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

Homemade nut-based dairy analogs raise questions about bacterial risks

Many consumers know the food safety risks of dairy products, eggs and raw meat. But they are less...

A bottle of Boiler Bee Honey sits on the edge of chrome table in Skidmore lab with two students cooking in labcoats and hairnets in the background.

The sweet (and spicy) taste of victory—National Honey Board funds a food science development competition at Purdue

In the past few years, specialty sauces like hot honey combined the classic warm, sweet feeling...

Against a black backdrop, three dozen egg carton are neatly arranged to surround many loose brown eggs

Butcher Block adds eggs from chickens fed orange corn

The Boilermaker Butcher Block’s selections will now include farm fresh eggs laid by Purdue...

Jingjing Liang stands tall in front of a wall of monitors showing pictures of different forests.

Scientists from dozens of countries coming to Purdue for forestry collaboration in Science-i Bridging Worlds Workshop

In the spirit of building a community to manage and protect the world’s forests, Liang and...

Julie Hickman stands in construction site with hard hat ready for work.

Behind the Research: Julie Hickman

Many people are involved in the remarkable range of programs, services and facilities that...

Farmer Sentiment Improves As Interest Rate Expectations Shift

U.S. farmers’ perspective on the future improved in March helping to push the Purdue...