Penn State’s mission includes helping to improve the well-being and health of individuals and communities through teaching, research and service. Penn State Lehigh Valley (PSU-LV) faculty regularly present, serve on panels and share their research with people and institutions outside of Penn State.

Over the last few months, PSU-LV faculty’s off-campus engagement included:

Julie Ealy, associate professor of chemistry, along with three undergraduate students: Ella McCoy, Marquis McMillan and A’dryanna Jenkins presented  their poster titled, “Comparison of the Binding Affinities of Three Flavins Using Florescence Spectrometry and Computational Methods” at the 2020 Virtual American Chemical Society meeting held Aug. 17-20. Ealy and students were available to answer questions about their research during the virtual meeting.

Nichola D. Gutgold, professor of communication arts and sciences:

• Gutgold has been featured in the media recently as an expert on women in politics, including in POLITICO, Sunbury Daily Item, WLVT PBS39, and Morning Call. She was also a guest on the podcast, Think Good Company on Sept. 26.
• Gutgold presented on a “Philosophy of Teaching” panel held virtually on Sept. 13 at Gwynedd Mercy College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She shared her philosophy on teaching with doctoral candidates.
• Gutgold published a peer-reviewed commentary for National Communication Association’s “Communication Currents” titled “Madam Vice President Will Surface Soon But How and to What Rhetorical Effect?” on July 28.
• Gutgold continued her duties of serving as a communications department advisory board member of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She has been a member since 2015.
• Gutgold gave a keynote lecture titled, “A Rhetorical Tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at the Information Technology and Journalism event organized by International Political Science Association (IPSA) in Croatia on Sept. 28.
• Gutgold was named president of the board of directors at The Literacy Center on Sept. 30, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Literacy Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping struggling adults empower themselves through education.

Tai-Yin Huang, professor of physics:

• Huang was invited to visit the Graduate Institute of Space Science and Engineering of National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan from July 20-27.  She gave an invited talk, titled “Interactions, Dynamics, and Energetics in the Atmosphere (IDEA) – An Introduction to the IDEA’s Current and Future Research Projects” at the Graduate Institute and another invited talk titled, “Airglow Patterns Over the Andes Lidar Observatory in Cerro Pachón” at the NCU Astronomy colloquium in the Astronomy Department.  She also toured the Lulin Observatory at the summit of Mount Lulin during her visit.  
• Huang was appointed by the President of American Geophysical Union to serve as chair of the Flinn Award Committee for a two-year term from 2020-2021.  She submitted an annual report on the award AGS-1903346, “Collaborative Research: Gravity Wave-Airglow Interactions in Multiple Emission Layers,” to the NSF Aeronomy program in June 2020. 

Jennifer Jarson, head librarian:

• Jarson (along with Rachel Hamelers from Muhlenberg College) gave an invited presentation titled, "How much time do you have? Quick and flexible activities to add some metacognition to your one-shot science information literacy sessions," to STEM-LINC (STEM Librarians in North Carolina, a section of the North Carolina Library Association) on Sept. 22.
• Jarson (along with Erin Burns, Hailley Fargo, Emily Mross and Christina Riehman-Murphy, Penn State) presented a poster, "Discovering  student perceptions and experiences with undergraduate research," at the Council on Undergraduate Research Virtual Biennial Conference on June 30.

Jacqueline S. McLaughlin, associate professor of biology:

• McLaughlin gave an asynchronous video presentation titled, “Research Reveals the Importance of Reflection in Undergraduate Research,” at the 47th annual National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) Virtual Conference hosted by NSEE, Mount Royal, New Jersey between June 28 – July 1.
• McLaughlin gave an asynchronous video presentation titled, “A CURE that Imparts Career Ready Skills in Preparation for the American Workforce,” at the Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR) Virtual Biennial Conference 2020, hosted by CUR, Washington, D.C. between Sept. 21-23.
• Mclaughlin authored, Developing Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences, for Penn State's new Undergraduate Research and Fellowship Mentoring Office website as part of its 2020 university-wide transformation. 
• Mclaughlin was an invited participate in a virtual Think Tank on Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts held Tuesday, Oct. 6, in conjunction with the AAC&U Virtual Conference on Global Learning.