Solving real-world problems with innovative and interdisciplinary plant research is exactly what the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences aims to achieve with the launch of a new seminar series, "Plants for the People." The series begins this Friday, Oct. 24, at 2:30 p.m. in the Berg Auditorium, Huck Life Sciences Building.
This free seminar series, open to the community at large, will showcase cutting-edge research and diverse perspectives on how plants can shape a healthier, more sustainable future. It will highlight innovative plant science research, foster collaboration among faculty leaders across disciplines, and explore how plants can address local, regional, and global challenges.
The opening seminar, "PlantWorks and the Plant Innovation Complex," will take place on Oct. 24 at 2:30 p.m. in the Berg Auditorium. Christina Grozinger, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, and Troy Ott, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, will share their vision for establishing the Plant Innovation Complex.
On Oct. 28 at 4 p.m., the series continues in the Berg Auditorium with "Harnessing Plants for Human Nutrition and Health." Presentations include Joshua Kellogg's "Cool Greens: Botanical Natural Products for Human Health," Joshua Lambert's "Cocoa and Chronic Inflammation as a Model for Studying Plants and Health from Soils to Plants to Consumers," and Eric Burkhart's "Appalachian Ethnobotany and the Search for New Agroforestry Crops."
The seminar "Sustainable Bioenergy and Biomaterials for People and the Planet" will be held on Nov. 4 at 4 p.m. in Room 134 of the HUB-Robeson Center. Charlie Anderson will present "Growing the Future: Working with Plants to Provide Sustainable Materials and Energy for Everyone." Benay Gursoy will discuss "Mushrooms Can Make Materials Too," and Stephen Chmely will speak on "Engineered Nanointerfaces to Enable Plant-Inspired 3D Printing Using Renewable Materials."
The final seminar in the series, "Translating AI to Action in the Plant Sciences," is scheduled for Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. in the Berg Auditorium. Harland Patch will present "FloraCount: An App for Rapid Assessment of Pollinator Attractiveness to Annual and Perennial Plants." Paul Esker will discuss "Signal to Shield: Advancing Causal AI for Actionable Crop Intelligence," and Patrick Suthers will present "Exploring Compartmentalized Whole Plant Genome-Scale Metabolic Model Reconstructions."
Source: Penn State University