Jacqueline M. Stephens PhD

Dr. Jacqueline M. Stephens earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from East Carolina University School of Medicine. In graduate school, she became interested in fat cell biology and the role of these cells in the pathogenesis of obesity and Type 2 diabetes (T2DM). She pursued post-doctoral training at the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1996, she moved to LSU to set up her own laboratory. She has had sustained funding from the NIH to study molecular aspects of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. She has served on the Editorial Boards of several journals, including Obesity, Diabetes, JBC, AJP-Endo and Metabolism, and Adipocytes. She has also served or chaired numerous NIH grant review panels as well as reviewing grants for the UK, Netherlands, Germany, France, and Canada. In 2011, she moved her research laboratory to Pennington Biomedical. Dr. Stephens teaches Endocrinology at LSU and has a very active research lab of undergraduates and Ph.D. students from LSU as well as several post-doctoral fellows. Dr. Stephens co-directs the Pennington Botanical Research Center that studies the anti-diabetic properties of plant extracts. Dr. Stephens is also the director of the Metabolic Basis of Disease Center at Pennington, which was established in 2020.