Professor Victoria Orphan (California Institute of Technology) gave the Spring 2018 UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Distinguished Lecture on Friday, April 20.
Over 250 faculty, students, and researchers attended Orphan’s lecture titled “Syntrophy, Interspecies Electron Transfer, and Sulfate-Coupled Methane Oxidation: Fueling Chemosynthetic Life in the Deep Sea” in the Kenneth Trueblood Lecture Hall CS50. A photo gallery from the event can be viewed here and select photos can be viewed below.
Over 250 people attended Orphan’s lecture which took place in the Kenneth Trueblood Lecture Hall CS50.
Orphan is the James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. She received her B.A. in aquatic biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1994, and her Ph.D. in the Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology program at UCSB in 2001. During 2002–2004, she served as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center before joining the geobiology faculty in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech in 2004. She was named the James Irvine Professor in Environmental Science and Geobiology in 2016. Orphan is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology and was recently named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow.
At the lecture, Department Chair Professor Catherine Clarke gave the welcoming remarks and Orphan was introduced by Professor Tina Treude of the UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (EPSS) and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS). After the lecture Clarke presented Orphan with an engraved crystal plaque.
Department Chair Professor Catherine Clarke (left) gave the welcoming remarks and Professor Tina Treude (UCLA EPSS and AOS) (right) introduced Orphan.
Professor Kevin McKeegan (UCLA EPSS) (left) during the question and answer period.
Professor Joan Valentine (left) asks a question during the question and answer period.
(Left) After the lecture, Clarke presented Orphan with an engraved crystal plaque. (Right) Orphan, Clarke, and Treude.
At the reception following the lecture – Orphan, Stephen Young (UCLA Cardiology), and Sabeeha Merchant.
Professors Richard Kaner, Joan Valentine, Tina Treude, and Kevin McKeegan.
At the reception following the lecture, Orphan with postdocs and graduate students – (from left) Dr. Stefan Schmollinger (Merchant Group), Victoria Orphan, Sebastian Krause (Treude Group EPSS), Mojhgan Haghnegahdar (Schaubles Group EPSS), Jeffrey Osterhout (Schopf Group EPSS).
About The Distinguished Lecture Series
The UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Distinguished Lecture Series is a department-wide colloquium in a special week once per quarter when there are no other seminars in our department. Since beginning the series in 2013, we have invited some of the world’s most accomplished and engaging scientists to speak – Frances Arnold (Caltech), Barry Honig (Columbia), Nobel Laureate Roger Kornberg (Stanford), Harry Gray (Caltech), Francois Diederich (ETH Zurich), Yi Lu (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Sharon Hammes-Schiffer (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), JoAnne Stubbe (MIT), Douglas Rees (Caltech), Kimberly Prather (UCSD, Scripps), Jacqueline Barton (Caltech), Nobel Laureate Thomas Cech (University of Colorado, Boulder), and David Baker (University of Washington). Their lectures have consistently encouraged thought-provoking conversations and ideas.
In lieu of a Fall 2018 Distinguished Lecture, George Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Harvard University, will give the 2018 John D. Roberts Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 at 4 p.m. in the CNSI auditorium, followed by a piano tribute to Roberts by Prof. David Schuster (NYU). A reception and dinner will take place at the Faculty Center California patio and dining room. More details about this event will be provided soon. The lectures are open to the public. While the research covered in the lectures is meant to appeal to a broad range of chemists and biochemists, the lectures also include a general introduction to the research for those who are further separated in research expertise. For more information, visit the Distinguished Lecture series website.
Photos by Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
