Dr. Punam Dalai

Postdoctoral Researcher

E-mail: pdalai@uakron.edu

Research interests

I have joined Dr. Sahai's group as a Postdoc in July 2014. During my doctoral studies, I have worked on the thermal behavior of amino acids in the presence of inorganic matrices. Over all my research interest revolves around the prebiotic chemical evolution or origin of life studies. We are interested in investigating the potential role of mineral surfaces in the evolution of a protocell that could perform metabolism (trans-membrane electron-transfer). Additionally, polymerization of amino acids to peptides and their catalytic properties would be studied in the presence of various minerals (e.g. Montmorillonite, Nontronite, Sepiolite, Greenockite, Brucite, Peridotite, Tonalite, Imogolite, and many others).

Education

PhD - University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, 2013.

Visiting Scholar - University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, 2007.

MSc - Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, India, 2006.

BSc -BEd integrated - Regional Institute of Education , Ajmer, India 2004.