Susan Rae Wente

Susan Wente (born 1962) is a cell biologist who currently holds the position of Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Vanderbilt University. As of August 15, 2019, she is currently serving as interim Chancellor at Vanderbilt following the resignation of Nicholas Zeppos.

Other honors and awards include: National Institutes of Health, General Medical Sciences – MERIT Award 2010-2020 Nashville Medical News – ‘Women to Watch’ Class of 2014 NIH MERIT Award, 2010 – present John H. Exton Award — For Research Leading to Innovative Biological Concepts, 2008 Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation, Kirsch Investigator Award, 2001 – 2003 Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award, 1996 – 1998 American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award, 1996 – 1999 University of Iowa, Dewey B. Stuit Honors Award, 1982 Iowa Forensic League Hugh F. Seabury Award, 1980

Wente serves on the editorial boards for the journals Advances in Biological Regulation, Current Opinion in Cell Biology and Nucleus. She previously served as an editor of Molecular and Cellular Biology (1999-2003) and associate editor of Molecular Biology of the Cell (2004-2009). She previously served on the editorial board of Traffic (2004-2014) and Molecular and Cellular Biology (1999-2013).

Wente became an assistant professor of Cell Biology and Physiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1993 and associate professor in 1998. She began working at Vanderbilt in 2002 as the department chair and professor of cell and developmental biology. In December 2008, she became an assistant vice chancellor for research at Vanderbilt. In 2009, she was promoted to associate vice chancellor for research and senior associate dean for biomedical sciences. She was named Vanderbilt’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs in July 2014.

Wente completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa. She graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry, earning both High Distinction and Honors. Wente completed her graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated in 1988 with a Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry under the advisor Dr. Howard K. Schachman. Her dissertation was titled “Site-Directed Mutations Altering the Active Site and the Nucleotide-Binding Site of Aspartate Transcarbamoylase.”

Wente has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her career. In 1984, she was awarded the Susan B. Hancher Award, recognizing her leadership as a senior at the University of Iowa and the Sanxay Prize, a token of promising graduate studies. In that same year, she was awarded the Hancher-Finkbine Medallion, the highest award bestowed by the University of Iowa for graduating seniors. Wente was also awarded Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (1985-1986) by the University of California, Berkeley. From 1988 – 1990, she was awarded the New York State Health Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, and, from 1991 – 1993, the National Research Service Award Fellowship for Postdoctoral Study. In 2011, Wente received the Women in Cell Biology (WICB) Senior Leadership Award from the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). Wente was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2011.

During her time at the University of Iowa (1980 – 1984), Wente worked as a research technician under F. Jeffery Field in the Lipid Research Core Laboratory at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. She was a student research collaborator with Marshall Elzinga in the Department of Biology at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Wente also completed her undergraduate thesis studies under the direction of Alice B. Fulton in the Department of Biochemistry. She became a teaching assistant in the Department of Biochemistry while at the University of California, Berkeley. Wente taught a biochemistry laboratory course the summer after obtaining her Ph.D. Wente engaged in a molecular biology postdoctoral fellowship with Ora Rosen at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City from 1988 – 1989. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Günter Blobel at the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Rockefeller University in New York City from 1989 – 1993. She received a Beckman Young Investigators Award in 1996.