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Resources

Internal IGC documents

Visitor Resources

Connecting to the Internet

Go to https://wireless.psu.edu and follow the instructions

Downloading the Penn State GlobalProtect VPN

This VPN is required for accessing PSU intranet services off-campus
Go to https://softwarerequest.psu.edu/Home/SoftwareReleases
Find ‘GlobalProtect VPN’ and download

Mail

As a Visiting Scholar, you can arrange for mail to be delivered to the mailroom in 104 Davey Lab. If you are interested in setting this up, please contact Casey Brobeck, the facilities coordinator, at cbb6133@psu.edu, or stop by the Physics Office in 104 Davey during normal business hours.

Department Keys

The key you receive is recorded in your name. Do not exchange or give your keys to another person. You are responsible for these keys; If they are lost or stolen, there is a $20 replacement fee per key. Please return keys to Courtney or Melissa before you leave.

Travel

Air travel using Penn State funds requires the use of University-approved travel agents, which can be found at http://www.travel.psu.edu. If the travel is federally funded (This includes NSF funds), a US-flagged carrier must be used when available. Please contact Courtney, 321D Whitmore, with any questions.

If you plan to travel internationally, you must submit for GSN approval 30 days prior to the departure date: gsn.psu.edu.

We encourage the use of a purchasing card for all travel expenses. If you prefer, you may use a personal card instead. Please discuss with your PI if you are interested in using a purchasing card.

If you are claiming reimbursement, please give all travel receipts and provide the fund name or IO# that travel will be reimbursed from. Sometimes, a detailed itinerary will be required as well.

Group Meals

All Business meals require itemized receipts and charge slips. A list of attendees, and a valid business purpose for the meal must be provided.

About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.