Recent Public Lectures

  1. A conversation with Martin van Kranendonk, University of New South Wales, Sydney Centre for Ideas, Australia. April 27, 2021. 
    Watch this event on youtube: https://centreforideas.com/event/the-story-of-earth

  1. Opening Plenary Lecture, American Society of Cytopathology virtual annual meeting. November 6, 2020: “Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origins.” 

  1. Dialogues of Discovery Lecturer, Dartmouth College. October 13, 2020: “What is Life?”
    Watch this lecture on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giu0HuIbtBs

  1. Woodford-Eckis Lectureship, Pomona College. Two lectures: February 28, 2020: “Chance, necessity, and the origins of life.” and

  2. February 29, 2020: “The Story of Earth: How Life and Rocks have Co-evolved.” 

  1. Plenary Lecturer, XIX Meeting on Crystal Chemistry, Apatity, Russia. July 4, 2019: “An evolutionary system of mineralogy: Proposal for a classification of planetary materials based on natural kind clustering.”

  1. Balticon (Baltimore SciFi Convention), Featured Speaker. May 26, 2019: “The secret lives of crystals: How minerals and life co-evolved.”

  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Public Lecture, Janelia Research Center, Ashburn VA. March 6, 2019: “Chance, necessity, and the origins of life.”

  1. Geological Society of London (2 public lectures; afternoon and evening). February 27, 2019: “The Story of Earth.”

  1. Petroleum Museum (Midland TX), Arlen Edgar Distinguished Lecture. April 9, 2019: “The story of Earth: Where minerals and biology collide.”

  1. Janelia Farms (Warrenton VA), Dialogues of Discovery Lecture. March 6, 2019: “Chance, necessity, and the origins of life.”

  1. Science Sunday Lecture, Ohio State University. April 12, 2019, “The Story of Earth: How Life and Rocks Have Co-Evolved.”
    Watch this lecture on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvsRXWxOX-w

  1. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Science Friday Lecture (2018). July 27, 2018: “The Co-Evolution of Life and Rocks: Insights from Data-Driven Discovery.”                                  
    Watch this lecture on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oiAVmgLPpY

  1. The Vision Lecturer, University of Utah (2017). December 7, 2017: “The Story of Earth,” Watch this lecture on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9-d9Rp9dM

  1. Vienna Museum of Natural History, Guest of Honor and speaker at opening of their “Mineral Evolution” exhibit. April 4, 2017: “The evolution of mineral evolution.”

  1. The Chauncey Holmes Lecture, Syracuse University. February 23, 2017: “Private lives of minerals: network analysis of rocks and minerals.”