James Ferris
| James P. Ferris | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1932 Nyack, New York |
| Died | March 4, 2016 (aged 83–84) Albany, New York |
| Fields | atmospheric photochemistry, origins of life, prebiotic chemistry |
| Institutions |
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Salk Institute for Biological Studies Florida State University |
| Alma mater |
University of Pennsylvania Indiana University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Notable awards |
NIH Career Award (1969) Oparin Medal (1996) |
James "Jim" P. Ferris (1932 – March 4, 2016) was an American chemist. He is known for his contributions to the understanding of the origins of life on Earth, specifically by demonstrating a successful mechanism of clay-catalyzed polymerization of RNA, providing further evidence for the RNA World Hypothesis. Additionally, his work in atmospheric photochemistry has illuminated many of the chemical processes which occur in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn's moon, Titan.
Jim Ferris was born in Nyack, New York to Richard and Mabel Ferris, the youngest of five children. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He went on to earn a doctorate in natural products chemistry at Indiana University, and continued his post-doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ferris began his career as a professor at Florida State University, and performed research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He joined the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1967. He was the editor of Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres (OLEB), an academic journal sponsored by The International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL), from 1982 to 1999. He also served as president of ISSOL from 1993 to 1996.
Between 1998 and 2006, he served as director of NASA's New York Center for Studies on the Origins of Life, which would later become the New York Center for Astrobiology at Rensselaer, of which he remained an active member until 2015.
Ferris died on March 4, 2016 at Daughters of Sarah Nursing Center in Albany, New York.
During more than fifty years of research, Ferris made landmark contributions to the field of prebiotic chemistry. His interests in the origins of life led him to explore in detail a diverse array of prebiotic reaction mechanisms, and to make the discovery of clay-directed RNA synthesis. By providing a plausible mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of RNA oligomers, Ferris's method strengthened the RNA world hypothesis. In an effort to uncover the conditions of the early Earth's atmosphere and further establish the relationship between atmospheric processes and prebiotic chemistry, Ferris turned to observing Jupiter and Saturn's largest and most Earth-like moon, Titan.
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