Wisecaver named University Faculty Scholar, looks to future research efforts

Story by Ashvini Malshe, Photos by Tom Campbell

April 4, 2023

"It is a wonderful honor, and it will have a big impact,” says Jennifer Wisecaver, associate professor of biochemistry, responding to the 2023 University Faculty Scholar award she recently received from the Purdue University Office of the Provost.

Wisecaver is one of four faculty members from the College of Agriculture who received this distinction this year. The award recognizes faculty who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction in the discovery and dissemination of knowledge. This year, a total of 120 faculty across the university received the award.

The monetary gain from this award will enable Wisecaver’s lab to continue doing high risk, high reward experiments. Wisecaver explains, “These experiments could turn into new areas of research in the lab.”

Conference travel for students and other early career scientists is crucial, she emphasizes. “This award will also allow more members of my lab to travel to scientific meetings to present our research and network with scientists from all over the world,” she adds.

Wisecaver earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona. There, she focused on the evolution and ecology of marine algae. Before joining Purdue, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University, studying the evolution of secondary metabolism in plants and fungi.

Her passion for these topics and her skills in comparative genomics and phylogenetics have merged into an intriguing research expertise. A member of the Center for Plant Biology, her research centers on the genomic basis of evolutionary innovation in plants, fungi and eukaryotic microbes.

Wisecaver’s team, including undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, study how specialized metabolism has evolved in organisms. “Specialized metabolism is extremely diverse and includes the special abilities of some organisms to make things like toxins, antibiotics and pigments, among other products,” She says. “It can also include the ability to breakdown things in the environment that would otherwise be harmful to an organism. My lab studies how these novel abilities evolve, and what sort of genomic changes facilitate this evolution.”

Wisecaver’s team also works with multiple organisms from across the tree of life, including plants, algae, and fungi, with the goal to discover what evolutionary and genetic processes are generalizable across these diverse groups and which are unique solutions to shared environmental problems.

Featured Stories

DIAL Ventures Agrifood Economy Index posts 8-point increase since August

The overall Agrifood Economy Index rose to 94 in December, recovering from August’s low of...

Farmer sentiment rises as current conditions improve on U.S. farms

U.S. farmer sentiment continued its upward trend in February, as the Purdue University/CME Group...

Using an input image, the Tree-D Fusion creates a 3D tree model that can be used to simulate various stages of development.

3D tree reconstruction algorithm contributes to a new era of urban planning

Trees compete for space as they grow. A tree with branches close to a wall will develop...

Maria Filipa Seara e Pereira - Graduate Ag Research Spotlight

Despite growing up with an economist father, Maria Filipa Seara e Pereira didn’t take to...

Woman working at a table wearing a mask with hand sanitizer and box of 3-ply masks

Detailed determinants of pandemic job losses featured in PAER 2025 Outlook issue

The Purdue Agricultural Economics Report’s (PAER) annual outlook issue provides expert...

Midwestern field trials suggest overuse of rootworm-resistant corn reduces farmers’ profits

An analysis of data covering 12 years and 10 U.S. Corn Belt states reveals that farmers suffer...