Peter Eckert received his bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. During his undergraduate education, Peter interned for two summers at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Under mentorship of Dr. Alexander Laskin, Peter used high-resolution mass spectrometry to study the chemical composition of crude petroleum and atmospheric aerosol. He performed his graduate school research with Dr. Kevin Kubarych at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he used two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy to study ultrafast vibrational dynamics in small-molecule mimics of the bacterial hydrogenase enzyme’s active site. His dissertation, which he defended in May of 2018, combined computational and experimental techniques to characterize the molecular dynamics of conformational flexibility, dendritic encapsulation, and vibrational coherence transfer. After completing his graduate research, Dr. Eckert began a post-doctoral appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he is working with Dr. Eric Pierce to characterize the complexation of mercury by bacterial exudates, with a focus on the complexation of mercury by methanobactin, a peptide excreted by methanotrophic bacteria for extracellular copper acquisition. Peter’s hobbies include dancing salsa or East Coast swing and reading historical and non-fiction books.
Posted: February 2020
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