Stephanie Wengert Watts
My professional life has always been focused on serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) but I find my career expanding to the wonderful areas of adipokines and perivascular adipose tissue (go see our projects!). My graduate training in the laboratory of Dr. Marlene Cohen (Eli Lilly, Indiana University) was my initial interaction with serotonergic pharmacology and systems. Dr. Cohen developed a compound, LY53857, which, to this day, is used experimentally to test involvement of 5-HT2 receptors in a biological process. My interest in 5-HT grew during my postdoctoral fellowship which was dedicated to understanding why vasculature from hypertensive subjects was hyperresponsive to 5-HT. Upon joining the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at MSU, I joined a group of investigators with real expertise in blood pressure regulation and sympathetic nervous system control. I am blessed to be surrounded by those that make us think, and who are willing to be collaborators. I have been PI of my own laboratory for 27 years and we have situated ourselves to be experts in the field of vascular research. My lab is a fabulous team of different, intelligent, hardworking and fun-loving people. I oversee all the individuals in this work, both in terms of practical and scientific/theoretical manners. This is one of the if not THE most enjoyable things I do. Together, we tackle the work in front of us, develop new assays, challenge one another, and constantly refine our approach. Being scholars is at our core.
Training
University of Illinois (1988); B.S. in Advanced Chemistry
Indiana University (1990); M.S. in Pharmacology & Toxicology
Indiana University (1992); PhD in Pharmacology & Toxicology
University of Michigan (1995); PostDoc in Physiology
Selected Recognitions (since at MSU, 1995)
•1997 Young Investigator Award, Symposium on Serotonin Receptors
Eli Lilly Pharmacologist Awardee
•1999 Fujiwara Young Investigator Award for US-Japan Vascular Symposium
•2000 College Advisory Council’s Early Promise of Research Excellence Award, MSU
Distinguished Paradise Alumna, Indiana University
•2001 Young Scholar Award, American Society of Hypertension
PhRMA Foundation Ad in Newsweek “Health for Life”, Fall/Winter 2001
•2008 Bowditch Award, American Physiological Society
•2012 Lewis K. Dahl Award, Council on Hypertension, American Heart Association
•2015 Inaugural class of American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Mentoring Coach
(ASPET Big Idea)
MSU COM Research Excellence Award
•2016 Robert M Berne Award, Cardiovascular Section, American Physiological Society
•2017 Research Exemplar of the US. Awarded by Washington University SOM/NIH
•2018 Distinguished Alumna of Dept of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, The University of Michigan
Inaugural Stephanie Watts Career Achievement Award of the Council on Hypertension
of the American Heart Association
•2020 MSU Graduate School Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award for a senior faculty member
Harriet Dustan Awardee of the Council on Hypertension of the American Heart Association
Proud MENTOR of students who have won Travel Awards from: American Heart Association Council on Hypertension; American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; American Physiology Society; Keystone Symposia