The conference dinner takes place on Wednesday, July 3rd, in the beautiful Golden Gate room on the 32nd floor of the St Francis Hotel. Accessed by five glass elevators, the Golden Gate room is one of the most spectacular special event venue in Northern California. It has floor-to-ceiling windows with skyline views of San Francisco, highlighting Coit Tower and both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. This is an exquisite venue for the VUVX conference dinner and will provide an additional important opportunity for participants for informal discussions and exchanges. The dinner speaker will be Thomas Bristow (NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA). Dr. Bristow is the Principal Investigator for the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity and will talk about topics related to “The First X-ray Diffraction Experiment on Another Planet“.
Dr. Bristow’s Biography: Thomas Bristow is a geologist/astrobiologist specializing in integrating mineralogical and geochemical information with the sedimentology of rocks to reconstruct ancient environmental conditions on Earth and Mars. His investigations focus on processes that support and maintain conditions in surficial planetary environments that are habitable for life. He draws on terrestrial geological field experience including the study of 800-550 million year old rocks from South China, the Death Valley Region, CA, Arctic Canada and Svalbard, to investigations of more recent lake deposits in the US and Australia. He is the Principle Investigator of the CheMin X-ray diffraction instrument onboard Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, currently exploring three-and-half billion year old lake sediments preserved in Gale crater.
