Stephanie DeWitte-Orr is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Health Sciences and Biology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research focuses on innate antiviral immune responses, studying how cells detect when they are infected with viruses and how they defend themselves from virus infection. It is these defense mechanisms that her research program utilizes to develop novel immuno-modulators to combat virus infection, through vaccine adjuvant and antiviral drug development. She studies these responses in numerous animal models; thus, her work has impact in environmental, agricultural and human health applications. She is the recipient of Laurier’s Early Career Research Award, the Robert G. Boutilier New Investigator Award from the Canadian Society of Zoology and the Young Scientist Award from the Society For In Vitro Biology, in which she was the first Canadian recipient.