2025 LIFE RCN Seminar Episode 8: Dr. Sara Imari Walker and Dr. L. Felipe Benites
On August 11th, 9AM Pacific/12PM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Sara Imari Walker, Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University (ASU) and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and Dr. L. Felipe Benites, postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University.
The meeting room can be found here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 7: Dr. Rika Anderson and Alia Sanger
On July 7th, 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Rika Anderson, Associate Professor of Biology at Carleton College, and Alia Sanger, PhD candidate in the Geomicrobiology lab at McGill University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording of the seminar can be found here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 6: Dr. Everett Shock
On June 18th, 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Everett Shock, lead of the GEOPIG (Group Exploring Organic Processes In Geochemistry) Lab at Arizona State University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The meeting recording can be found here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 5: Dr. Núria Ros-Rocher and Dr. Dinah Davison.
On May 12th, 9AM Pacific/12PM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Núria Ros-Rocher, CNRS research associate at Institut Pasteur, and Dr. Dinah Davison, postdoctoral fellow at Augusta University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording of their talks can be found here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 4: Dr. Mary-Beth Wilhelm and Chanel Vidal
On April 7th at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Mary-Beth Wilhelm and Chanel Vidal. Dr. Wilhelm is an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in California conducting research on biomarker preservation in Mars analog environments, and Chanel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Geological Science program in School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and a member of Dr. Everett Shock’s Group Exploring Organic Processes in Geochemistry (GEOPIG) Lab.
You can join the meeting here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 3: Dr. Caleb Scharf
On March 11th, 8AM PT/11AM ET, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist whose research explores the formation, evolution, and habitability of planets, with particular emphasis on the origins and persistence of life.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording of this seminar can be viewed here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 2: Dr. Maria Preiner and Oskari Lehtinen, MSc
On February 11th, 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Martina Preiner, head of a Max Planck research group at the Microcosm Earth Center, and Oskari Lehtinen, PhD candidate at the Microcosm Earth Center.
The zoom link can be found here.
The recording of the first talk can be found here.
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2026 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 1: Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy and Dr. Tharika Liyanage
On January 6th at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy and Dr. Tharika Liyanage. Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy leads a research group at MARUM that seeks to deconvolve the early record of eukaryotic evolution using organic geochemistry. Dr. Tharika Liyanage is a geobiologist focusing on the missing links between the evolution of microbial life and their fossilized lipid biomolecules in the geological record.
The meeting link can be found here.
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 7: Dr. Gergely Szöllősi and Dr. Kai Tong
On December 9th, 4PM PST/7PM EST, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Prof. Gergely Szöllősi, who leads the Model-Based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), and Dr. Kai Tong, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Boston University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording can be found here.
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 6: Dr. Michael Kipp and Dr. Chenyi Tu
On November 4th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Michael Kipp, an Assistant Professor of Geochemistry in the Division of Earth & Climate Sciences at Duke University, and Dr. Chenyi Tu, a postdoctoral fellow of the NASA Postdoctoral Program at Duke University.
Meeting Link: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
Recording: https://youtu.be/IbeJo5eOC_Q
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 5: Dr. Greg Fournier
On October 8th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Greg Fournier, Associate Professor of Geobiology at MIT. He studies the deep evolutionary history of life, applying molecular clocks and phylogenetics to uncover how Earth’s earliest organisms emerged, evolved, and reshaped the planet over billions of years.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to the recording of his talk can be found here.
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 4: Dr. Jennifer Macalady and Dr. Alta Howells
On September 11th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Macalady, professor in the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University and director of the International Geobiology Course, and Dr. Alta Howells, a Research Associate in the Department of Geological Sciences at University of Colorado, Boulder and a staff scientist with Blue Marble Space Institute of Sciences.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The recording of Dr. Macalady’s talk can be found here.
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 3: Dr. James Sáenz and Dr. Srishti Kashyap
On August 5th, 8am PDT/11am EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. James Sáenz, a microbiologist, synthetic biologist and Group Leader of the B CUBE Center for Molecular Bioengineering at Technical University Dresden, and Dr. Srishti Kashyap, a geomicrobiologist currently working as a Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to the recording of Dr. Sáenz’s talk can be found here.
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LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 2: Dr. Eloi Camprubi and Myrine Barreiro-Arevalo
On July 8th, 8am PDT/11am EDT, the LIFE RCN will be excited to host Dr. Eloi Camprubi, an Assistant Professor of Astrobiochemistry at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), and Myrine Barreiro-Arevalo, a 4th year PhD candidate at UTRGV in the Mathematics and Statistics with Interdisciplinary Applications degree program.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to a recording of Dr. Camprubi’s talk can be found here.
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Impacts and their Role in the Origin and Evolution of Life Conference
The meeting will take place from 1 to 4 September 2025 in the picturesque medieval city of Nördlingen , which is situated inside the world-famous Ries crater in southern Germany. It aims to cover the role of meteorite and comets impacts in the formation of Earth, its atmosphere and the evolution of life. The registration deadline is June 30th!
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Astrobiology Mission Ideation Factory Announcement
The NASA Astrobiology Program is hosting a Mission Ideation Factory focused on the search for life on Ocean Worlds. NASA would like to provide early career researchers the opportunity to develop new concepts for astrobiology missions.
The event will be held for a week beginning October 20, 2025, at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, OH. We encourage those with an interest in participating to submit an application. Applications open on June 1st and close June 30th, 2025 at 11:59pm ET.
Image Credit: Artist’s concept image of a spacecraft lander with a robot arm on the surface of Europa.
NASA/JPL – Caltech
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2025 LIFE RCN Seminar Series Episode 1: Dr. Rogier Braakman
On June 10th, 2025, at 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN will be excited to introduce Dr. Rogier Braakman, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an adjunct scientist at The Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory!
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
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The 2025 Virtual LIFE RCN Seminar Series!
We are so excited to announce that the LIFE RCN Seminar Series is making its return! The series will be held monthly on the second Tuesday of every month (subject to change for speaker availability). The first seminar will take place on June 10th at 8AM PDT/11AM EDT. Stay tuned for more details!
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AbGradCon 2025
AbGradCon 2025 is going to be from June 10th-June 13th this year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO! See application details inside.
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Seminar: Aude Picard, April 22 2024, 1PM ET
Next April 22, 2024, LIFE-RCN will be pleased to introduce Dr. Aude Picard (a professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas), who will provide the seminar titled “Microbe-mineral interactions on modern Earth.”
Registration: go.wisc.edu/453g11
Livestream: https://go.wisc.edu/5n3qkq
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