Gerdt Laboratory

NIH Post-doctoral fellow, Harvard Medical School (with Jon Clardy), 2014–2019

Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison (with Helen Blackwell), 2008–2014

B.S., Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (with Scott Silverman), 2003–2008

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J.P. grew up in Peoria, Illinois. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry in 2008 from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he researched the chemistry and folding of nucleic acids with Scott Silverman. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he studied the chemistry of cell-cell signaling in bacteria with Helen Blackwell. After earning his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2014, he joined the laboratory of Jon Clardy at Harvard Medical School. As a Ruth L. Kirschstein NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow in the Clardy lab, he researched interkingdom chemical signaling in choanoflagellates and in Plasmodium falciparum—a parasite that causes malaria. Now at IU, his group blends analytical, organic, and biological chemistry approaches to uncover the molecules behind underexplored symbioses.

Apart from research and teaching, J. P. likes to go for walks, look at mushrooms, read, drink tea, and occasionally swim, bike, or run.