EVENT DETAILS
Physical and Biochemical Dynamics of Carbohydrates in Mineral Pores and Bacterial Cells: Molecular-Scale Insights Carbohydrates, which include small compounds (sugars) as well as complex biopolymers (cellulose, starch), are intimately involved in the cycling of water and nutrient fluxes in environmental matrices. Secretions of carbohydrates are implicated in the retention of hydrated soil nanopores near plant roots and microbial cells despite severe dryness in the bulk soil. The microbial processing of carbohydrates is important both in natural carbon cycling and in engineered waste conversion to biofuels. My research group combines experimental techniques with theoretical simulations to unravel the underlying chemical and biochemical mechanisms in these processes. This presentation will highlight two main research efforts, which have led to novel molecular insights into the role of carbohydrates in the trapping of water within mineral nanopores and in the selective bacterial conversion of cellulosic wastes to biofuel products. These insights advance our understanding on how to predict these natural bioenvironmental processes and to exploit them for engineered purposes.
Ludmilla Aristilde is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. While growing up in Haiti, Aristilde's interest in environmental issues was sparked by witnessing the impacts of deforestation on the environment and the links between water pollution and health during an epidemic outbreak of cholera. After emigrating to the States, she came to Cornell and completed in 2003 a dual-degree program with a B.S. in Science of Earth Systems and a B.F.A. in Fine Arts. She went on to the University of California-Berkeley where she obtained her M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Molecular Toxicology in 2008. Her research was on the environmental chemistry and toxicology of pharmaceutical compounds discharged in waters and soils. After Berkeley, she went to Grenoble (France) as an American Fulbright Scholar to advance her study of spectroscopic techniques to investigate the trapping of organic contaminants by mineral particles. Prior to her return to Cornell in 2012, she spent three years as a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University where she studied molecular biology tools to address problems at the interface of environmental chemistry and biological processes.
TIME Friday November 10, 2017 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
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CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney-acott@northwestern.edu
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering