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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Dr. Gerdt obtained his B.S. in Chemistry in 2008 from the University of Illinois in 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 an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow in the Clardy lab, he researched interkingdom chemical signaling in choanoflagellates and in Plasmodium falciparum—a parasite that causes malaria. Dr. Gerdt started his independent career in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University in 2019. By integrating analytical, organic, and biological chemistry with microbiology and cell biology, the Gerdt lab uncovers the molecules that shape microbial symbioses. The two biological systems his lab studies are (1) protists that help to reconstruct the evolutionary pathways that formed multicellular animals and (2) bacteriophage viruses that kill pathogenic bacteria. Dr. Gerdt is a recipient of the NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (2020), NSF CAREER Award (2021), Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2024), and Indiana University Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2026).
