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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Andrea Tapia, dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), was featured recently in PennStater, the magazine of the Penn State Alumni Association.
The article, "Built for Bold Solutions," profiles Tapia's 22 years with IST, her head tattoo and more.
Scholar and entrepreneur C. Frank Igwé, founder and president of Moravia Health, will present the 2025 spring commencement address for the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology on May 10 at Pegula Ice Arena. Igwé earned his doctoral degree from the college in 2008.
Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence announced the winners of its first-ever "Cheat-a-thon," a virtual competition that invited faculty and students at universities across the U.S. to test the capabilities and limitations of using generative artificial intelligence to answer college-level questions.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology selected six projects to receive funding from the college’s seed grant program, which provides funding to support research activities and generate preliminary results that will eventually lead to bigger projects involving external funding.
Five student teams were selected as winners of the 2025 Nittany AI Challenge. The winning teams will use their prize money to continue developing projects that use artificial intelligence for good to solve pressing global issues.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology held its second annual award ceremony to recognize learning assistants, undergraduate students who serve as learning coaches and mentors for students while supporting instructors with teaching-related tasks.
Ting-Hao ‘Kenneth’ Huang, associate professor in the College of IST, will present, “What Roles Will Humans Play in the Future of Data Annotation,” to the Department of Computer Science (CS) and the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP) at Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Synthesis Center for Emergence in the Molecular and Cellular Sciences at Penn State recently formed 10 initial working groups, which will conduct research in accordance with open science principles, producing peer-reviewed articles, public datasets, reproducible workflows and other forms of openly shared knowledge to advance molecular sciences.
Hosted by the Penn State Eberly College of Science, with support from the Rainbow Science Network and the colleges of Information Sciences and Technology, Engineering, Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences, the event will feature LGBTQ+ faculty, trainee scientists, and engineers taking pride in their successes while navigating their careers.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has named its student marshals for the spring 2025 commencement ceremony. Aidan Fraser will represent the college's undergraduate majors, and Kaydn Magyar will represent the Reserve Officers’ Training Core (ROTC) program.
Thirty-one graduate students received awards at the 2025 Graduate Exhibition, a professional development event designed to help graduate students hone their skills with communicating research and creative scholarship to a general audience.
The new National Security Institute will advance and facilitate research outside the scope of the Applied Research Laboratory to address critical security challenges facing the nation and the world.
Steven Haynes, teaching professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, will retire on June 30. Haynes was instrumental in creating IST's Human-Centered Design and Development undergraduate degree program.
Corey Wheeler originally went back to school to finish his bachelor’s degree. He found success as a Penn State World Campus online learner that led him to three degrees and big plans for the future.
Winning teams were selected during the final round of the 2025 Bardusch Family IdeaMakers Challenge hosted by the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Where: Centre Daily Times, ‘Penn State joins growing list of universities to offer AI major: New era of innovation'
Who: The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST)
The fall 2024 cohort of the Penn State Emerging Academic Leaders program have successfully completed their semester-long professional development experience.
The Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization will host its first Capture the Flag (CTF) event, SillyCTF, on March 29. The virtual cybersecurity competition is open to everyone, and college students with an ".edu" email address can win prizes.
William Parquette, professor of practice in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, will retire on June 30 after six years with the University.
Kevin Richardson, one of the exonerated “Central Park Five,” will participate in this year’s Osaze Osagie Memorial Lecture taking place on March 25 in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Alumni Hall.
Renowned entrepreneur, innovator and investor Slava Rubin will be a guest of the Penn State Smeal College of Business on March 25 as part of the college's signature speaker series "Executive Insights."
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has announced a new undergraduate degree. The Artificial Intelligence Methods and Applications program will prepare students to leverage the strengths and benefits of AI while ensuring its ethical use.
Where: National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, 'Picture this: Using AI to analyze photographs of the placenta'
Col. Jake Graham, a professor of practice in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, will retire on June 30. Graham came to the college in 2007, after 26 years of services in the United State Marine Corps.
Where: Pennsylvania Capital-Star, ‘DeepSeek AI banned from all Pennsylvania Treasury-issued devices'
Who: Sarah Rajtmajer, assistant professor, Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology
Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) will host a virtual "Cheat-a-thon" competition March 3-April 6. The event, open to faculty and students across the U.S., explores the use of generative AI in academic environments.
Adanna Nedd, a Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology alumna, has turned her lifelong love of video games into a career. She is helping to redefine what gaming looks like for people who look like her.
Frank Igwé is the first recipient of the Dean’s Alumni Excellence Award in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. The newly created honor highlights and celebrates the extraordinary work and accomplishments of IST alumni.
The Penn State Cocoziello Institute of Real Estate Innovation hosted its inaugural Student IdeaLab on the University Park campus in December 2024, bringing together a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students interested in shaping the future of the real estate and built environment sectors.
Penn State students interested in pursuing a career in the technology industry now have an opportunity to apply for IBM’s co-op program this spring. The company is looking for individuals from a variety of majors, including business, computer science and engineering, data science and engineering, among others, across academic colleges who want to gain hands-on experience and connections in areas like business consulting, data science, data engineering, technology and sales.
Kelley Cotter, assistant professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, will present a session at the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania’s 2025 DE&I In Tech Summit. The event will take place on March 19 at Penn State Harrisburg.
The College of Information Sciences and Technology recently hosted its annual Be You in Tech Summit with more than 100 students, an alumni panel, industry partners and a keynote speaker, Netflix host Ati Williams.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology has named Tom Maatta as its new director of development, effective Feb. 5.
Penn State experts discussed the potential technological and financial impacts of artificial intelligence assistant DeepSeek.
Shomir Wilson, associate professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, recently organized an interdisciplinary research retreat on privacy research. Thirty-one researchers from 10 countries attended the event at the Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for informatics in Germany.
The Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization placed third at the Global Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
As part of our regular “We Are!” feature, we recognize 19 Penn Staters who have gone above and beyond what’s asked of them in their work at the University.
The winners of the first-ever "Diagnose-a-thon" were announced by Penn State's Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence. Prizes were awarded for accurate and misleading health diagnoses presented by large language models.
The mobile game advertisements that pop up all over social media platforms may promise better, more complete games than they actually deliver. Researchers at Penn State studying these “fake games” — or those that promote inaccurate depictions of their gameplay and development — identified five characteristics that gamers could use when deciding how much time and money to invest in a mobile game.
A team led by a Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology researcher received a $1.23 million grant from NASA to improve atmosphere and ocean forecasts by incorporating AI and satellite data into current forecasting models.
C. Lee Giles, professor emeritus in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, was recognized by CDO Magazine for his contributions to the field of data science.
Where: Ecoonomia, ‘The Evolution of WallStreetBets: A Look into the High-Risk Trading Phenomenon’
Where: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, ‘What can the placenta tell us? Pittsburgh researchers join effort to find out’
Fifteen student teams using artificial intelligence (AI) to make the world a better place have been awarded a total of $4,500 in the prototype phase of the Nittany AI Challenge. This year’s Nittany AI Challenge includes new partners and resources providing even more opportunities for student success.
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology held its annual holiday party and award ceremony on Dec. 18. Faculty and staff were honored for excellence in teaching, research and service.
A multi-national, multi-institutional team led by Penn State researchers developed a new tool that enables doctors to examine placentas right at the bedside using just a phone. The tool could make placental examination more accessible, saving lives and improving health outcomes, the team said.
The Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence awarded more than $159,000 to seven interdisciplinary research projects across the University.
A new course, Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Human Language, will be offered to students in the College of Information Sciences and Technology beginning spring 2025.
Kartik Khurana, a graduate student in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, leveraged networking and internships to land a full-time position. He will begin his cybersecurity career following graduation this December.
