Alma Joslyn Whiffen-Barksdale

Alma Joslyn Whiffen-Barksdale (October 25, 1916 – July 5, 1981) was an American 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. 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 and the Achlya Newsletter, a publication of continuing research on Achlya, both published retrospectives on her life and work following her death in 1981.