Biology professor, Jeopardy! contestant named Minds@Work keynote speaker

The annual Minds@Work Student Research Conference will be here soon. Student presenters are polishing their presentations and posters in anticipation of the 29th annual conference on Tuesday, April 4. This is the first year in the past several years that the entire conference returns to fully in person.

Highlighting this year’s conference will be a keynote presentation from Dr. Alisa Hove, professor and chair of the Biology Department at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. Dr. Hove has been at Warren Wilson since 2012, after earning her Ph.D. degree in evolutionary biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Davis, and a master’s degree in biology from Cal Poly Humboldt.

At Warren Wllson, Dr. Hove teaches a variety of courses, including Genetics, Evolutionary Biology and Plant Ecology. She and her students conduct research focused on characterizing genetic diversity in vulnerable plant and animal species, using DNA barcoding to characterize ecological communities, and investigating the roles of environmental stress in mating system evolution in flowering plants.

Dr. Hove was one of three finalists on the 2021 inaugural season of Jeopardy! Professors Tournament.

The keynote presentation will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 4, in Gundlach Theatre.