Whitney Stutts

Whitney Stutts, PhD, serves as Research Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and holds the position of Associate Director of Metabolomics for the UNC Metabolomics and Proteomics (MAP) Core, a role she assumed in 2024 to establish and lead metabolomics services within this comprehensive mass spectrometry facility.

Her educational background includes:

• B.S. in Chemistry from North Carolina State University
• Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida, where her doctoral research focused on developing matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization tandem mass spectrometry and mass spectrometric imaging techniques for lipid and metabolite analysis in biological tissues

Dr. Stutts specializes in metabolomics and lipidomics, with expertise spanning both targeted and untargeted approaches for biological sample analysis. At the MAP Core, she develops and implements services including global metabolite profiling, targeted LC-MS analysis of metabolic pathways (e.g., glycolysis and TCA cycle), and custom metabolite panels tailored to specific research questions. Her work leverages advanced instrumentation such as Thermo Orbitrap mass spectrometers and UHPLC systems to advance research in human health and disease mechanisms.

Prior to joining UNC, Dr. Stutts held positions at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, where she developed analytical methods for toxin quantification in foods and dietary supplements, and at North Carolina State University as Senior Research Scholar and Research Assistant Professor in biochemistry. Her career demonstrates consistent expertise in method development, validation, and application of mass spectrometry techniques across diverse biological contexts.

No scientific awards were documented in the provided source material.

Information regarding student advising and research grants was not specified in the available text, though her role involves extensive collaboration with researchers from experimental design through publication support. As part of the MAP Core team under Director Laura Herring and Faculty Director Lee Graves, she contributes to a facility serving both UNC researchers and external clients worldwide with state-of-the-art metabolomics and proteomics services.