UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Three Penn State undergraduates will present their research from their fall 2025 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Connection (UROC) projects at Penn State’s Department of Geography Coffee Hour series at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, in 112 Walker Building on the University Park campus. The event also will be accessible via Zoom.
UROC is a program in the Department of Geography that provides students from any major opportunities to join semester-long research projects led by graduate student mentors. The program allows students to earn course credit and gain hands-on experience that supports career development or graduate school preparation.
Third-year geography major Alyssa Errico will present “Analyzing Antarctic Supraglacial Lakes.” Her work contributes to a broader research initiative focused on understanding supraglacial lake dynamics on the Antarctic ice sheet. With guidance from geography doctoral candidate Mahsa Bahrami, Errico used satellite data, including Sentinel-2 imagery and refined lake annotations with tools such as QGIS and Google Earth Engine.
Second-year environmental systems engineering majors Maria Catalano and Laura Hendry will present “Advancing Bengaluru’s Solid Waste Management through Climate Action Planning.” Under the mentorship of Harman Singh, a dual-title doctoral candidate in geography and climate science, they are contributing to a multi-semester effort to gather and organize climate and disaster-related policy documents in India. The project supports long-term goals of assessing and improving urban flood management and climate adaptation strategies.
This event is part of the fall 2025 Coffee Hour series hosted by Penn State’s Department of Geography. To learn more and access Zoom information, visit the Coffee Hour event webpage.