Steven Reppert received both his B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of Nebraska. He did his clinical training in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was a post-doctoral fellow at the NIH in the Section on Neuroendocrinology. He then joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School where he resided for 22 years before moving in 2001 to chair the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
For the first 23 years of his research career, Reppert’s work primarily focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms of circadian clocks in mammals. Since 2002, his research has shifted to understanding the biological basis of the long-distance migration of the Monarch butterfly with a focus on its navigational abilities and the role of its unique circadian clock. Reppert’s pioneering research has been recognized with numerous awards including an NIH MERIT award, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the G.J. Mendel Honorary Medal for Merit in the Biological Sciences from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.