At the next Dixie Forum, Dr. Alan R. Harker will discuss microbes in the Great Salt Lake and his research on the microorganisms that inhabit the lake. Harker will present “Small and Simple Things That Rule the World” from noon to 12:50 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at the Dunford Auditorium in the Browning Resource Center on the DSU campus. The presentation is free and open to the public.
During Tuesday’s presentation, Harker will discuss how the strictly microbial nature of the Great Salt Lake’s unique biosphere allows the exploration of basic fundamental ecological questions, such as speciation, competition, dormancy, and symbiosis. Harker posits that the metabolic potential available in the lake should yield both academic and applied discoveries that will rival any other environment thus far explored.
The associate academic vice president for research and graduate studies at Brigham Young University, Harker has served 21 years on the faculty of the department of microbiology and molecular biology. He also has served as the department chair and associate dean of the college of life sciences.
Harker earned a doctorate in biology at the University of Utah after receiving bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biology from the same institution. He completed his education as a postdoctoral fellow in the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory at Oregon State University and a research associate with the Environmental Protection Agency in Corvallis, Ore., where he worked on plasmid mediated horizontal gene transfer.
Before moving to BYU, Harker was an assistant and associate professor at Oklahoma State University in the department of microbiology. There, he worked on the degradation of environmental pollutants, placing a particular emphasis on the genetic modification of organisms to facilitate the degradation of chlorinated solvents.
Dixie Forum is a weekly lecture series designed to introduce the St. George community and DSU students, faculty, and staff to diverse ideas and personalities while widening their worldviews via a 50-minute presentation. Dixie Forum will continue at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Dunford Auditorium with a presentation from Bradford Lee Eden. He will present about J.R.R. Tolkien, his life, and his work.
For more information on Dixie State University’s Dixie Forum series, please contact DSU Forum Coordinator John Burns at (435) 879-4712 or burns@dixie.edu, or visit dixie.edu/humanities/dixie_forum.php. Stay up-to-date on the forums by liking the Dixie Forum Facebook page or following @dixieforum on Twitter.
