Great Salt Lake Topic for Jan. 27 Water@USU Seminar

Water@USU, a Utah State University Water Initiative project, welcomes biologist Bonnie Baxter to campus Tuesday, Jan. 27. Baxter presents “Microbial Diversity of GSL: A Facet of the Interdisciplinary Great Salt Lake Institute” at 4 p.m. in the Biology-Natural Resources Building, Room 102. Her talk is free and open to all. 

“The North Arm of Great Salt Lake can contain 30 percent salt, and in this environment, most life is excluded,” says Baxter, associate professor in the Department of Biology and the Department of Environmental Studies at Salt Lake City’s Westminster College. “It’s also an environment that receives intense ultraviolet exposure. Yet the lake yields some very intriguing microorganisms. I study these as models of DNA repair and photoprotection.”

 

Baxter serves as director of the newly formed Great Salt Lake Institute, which fosters collaborative research and educational ventures aimed at developing a more systemic understanding of GSL and its relationship to the environment and the economy.

 

Upcoming Water@USU Seminar speakers include Marianne Crawford, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Utah Field Office, on Feb. 3, and economist Nick Flores of the University of Colorado on Feb. 10. The seminars, free and open to all, are held at 4 p.m. in BNR 102.

 

Water@USU’s annual Spring Runoff Conference is slated for April 2-3 in the Eccles Conference Center.

 

Water@USU is an interdisciplinary collaboration of the university’s Utah Water Research Laboratory, the colleges of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Natural Resources, Science, Engineering, Agriculture and the Huntsman School of Business. Established in 2003, the initiative fosters collegial sharing of water-related research and ideas throughout campus and the community.

 

Water@USU (Water Initiative)

 

Contact: Kim Schreuders (435) 797-2941, kim.schreuders@usu.edu
Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto (435) 797-3517, maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu