Penn State Behrend-School of Engineering

Save the date for our annual Gear Up for the Semester Event on Monday, August 31st from 4-6pm on the AMIC lawn.

We can't wait to see you there!

The 2nd International Conference on Software Engineering of Emerging Technologies was held at Penn State Behrend August 10 - 11.

Participants joined in-person and virtually for research presentations, keynote speakers, networking, and a student research competition. Behrend students and faculty participated in conference events, with one of our engineering students, Joshua Nallaraja, taking third place in the student research competition.

Save the date for our Blue & White AlumNight on Friday, October 16th from 7pm-9pm in Dobbin's!

This event will serve as the official kick-off to Families and Alumni Weekend, bringing the opportunity for alumni, faculty, and staff to reconnect. We hope you will join us for a night to celebrate all that makes Behrend special!

More information to come.

The School of Engineering is currently in the process of identifying additional senior capstone project ideas for the upcoming academic year. In addition to the externally sponsored projects we are seeking, we are looking for project ideas internally from Penn State Behrend that will benefit your research/classroom/club/outreach endeavors while providing our students with valuable practical engineering experience in: Computer Science & Software, Industrial, Electrical & Computer, Mechanical, Plastics and Interdisciplinary Business & Engineering.

Project proposals should be submitted by August 15th and are officially accepted and assigned to students in September, but we usually accept projects through the first week of classes if still needed. Students typically begin working on their senior design projects in September and follow project timelines through late April (note: plastics projects have a 3-semester timeline).

A link with key information for sponsors can be found at https://behrend.psu.edu/school-of-engineering/resources-for/business-industry/senior-design-projects along with a link to the project submission form. We ask for $250 for internal projects to cover the team’s budget, but if you lack funding, please contact me.

We hope that you can identify a project and support our program. For best consideration, project proposals should be submitted by August 15; proposals submitted after that date will be considered if additional projects are still needed. Feel free to email or call me with questions.

We are also still seeking industrial and community partners willing to sponsor a project team. If you are in contact with any individuals who may be a potential sponsor, such as Behrend alumni, please send them the informational link above. They can find more about the scope, timeline, funding, and a sample project submission for reference. Corporate sponsors have a set of rates based on company size to encourage start-ups, and we offer a discounted price for non-profits.

Our 2025 Cast in Steel Team is featured on episode 4 of the Cast in Steel TV Show. We hope you are as excited as we are to watch it!

They Cast George Washington's Sword… in Hawaiian Shirts (Cast in Steel Ep. 4) Cast in Steel — the competition where minds meet METAL. To take on ...

Congratulations to Dr. Feng Qian on receiving a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) award for his project, "ERI: Bio-inspired Bistable Stochastic Energy Harvesting for Self-powered Smart Tires."

This two-year award, totaling almost $200K, will explore innovative approaches to harvesting energy from tire vibrations to enable self-powered smart tire sensing and communication. The research has broad potential applications in vehicle safety, autonomous and connected vehicles, renewable energy systems, robotics, smart manufacturing, and other rotational systems.

The project will provide opportunities for undergraduate research, which will help inspire the next generation of engineers.

Wes Salandro earned a degree in mechanical engineering at . Today, he is vice president of production at SpaceX, overseeing the assembly of Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft.

Link to story in the comments.

We are so grateful for all that Chris and Andy do!

Congratulations to Andrew Bartlett and Christopher Bartlett, the machinists in the School of Engineering. They received the “Behrend’s Best” award for best team!

Doctors said he might not run again.

Aiden Seeman had other plans.

After losing nearly half his lung to a rare tumor, the Penn State Behrend student-athlete fought his way back to the track.

His story of resilience will stick with you: https://behrendblog.com/2026/05/21/from-collapse-to-comeback/