She has previously received several awards including the Dana Foundation Award (Brain and Immunoimaging), Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging award, John Merck Scholar Program, MacArthur Fellows Program and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PCASE). Stevens’ lab is interested in interactions between the two fundamental cell types of the nervous system, neurons and glia. The laboratory seeks to understand how neuron-glia communication facilitates the formation, elimination and plasticity of synapses — the points of communication between neurons — during both healthy development and disease states. Stevens received her PhD in Neuroscience in 2003 from the University of Maryland, College Park and NIH and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2008.