A North Carolina State University professor specializing in Alzheimer’s Disease research will present the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering’s Hall Lecture.
Carol K. Hall studies protein aggregates called fibrils found in brain plaques, which contribute to neurodegenerative diseases such Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and the prion diseases. She will discuss current scientific thinking on why the structures form in some people and not others and whether the plaques themselves are toxic or actually sequester toxic species.
Hall also will describe her research, which focuses on applying statistical thermodynamics and molecular-level computer simulation to topics involving macromolecules or complex fluids.
She will speak at at 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, in the Jacobs Believed In Me Auditorium, Featheringill Hall.
Hall is the Camille Dreyfus Distinguished University Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NCSU. She received her B.A. in physics from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
After postdoctoral training in the Chemistry Department at Cornell and a brief period as an economic modeler at Bell Laboratories, she joined the Chemical Engineering Department at Princeton University in 1977 — one of the first women to be appointed to a chemical engineering faculty in the U.S. She joined the Chemical Engineering Department at North Carolina State University in 1985.
The John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture Series was established in 2002 to allow Vanderbilt School of Engineering students to hear renowned engineers address topics of particular interest.
CONTACT
Heidi Hall, (615) 322-6614
heidi.hall@vanderbilt.edu
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