Labs, Centers, and Facilities

Labs

Additive Construction Laboratory

Directors: Dr. José Pinto Duarte and Dr. Sven Bilén
Location: Lidia Manson Building, 3127 Research Drive, State College, PA 16801

The Additive Construction Lab (AddConLab) is a multidisciplinary, collaborative effort between the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Architecture. The goal is to explore the use of additive manufacturing at construction scale. It explores two lines of research related to concrete- and clay-based mixtures and it addresses a multitude of issues concerning the design of materials, printing system, toolpath, structure, and building design. The lab occupies an area of 250 m² housed at Civil Infrastructure Testing and Evaluation Laboratory (CITEL).

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Advanced Carbon Materials Lab

Director: Dr. David Mazyck
Location: 18A Sackett Building

Carbon materials are essential for everyday engineering solutions (e.g., batteries, water purification, steel manufacturing). The Advanced Carbon Materials research lab focuses on enhancing these materials (e.g., increased efficiencies) and finding sustainable solutions.

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Britelab

Director: Dr. Scarlett Miller
Location: 128 Hammond Building

The Bridging Research in Innovation, Technology, and Engineering Lab (Britelab) views design as both a process and a product. While studying design processes, our lab explores ways that humans constrain innovation through investigations into risk aversion, imperfect decision making, technological mediation, malevolence, and biases in team processes. In addition, we seek ways to innovate through the design and evaluation of novel medical education simulation technologies that utilize haptics and personalized user interfaces.

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Cross-disciplinary Laboratory for Integrated Plasma Science and Engineering

Director: Dr. Sean Knecht
Location: 031 Hammond; 304 Hallowell Building; 215 Research East; 015 EE East Building

Cross-disciplinary Laboratory for Integrated Plasma Science and Engineering (CLIPSE) studies the applications of plasma, the fourth state of matter which is an ionized fluid in which electrons are energetically removed from atoms and molecules resulting in a complex, chemically-reactive mixture, in fields such as medicine, sustainability, agriculture, and space exploration.  We study the fundamental science underpinning plasma interactions with all phases of matter, living and non-living, as well as the system-level understanding of deploying plasma systems to address societal issues and the design paradigms through which plasma science intersects with other cutting-edge fields including artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, green energy, biomedical engineering, and human exploration of the solar system.

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Design Optimization Lab

Director: Dr. Tianliang Yu
Location: 313B EDI Building

The Design Optimization Lab aims to apply multidisciplinary multi-fidelity simulation and modeling, as well as multi-scale optimization in the exploration and design of acoustic and mechanical metamaterials integrated with other physics and couplings, such as electrical, acoustic, thermal, and magnetic, for applications in structures and systems.

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DREAM Structures Lab

Director: Dr. Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto
Location: 105 EDI (Highbay) and 031 Hammond Building

The DREAM Structures Lab focuses on the Design of Resilient, Engineered, Autonomous and Multifunctional (DREAM) structures via structural control, morphing building envelopes, biomimetics, community resilience, and sustainable innovation.

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Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Lab

Director: Dr. Farnaz Tehranchi
Location: 161 Hammond Building

The Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) Lab focuses on computational cognitive models (human-like AI models), integrated cognitive systems, data-driven decision making, machine learning and human-computer interaction. Researchers in this lab conduct behavioral studies and create technologies and cognitive computational models.

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HuMatLab

Director: Prof. DK Osseo-Asare
Location: Stuckeman Building

HuMatLab research design across disciplines through participatory processes of making. We call this approach “stellate design” or “stellate innovation”, per application of geometrical procedure of stellation—in the synergistic sense of design principle explication and structuration.

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Made By Design Lab

Director: Dr. Nicholas Meisel
Location: 101 EDI (Additive Manufacturing), and CIMP-3D Building 230 at Innovation Park

The mission of the Made By Design Lab is to encourage informed and inspired engineering design by using additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, with the aim of expanding the unique design opportunities afforded by AM while also establishing the knowledge necessary to design in accordance with its unique manufacturing constraints.

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The Mechanism Collective

Director: Dr. Jared Butler
Location: 332 Leonhard and 031 Hammond

The Penn State Mechanism Collective researches compliant mechanism design methods and tools that are innovative, impactful, and make people’s lives better. The collective focuses on developing the theories and tools that enable compliant mechanism design, including origami-based mechanisms, developable mechanisms, and other compliant and deployable devices.

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Open Design Lab

Director: Dr. Matt Parkinson
Location: 300 Engineering Unit C

The Open Design Lab conducts research in the application of rigorous design methodologies to the design of artifacts and environments for people. The lab’s design tools, in the form of calculators and guidelines, make it easier to identify, quantify, and apply relevant anthropometry of appropriate target user populations for design.

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REID Lab

Director: Dr. Tahira Reid Smith
Location: 201 Reber Building

The REID Lab is dedicated to quantifying and integrating human-centered considerations in the design process and human-machine systems. The research conducted here spans projects related to design, trust in human machine systems, and those that we deem "interesting human centered problems."

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Systems Design Lab

Director: Dr. Sven Bilén
Location: 117 Research East Building

The Systems Design Laboratory focuses on the design and realization of systems and research into systems engineering processes. Research and realization domains include space systems, software-defined radio systems, and wireless sensor network systems.

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Student Space Programs Lab

Director: Dr. Sven Bilén
SEDI Faculty: Dr. Jesse McTernan
Location: 324 Electrical Engineering East

The Student Space Programs Laboratory (SSPL) is a faculty-directed, student-lead research group through which members gain industry-level experience working on cutting edge aerospace projects. SSPL is a community of dedicated students with a passion for space who support one another in their coursework and professional development.

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Sustainable Cities and Communities Lab  

<pDirector: Dr. Esther Obonyo
SEDI Faculty: Dr. James Mutunga
Location: 219A EDI Building 

The interdisciplinary research undertaken within the Sustainable Cities and Communities Lab cuts across the following core areas socially just, people-centered built environment processes and products. We are also developing research methodologies that align the built environment’s targets for climate change responsiveness with bankable, public health priorities.

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Stuckeman Center for Design Computing

Director: Dr. José Pinto Duarte
Location: 150 Stuckeman Family Building 

The Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC) is devoted to advanced design research and learning in computational design. It is a multidisciplinary community of researchers exploring computation as a subject of creative and scholarly inquiry in design across scales and modes of engagement: from the territorial to the micro, from the theoretical to the material, and from the applied to the speculative and critical.

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THRED

Director: Dr. Jessica Menold
SEDI Faculty: Dr. Nicolas Soria Zurita (313B EDI Building)
Location: 136 Hammond Building

The THRED Group is an interdisciplinary group of researchers that explore people, products, and processes and the interactions between each of them.

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Wagner Lab

Director: Dr. Jennifer Wagner

The Wagner Lab focuses on anthroengineering and research related to the ethical, legal, and social implications of human genetics and genomics.

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Centers and Facilities

Center for Research in Design and Innovation

The Center for Research in Design and Innovation (CRDI) provides an organizational structure and resources to facilitate interdisciplinary research at Penn State.

Integrated Design Solutions

Integrated Design Solutions (IDS) is a network of Penn State resources that accelerates industry ideas from concept to market. IDS provides technical expertise for both product development and process improvement. IDS provides students with experiential learning opportunities that complement their academic education changing engineering students into world-class engineers. IDS provides technical scoping and project management to facilitate collaboration between industry and Penn State to ensure project success and ultimately create long-term partnerships.