GENESEO, N.Y.—Geochemist and biochemist Nita Sahai will deliver the 13th Annual American Rock Salt Lecture on April 14 at 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public, the lecture—titled “The Potential Roles of Minerals in the Origins of Life”—will take place in Newton Hall Room 202.
Sahai’s lecture will answer such questions as: “Could mineral surfaces have played a role in affecting the thermodynamic stability and/or in catalyzing the reactions responsible for the origins of life?” By examining studies that investigate whether minerals could have affected the stability of protocell membranes, Sahai will determine both membrane permeability and the rates of formation. Furthermore, Sahai will explain in her lecture how this research concludes whether or not other protocell membranes would assemble on other solid worlds.
Sahai is the Ohio Research Scholar Professor within the Department of Polymer Science at the University of Akron. There, her research examines the physical-chemical aspects of biomolecular interactions at mineral surfaces in processes that are relevant to a variety of things, such as to the origins and early evolution of life; to the bone and other connective tissue biomineralization; and to the crystal nucleation and growth.
Additionally, Sahai is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America and the Distinguished Lecturer of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2013-2014. Her accolades are numerous, including the NSF Post-Doctoral Fellowship, the NSF CAREER award, the Romnes Faculty Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Ohio Research Scholar Chair.
Sahai received her bachelor’s degree at Bombay University—graduating first in her class—her master’s degree at University of Rochester and her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University.
The SUNY Geneseo Department of Geological Science have been partners with the American Rock Salt Company LLC since 2003, as the first American Rock Salt Lecture on Geology was held in 2004. Through the partnership, the American Rock Salt Company LLC offers their support to Geneseo not only through the annual lecture, but also through undergraduate research and an undergraduate internship, where Geneseo students can intern at American Rock Salt and tour the extensive mine.
Release by College Communications intern Alexandra Ciarcia.
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