EMI Lecture 2023

Dr Betül Kaçar

Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Betül Kaçar is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Bacteriology. Her research group investigates the coevolution of cellular life and environment in lifeforms extinct and extant, using experimental systems.

Dr. Kaçar received the Stanley Miller Early Career Award, the NASA Early Career Award, and the Rosalind Franklin Medal. She directs a NASA-funded multi-institutional astrobiology research center (MUSE) focusing on life’s early evolution with emphasis on the natural selection elements over geologic time. She is a co-lead of NASA’s research coordination network LIFE, focusing on Earth’s past. 

She has partnered with the UN Women Generation Equality Campaign to support education of girls and women globally. Her 2022 TED Talk was viewed ~2 million times and her work was featured in NPR, BBC, MIT Technology Review, New Scientist, among others. She was featured by the Forbes Magazine in 2023 for her contributions in astrobiology education.

Asteroid 284919 Kaçar, discovered by astronomers using the NASA WISE space telescope, was named in her honor. 

Professor Jim Prosser

Emeritus Professor, University of Aberdeen

Jim Prosser is Emeritus Professor in Environmental Microbiology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. 

He was awarded a BSc in Microbiology by Queen Elizabeth College, University of London in 1972 and a PhD by the University of Liverpool in 1975. He then carried out postdoctoral research in Liverpool before moving to a lectureship at the University of Aberdeen, where he held a Personal Chair prior to retirement in 2020.

His research focuses on the ecophysiology, diversity and ecosystem function of soil microorganisms, with particular emphasis on ammonia oxidisers, which play a central role in the global nitrogen cycle. This research uncovered novel microbial groups involved in biogeochemical cycling processes and situations in which niche specialisation impacts on process rates. 

He demonstrated the role of pH and ammonia supply on ammonia oxidiser communities, the influence of community composition on ecosystem function, including nitrous oxide emissions, and the global implications for nitrogen fertiliser strategies. 

This research involved the development of molecular techniques to characterise natural communities of soil microorganisms, and their activities, and the use of model systems to address ecological questions. He has also published on the use of ‘omics technologies and different scientific approaches in the study of microbial ecology.

Professor Prosser is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Biology and the American Academy of Microbiology. 

He was awarded an OBE for services to Environmental Science in 2013, holds an Honorary Degree from the University of Ljubljana and is a CAS Distinguished International Professor. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several microbial ecology journals, including AMI publication Environmental Microbiology, was Publications Manager for FEMS and has been a Director of NCIMB since 1994.