Suzanne Ruth Pfeffer is an American neuroscientist who is a professor at Stanford University.^[2] Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that cause receptors to be transported between membrane compartments in cells, and she is an expert in Rab GTPases^[3][4][5] and the molecular basis of inherited Parkinson's disease.^[1] She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Society for Cell Biology.^[6]

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Suzanne Pfeffer
Pfeffer in 2010
Born	Suzanne Ruth Pfeffer
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley (BS) University of California, San Francisco (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields	Parkinson's disease[1]
Institutions	Stanford University
Thesis	The role of coated vesicles in intracellular transport (1983)
Website	profiles.stanford.edu/suzanne-pfeffer

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Pfeffer has said that she became interested in human physiology as a child. She was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became interested in biochemistry.^[7] She worked with Michael Chamberlin on binding of Escherichia coli polymerase to T7 DNA polymerase.^[8] She moved to the University of California, San Francisco for her graduate studies, where she worked with Regis B. Kelly on synaptic vessels.^[7] Her doctoral research investigated the role of coated vesicles in intracellular transport.^[9]

After her PhD, she moved to Stanford University as a Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow, where she worked with James Rothman on Golgi transport.^[7][10]

Pfeffer set up her own research program at Stanford University, where she was the first woman to be appointed to the department of biochemistry.^[7] Her research investigates the fundamental mechanisms of membrane trafficking.^{[citation needed]}