Robert Hazen, an award-winning researcher whose knack for conveying technical scientific information in everyday language has made him a best-selling author and popular speaker, will deliver UGA’s Charter Lecture March 18.
Hazen, author of 20 books and more than 330 articles dealing with science, history and music, will speak at 4 p.m. in the Chapel. His lecture’s title, “Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origins,” also is the title of his 2005 book that explores the role that minerals and chemical evolution played in the creation of life billions of years ago. The lecture is open free to the public.
Hazen is a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Geophysical Laboratory and also is the Clarence Robinson Professor of earth sciences at George Mason University. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is a past president of the Mineralogical Society of America, received the society’s top research award and was a Distinguished Lecturer for the society.
Known for his ability to translate complex scientific concepts and information into language non-scientists can understand, Hazen has been praised by book reviewers for his use of vivid, lucid language and engaging, narrative-style prose. Critics described his book on the origin of life as “clear and entertaining,” “direct, friendly and occasionally. . . poetical,” and “a beautiful, interesting account of this research field, full of discoveries and tragedies.”
Hazen is “one of the leading experts in the origins-of-life field, which remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern science. Dr. Hazen has a knack for making this complex and technical field of research understandable to the average person,” said Mark Farmer, head of UGA’s department of cellular biology.
Hazen has focused on the origin-of-life question since 1996. He contends life started as a result of geochemical processes that resulted from interactions of oceans, atmosphere and rocks and minerals. He believes these processes occurred in environments with moderately high temperatures (as high as 300 degrees centigrade) and atmospheric pressure.
Much of his research centers on processes involving minerals, such as the absorption of organic molecules on mineral surfaces, and how minerals catalyze organic synthesis. His work resulted in the naming of the phosphate biomineral “hazenite” in his honor last year.
Hazen is also a professional trumpet player and has performed with the Metropolitan, New York City, Boston and Washington operas; the Bolshoi, Jeoffrey and Kirov ballets; and the Boston Symphony and National Symphony.