Three students from Lehigh University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, one of the nation's most competitive honors for emerging STEM researchers. Their success highlights the impact of a course designed to strengthen scientific communication, proposal writing, and fellowship preparation.

Researchers at Penn State have developed an artificial intelligence-powered modeling framework that uses fiber-optic sensors to monitor and predict permafrost degradation in the Arctic, offering a new tool for monitoring the stability of buildings and roads in this warming climate.

Heatwaves are arriving sooner and becoming hotter, with the United Kingdom recording May 25 as its hottest day in May since tracking began more than a century ago, only for the record to break again the next day. While humans can turn to artificial means of cooling, such as air conditioning or swimming pools, plants are left to cope with heat and frequently co-occurring droughts on their own. Sarah M. Assmann, Waller Professor of Biology at Penn State, is working to better understand how plants respond to environmental signals — and is applying that understanding to develop crops more resilient to environmental stress.

Sonar-MASt3R is a new underwater mapping technique developed at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) that may allow vehicles to see through murky, low-visibility waters.

A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sun-like star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets.

West Virginia University researcher Avishek Choudhury, who studies health care providers’ trust in artificial intelligence, has been named a Faculty Early Career Development award winner by the National Science Foundation.

UMBC researchers are using NASA’s PACE satellite to map fall colors by tracking changes in leaf pigments like chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. The new method provides more precise timing of peak autumn color than traditional indices, with applications for tourism, monitoring plant stress, and understanding climate impacts.