About
We, at the Dove Lab, work across traditional disciplines to investigate the growth, dissolution, and transformation of minerals and amorphous phases in biological and inorganic earth environments.
Our group of geochemists, chemists, mineralogists, biologists, and materials scientists are particularly interested in biomineralization— the processes by which marine and terrestrial animals control the timing and placement of minerals formation within the organic matrix to produce skeletons and other functional structures.
Our research is supported by the US Department of Energy.
We welcome creative and innovative students and postdocs to join our research group and be part of the new discoveries of biomineralization and how crystals nucleate and grow.
Research from our group is published in leading journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Science Magazine, Nature,
American Mineralogist, and Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
PATRICIA M. DOVE
UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
C.P. MILES PROFESSOR OF SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY (AFFILIATE)
DEPARTMENT OF MATERIAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (JOINT)
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE
VIRGINIA TECH
It is a pleasure to welcome you to Virginia Tech.
Our university is known for outstanding research and teaching in science, engineering, and the arts. The Department of Geosciences is amongst these distinguished groups with an internationally recognized faculty focused on studies of earth history, processes, and materials.
In our earth materials research group, we are investigating how minerals grow and transform in natural and engineered surface environments that include oceans, soils, sediments, and living tissues.
We are particularly interested in biological mineralization, the processes by which animals control the timing and placement of mineral crystals to produce skeletons and other functional structures.