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Naff Symposium

49th Annual Naff Symposium - Energetic Foundations and Futures of Life

 

Energetic Foundations and Futures of Life

Schedule of Events - March 28, 2024

8:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast
W.T. Young Library Alumni Gallery
8:30am

Welcome -

Dr. Lisa Cassis, Vice President for Research, University of Kentucky

Dr. Anne-Frances Miller, Organizer, 49th Annual Naff Symposium, University of Kentucky

9:00am Dr. Wolfgang Nitschke, CNRS, Marseille, France
"How and Why Life Emerged: Insights from Microbial Bioenergetics or Erwin Schrödinger meets Peter Mitchell"
10:15am Dr. Gary W. Brudvig, Yale University
"Learning from Nature How to Make Solar Fuels"
11:30am Lunch and Poster Competition - Abstract booklet
Jacobs Science Building, Atrium
2:30pm Dr. Shelley Minteer, Missouri University of Science and Technology
"Enzymatic Bioelectrocatalysis for Electrosynthesis"
3:30pm Presentation of Poster Awards
W.T. Young Library Auditorium
4:00pm Close of the 49th Naff Symposium
W.T. Young Library Auditorium


Speakers

Dr. Gary W. Brudvig

Department of Chemistry and Energy Sciences Institute, Yale University

Honors: Searle Scholar, 1983-86, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, 1985-90, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 1986-88, Elected Fellow of the AAAS, 1995, Outstanding Achievement Award, University of Minnesota, 2016, Elected Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, 2019, Graduate Mentor Award in the Natural Sciences, 2021

Biography: Gary Brudvig is the Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry, and Director of the Yale Energy Sciences Institute at Yale University.  He received his B.S. (1976) from the University of Minnesota, his Ph.D. (1981) from Caltech and was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 1980 to 1982.  Professor Brudvig has been on the faculty at Yale since 1982. Brudvig served as Chair of the Chemistry Department from 2003-2009 and 2015-2018.  Since 2012, Brudvig has been the Director of the Energy Sciences Institute located at Yale’s West Campus where he oversees the development of new research programs and facilities related to renewable energy, alternative fuels, and materials science.  His research involves study of the chemistry of solar energy conversion in photosynthesis and work to develop artificial bioinspired systems for solar fuel production.

Wolfgang Nitschke

Dr. Wolfgang Nitschke

Research Director, Bioenergetics and protein engineering laboratory (BIP)/CNRS

Prof. Nitschke has been studying bioenergetics all his academic life, beginning with a Ph. D. on photosynthetic electron transfer in plants at the University of Regensburg in Germany and, after drifting towards prokaryotic photosynthesis during 5 years as post-doctoral fellow in Paris, serving as a professor in Freiburg Germany. Upon moving to Marseille, France, he addressed electron transport and the implied energetics in an expanding repertoire of biochemical processes and bacterial species. He led the “Evolution of Bioenergetics" research group from 1995 until his retirement in 2023 and was vice-director of the department “Bioenergetics and Protein Engineering” from 2002 to 2006. Through a career dedicated to biological energy conversion, he was convinced of the fundamental importance of energy to life (and beyond). His professional bio reports that since his retirement he is 'able to finally do research without the crazy administrative workload'.

Dr. Shelley Minteer

Dale and Susan Poulter Endowed Chair of Biological Chemistry and Associate Chair of Chemistry 

Director, Kummer Institute Center for Resource Sustainability at Missouri University of Science and Technology

Honors & Awards: 2020 Bioelectrochemistry Prize of the International Society of Electrochemistry, 2020 University of Utah Distinguished Research Award, 2020 Charles N. Reilley Award of the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 2019 Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry, 2019 Grahame Award of the Electrochemical Society, 2018 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2018 American Chemical Society Analytical Division Electrochemistry Award, 2015 Luigi Galvani Prize of the Bioelectrochemical Society, 2013 Fellow of The Electrochemical Society, 2010 Tajima Prize of the International Society of Electrochemistry, 2008 American Chemical Society St. Louis Award, 2008 Scientific American Top 50 Award, 2008 Society of Electroanalytical Chemists Young Investigator Award, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense Okaloosa Award, 2006 Missouri Inventor of the Year Award, 2005 Academy of Science of St. Louis Innovation Award

To view this year's program, click here.

2024 Naff Symposium Committee

Prof. Anne-Frances Miller - (Chemistry) [Chair]

Prof. Marcelo Guzman - (Chemistry)

Prof. Kenneth Graham - (Chemistry)

Prof. Isabel Escobar - (Chemical & Materials Engineering)

Date:
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Location:
W.T. Young Library Auditorium

47th Annual Naff Symposium

Innovation in Molecular Neuroscience

Schedule of Events - April 1, 2022

8:00am

Registration and Continental Breakfast
WT Young Library Gallery

8:50am

Welcome - TBD

9:00am

Dr. Erin Calipari
"A novel mechanism for hormonal regulation of reward circuits in the brain contributes to addiction vulnerability in females"

10:00am

Break
WT Young Library Gallery

10:30am

Dr. Tim Harris
"High capacity electrophysiology: How we got here and where we can go"

11:30am

Lunch & Break

1:00pm

Dr. Elizabeth Hillman
"Understanding the brain with high-speed 3D imaging of cell structure, function and identity"

2:00pm

Break & Poster Session Set-Up
WT Young Library Gallery; Jacobs Science Building, Atrium

2:30pm

Dr. Baljit Khakh
"Cells that tile your brain: Astrocyte roles in neural circuits"

3:30 - 5:00pm

Poster Session
Jacobs Science Building, Atrium

 

Speakers

Dr. Erin Calipari

Vanderbilt University

Dr. Calipari received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2013 in the laboratory of Dr. Sara Jones at Wake Forest University School of Medicine where she studied how self-administered drugs altered dopaminergic function to drive addictive behaviors. She then went on to complete her postdoctoral training with Dr. Eric Nestler at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she used circuit probing techniques to understand the temporally specific neural signals that underlie motivation and reward learning. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Pharmacology. Her independent work seeks to characterize and modulate the precise circuits in the brain that underlie both adaptive and maladaptive processes in reward, motivation, and associative learning.

Group Page

Dr. Tim Harris

Johns Hopkins University

Timothy Harris is a research professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He leads the Applied Physics and Instrumentation Group at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus, and is the originator of the project that produced the Neuropixels Si probe for extracellular recording in animals, mostly mice, and rats. He shares his time between Janelia and Johns Hopkins and is working on projects to enable recording 10-20,000 neurons in rodents and 30-50,000 neurons in non-human primates, as well as stimulate with high resolution.

He received a BS in Chemistry at California Polytechnical State University, San Luis Obispo, and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University.

Group Page

Dr. Elizabeth Hillman

Columbia University

Elizabeth Hillman is professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia University and a member of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia. Hillman received her undergraduate degree in physics and Ph.D. in medical physics and bioengineering at University College London and completed post-doctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. In 2006, Hillman moved to Columbia University, founding the Laboratory for Functional Optical Imaging. Hillman’s research program focuses on the development and application of optical imaging and microscopy technologies to capture functional dynamics in the living brain. Most recently, she developed swept confocally aligned planar excitation (SCAPE) microscopy, a technique capable of very high speed volumetric imaging of neural activity in behaving organisms such as adult and larval Drosophila, zebrafish, C. elegans and the rodent brain. Hillman’s research program also includes exploring the interrelation between neural activity and blood flow in the brain, as the basis for signals detected by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Hillman is a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the society of photo-optical instrumentation (SPIE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). She has received the OSA Adolf Lomb Medal for contributions to optics, as well as early career awards from the Wallace Coulter Foundation, National Science Foundation and Human Frontier Science Program.

Group Page

Dr. Baljit Khakh

University of California, Los Angeles

Baljit Khakh completed his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in the laboratory of Patrick PA Humphrey. He completed postdoctoral fellowships in the laboratory of Graeme Henderson at the University of Bristol, and then in the laboratory of Henry A. Lester and Norman Davidson at California Institute of Technology. In 2001, Khakh became Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, and in 2006 he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles where he is Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology. Khakh’s work has been recognized, including with the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, and the Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) from NINDS.

Group Page


2022 Naff Symposium Committee

Dr. Chris Richards - Chair

Jason DeRouchey (Chemistry)
Lance Johnson (Physiology)
Brandon Henderson (Marshall University)

 

 

Date:
-
Location:
WT Young Library Auditorium
Tags/Keywords:

44th Annual Naff Symposium

Schedule of Events - March 23, 2018

8:00 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast
Gallery, W.T. Young Library
8:50 a.m. Welcome - President Eli Capilouto
9:00 a.m. Prof. Richard M. Crooks, University of Texas at Austin
Quantitative electrochemical detection of analytes at sub-picomolar levels using a simple paper sensor
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
10:00 a.m. Break (refreshments available)
10:30 a.m. Prof. Shelley Minteer, University of Utah
Enzymatic Bioelectrocatalysis: From Metabolic Pathways to Metabolons
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
11:30 a.m. Lunch & Break
1:00 p.m. Prof. James Rusling, University of Connecticut
Microfluidic arrays for protein-based cancer diagnostics and toxicity screening
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
2:00 p.m. Prof. David Cliffel, Vanderbilt University
Electrochemically Instrumenting Organs on a Chip
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
3:00 p.m. Poster Session Set-Up
3:30 p.m. Poster Session
Jacobs Science Building

 

Date:
-
Location:
W. T. Young Library
Event Series:

Naff Symposium

 

Schedule of Events - March 31, 2017

8:00 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast
Gallery, W.T. Young Library
8:50 a.m. Welcome
9:00 a.m. John A. Rogers, PhD
Materials for Biodegradable Electronics
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
10:00 a.m. Break (refreshments available)
10:30 a.m. Zhenan Bao, PhD
Skin-Inspired Organic Electronic Materials and Devices
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
11:30 a.m. Lunch & Break
1:00 p.m. George Malliaras, PhD
Interfacing with the Brain using Organic Electronics
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library
2:00 - 2:30 p.m. Coffee Break & Poster Session Set-up
2:30 - 3:15 p.m.

Alon Gorodetsky PhD, Naff Young Investigator
Dynamic Materials Inspired By Cephalopods
Auditorium, W.T. Young Library

3:15 - 4:30 p.m. Poster Session
Jacobs Science Building

For additional information, click here.

Date:
-
Location:
W. T. Young Library
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