Alma Joslyn Whiffen-Barksdale
| Alma Joslyn Whiffen-Barksdale | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1916 |
| Died | 1981 |
| Fields | Botany Mycology |
| Institutions |
Upjohn New York Botanical Garden |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina |
| Notable awards | Guggenheim Fellowship |
Alma Joslyn Whiffen-Barksdale (October 25, 1916 – July 5, 1981) was a U.S. mycologist who discovered cycloheximide. She was born in Hammonton, New Jersey. She received a bachelor's degree from Maryville College (1937). Her Masters (botany, 1939) and Ph.D. (botany and mycology, 1941) were earned at the University of North Carolina. In 1941-42, she was a Carnegie Fellow, and in 1951, she was a Guggenheim Fellow. Barksdale worked at the Department of Antibiotic Research of the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan (1943–52) and at the New York Botanical Garden. Dr. Barksdale became a foundational figure in the study of Achlya, a genus of aquatic fungi with a unique reproductive system, while working at the New York Botanical Garden; The Mycological Society of America[1] and the Achlya Newsletter, a publication of continuing research on Achlya, both published retrospectives on her life and work following her death in 1981.
At the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill), and later Harvard University, Dr. Barksdale conducted graduate and post-doctoral research on the aquatic fungi classes Oomycetes and Chytridiomycetes. She contributed to the development of methods for isolating and cultivating aquatic fungi, the accurate description of their nutritional needs, and a previously-unknown sexual life cycle in the aquatic parasite order . She received a Carnegie Fellowship (at North Carolina) and a National Research Council Fellowship (at Harvard) for her research, and her work during that time resulted in several academic publications.
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