Stephen Waggoner

Stephen Waggoner began his scientific career in 1995 as a high school intern at the National Cancer Institute, developing skills in molecular biology and a passion for scientific communication. During his undergraduate studies in Biology and Chemistry at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, he cultivated an interest in microbiology by investigating new antimicrobials against Escherichia coli O157. He then pursued research in molecular virology of hepatitis viruses and earned his PhD in Microbiology at the University of Virginia, studying immune evasion by the hepatitis C virus. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, he identified immunoregulatory functions of natural killer cells, a phenomenon that became the focus of his independent laboratory since 2013 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Currently, Stephen Waggoner leads an externally funded research program focused on improving vaccine efficacy, understanding the pathogenesis of infections, investigating the genomic mechanisms of NK cell biology, and developing new immunology-based therapies.