Seminar

Abstract

The atmospheric microbiome can affect various biogeochemical and atmospheric processes. The dynamics governing the atmospheric transport of airborne bacterial communities still need to be better understood. This seminar will describe our investigations concerning bacteria carried by mineral dust plumes over the eastern Mediterranean. Specifically, we will describe the bacterial community composition, the transport of pathogenic strains, and the intriguing mechanism of ice formation by ice-nucleating bacteria . Finally, we'll describe new AI-driven methodologies to study and forecast dust event transport.

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Dr. Yinon Rudich is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He received his PhD in Chemical Physics from the Weizmann Institute, and joined the NOAA Aeronomy Lab as an NRC postdoctoral fellow in 1994. He joined the faculty of the Weizmann Institute in 1997 and now serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry. He is a fellow of the American Geological Union and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research interests include bioaerosols, ice nucleation, and aerosol optical properties.