Susan R. Wessler

Susan Wessler is Distinguished Professor of Genetics emerita at the University of California Riverside. In 2011 she was elected Home Secretary of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the first women to hold this position in its 160-year history. She is a plant molecular geneticist known for her contributions to the field of transposon biology and plant genome evolution. A native of New York City, she received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cornell University (1980) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1980-1982). She began her career at the University of Georgia in 1983 where she remained until moving to UC Riverside in 2010. Wessler has contributed extensively to educational and diversity initiatives. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor (2006), she adapted her research program for the classroom by developing the Dynamic Genome (DG) Lab where incoming freshman can experience the excitement of scientific discovery. The DG course is currently taken by over 600 students/year. During her term as NAS Home Secretary (2011-2023), she spearheaded initiatives that led to a doubling of the number of women Academy members. Additional past service to the NAS includes Associate Editor of PNAS and a term on Council. She is the recipient of several awards including the Stephen Hales Prize (2011) from the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Excellence in Science Award from FASEB (2012), the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies (2015) and the HudsonAlpha Life Sciences Prize (2019). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1998), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007), the American Philosophical Society (2013), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2017).
A native of New York City, Wessler received her bachelor’s degree in biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974 and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cornell University in 1980. She was a postdoctoral fellow of the American Cancer Society at the Carnegie Institution of Washington from 1980-1982. She began her career at the University of Georgia in 1983 where she remained until moving to the University of California, Riverside in 2010. At present she is an Associate Editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is on the Editorial Board of Current Opinions in Plant Biology and on the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journal Science.

Wessler has contributed extensively to educational initiatives, including co-authorship of the widely used genetics textbook, Introduction to Genetic Analysis, and the popular reference book The Mutants of Maize. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, she adapted her research program for the classroom by developing the Dynamic Genome Courses where incoming freshman can experience the excitement of scientific discovery in the state-of-the art Neil A. Campbell Science Learning Laboratory.

She is the recipient of several awards including the Creative Research Medal (1991) and the Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award (1997) from the University of Georgia, the Distinguished Scientist Award (2007) from the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), the Stephen Hales Prize (2011) from the American Society of Plant Biologists, and the Excellence in Science Award from FASEB (2012). She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.