Penn State Opens Research Center On Marcellus Shale

Penn State has established the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research.
The center’s co-director Tom Murphy says the center is funded entirely by the university. He says they’ve moved some dollars from other programs towards this particular effort because of the high demand for information on Marcellus drilling, since it impacts so many Pennsylvanians.
Murphy says, “The outreach part of [the center] is to take some of that same information out to wherever the demand might be within the different clientele groups we work with.” He says there’s a wide range of audiences that results will be reported to, such as state and federal legislators and landowners who are facing some of the impacts from drilling, industry and environmental groups.
Murphy says research will be made public. “We’ve done over 400 [public outreach meetings] over the last 5 and a half years. We’ll also have a series of "webinars" over time, and we have a website that we’ll be posting some of the results as it becomes available.”
Murphy says a number of current and future projects will involve undergraduate and graduate students. “There’ll be a variety of great opportunities going there for students.”