flows (including sediment, aggregates, and microplastics)

Hosted by: Lana Fulton,  lub18@psu.edu

Aerospace Engineering Seminar Series: Chloe Johnson

Thursday, February 26, 2026; 3:00pm-4:00pm
028 ECoRE
Speaker: Chloe Johnson from University of Maryland

Hosted by: Jessica Chhan,  jmc7050@psu.edu

Locating Refueling Stations for Alternative-Fuel Vehicles in a Multi-Class Vehicle Transportation Network and Its Impact on the Environment

Wednesday, February 25, 2026; 121 Earth & Engineering Science Building
3:35-4:25 p.m.
Speaker: Jose Ventura from Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The existing literature regarding the location of alternative fuel (AF) refueling stations in transportation networks generally assumes that all vehicles are capable of traveling the same driving range and have similar levels of fuel in their tanks at the moment they enter the network and when they exist it. In this research, we relax these assumptions and introduce a multi-class vehicle transportation network in which vehicles have different driving ranges and fuel tank levels at their origins and destinations. A 0-1 linear programming model is proposed for locating a given number of refueling stations that maximize the total traffic flow covered (in round trips per time unit) by the stations on the network. Through numerical experiments with recent medium- and heavy-duty truck traffic data in the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we identify the optimal sets of refueling stations for liquified natural gas (LNG) trucks considering multiple truck classes with different driving ranges and fuel tank levels at origins and destinations. Moreover, we discuss the impact of refueling station construction cost on annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and social cost of carbon (SCC) savings.

Dr. Jose Ventura is a Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering at Penn State. He holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Polytechnic Univ. of Catalonia (Spain), and MEng and PhD degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Univ. of Florida. His research interest focuses on supply chain management, with a varying emphasis that includes supplier selection, auctions and price negotiation strategies for procurement, inventory coordination, and transportation. He is also interested in traffic network equilibrium, energy transport logistics, and energy policy. Ventura has published over 130 archival journal papers. His research has garnered funding from federal and state agencies, such as NSF, DARPA-TRP, the Pentagon, and PA Turnpike Commission, and industry, such as GE and McDonnell Douglas. His research has been recognized by numerous awards, including the 2017 IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, the 1990 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the 1988 IISE Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Hosted by: Lana Fulton,  lub18@psu.edu

Aerospace Engineering Seminar Series: Aaron Johnson

Thursday, March 5, 2026; 3:00pm-4:00pm
028 ECoRE
Speaker: Aaron Johnson from University of Michigan

Hosted by: Jessica Chhan,  jmc7050@psu.edu

Waste to Resource: Sustainable Plastic Management for a Circular Global Economy

Wednesday, March 4, 2026; 121 Earth & Engineering Science Building
335-425PM
Speaker: Hilal Ezgi Toramann from Energy, Mineral and Chemical Engineering PSU

Abstract:

About 60% of all plastics ever made are currently in waste sites, resulting in a yearly loss of $80-120 billion USD. Plastic production, accounting for 6% of global oil use, is projected to rise to 20% by 2050. Unique conditions in landfills and the natural environment expose plastic waste to factors like high salinity, varied temperatures, and microbial breakdown which can lead to the formation of microplastics. My lab leverages expertise in catalysis and reaction engineering along with advanced separation techniques such as two-dimensional gas chromatography and artificial intelligence to study the fundamental chemistry behind plastic recycling technologies. Accurate product characterization is essential to develop kinetic models for both catalytic and non-catalytic pathways. By leveraging the advanced separation capabilities of GC×GC, this talk highlights its critical role in resolving complex pyrolysis products and elucidating reaction mechanisms. These insights enable resilient plastic-recycling strategies by deepening our understanding of pyrolysis chemistry, ensuring process adaptability, and reinforcing the foundations of a strong circular economy.

Bio:

Hilal Ezgi Toraman leads an interdisciplinary research program at Penn State focused on sustainable reaction engineering and catalysis for the valorization of non-traditional carbon feedstocks, particularly plastic waste. Her group integrates advanced pyrolysis experimentation, GC×GC-based analytics, and kinetic modeling to develop and optimize scalable chemical recycling technologies. She leads multi-institutional projects on mixed plastic pyrolysis and catalytic upgrading, where her group contributes intrinsic kinetic studies, GC×GC method development, and data management and analysis infrastructure to support process design and evaluation. Toraman has received both national and international recognition, including the C&EN Talented 12, AIChE CRE Pioneers in Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, and ACS Energy & Fuels Rising Star. She has held leadership roles as Director of AIChE's Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division and president of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland Catalysis Society. Her honors include the Virginia S. and Philip L. Walker Jr. Faculty Fellowship and the Wilson Fellowship. Before joining the Penn State faculty, Toraman was a postdoctoral researcher with the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Delaware Energy Institute at the University of Delaware. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Türkiye , and her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Ghent University, Belgium.

Hosted by: Lana Fulton,  lub18@psu.edu