ATHENS, W.Va. COMPRES Distinguished Lecturer Dr. Przemyslaw Dera will speak at Concord University on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2014. His lecture begins at 5 p.m. in Room 400 of the Science Building on the Athens campus. There is no admission charge and the community is invited to attend.

Dr. Dera is an associate professor at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The title of his lecture is Tales of Rock & Sand: A Crystallographic Journey From Hades to Heaven.

The presentation will highlight the most exciting recent experimental results and advances in methodology from research done at high-pressure, synchrotron X-ray laboratories. This work provides new insights into the properties, behavior and transformations of minerals and helps to decipher the puzzles of meteorites and deep Earth processes. High-pressure X-ray crystallography is one of the principal analytical tools of Mineral Physics research. New developments in equipment and methods have opened new opportunities to explore the behavior of crystals with much smaller sizes and at significantly higher pressures allowing new mysteries to be solved.

Dr. Dera received his Ph.D. (2000) in Physical Chemistry from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. From 2000 2007 he worked at the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C., first as Distinguished Barbara McClintock Postdoctoral Fellow, and later as Associate Staff Scientist. In 2007 he moved to the University of Chicago and the Center for Advanced Radiation Sources. Since 2013, he has been an associate professor at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology.

Professor Dera's main research interests involve the development of experimental methods to better study materials at very high pressure utilizing synchrotron X-ray radiation. He currently focuses on the properties of Earth-forming minerals and on understanding solid-state chemical reactions at high pressure.

Dr. Dera is being brought to Concord via the COMPRES Distinguished Lecture series in the field of Mineral Physics. COMPRES, the Consortium for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences, focuses on the study of materials at high-pressure to achieve better understanding of fundamental Earth and planetary processes. COMPRES helps enable Earth Science researchers to conduct the next generation of high-pressure science on world-class equipment and facilities. It facilitates the operation of beam lines, the development of new technologies for high pressure research, and advocates for science and educational programs.

For additional information on Dr. Dera's upcoming lecture at Concord, please contact Dr. Stephen Kuehn, assistant professor in the Division of Mathematics, Science and Health, at sckuehn@concord.edu or 304-384-6322.

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Compres Distinguished Lecturer speaking at Concord University