at King's College of Household Science, London. In London she shared a flat with historian Myra Curtis, who was later Principal of Newnham College. As Stephenson did not find domestic science fulfilling, she was grateful when Robert Plimmer, co-founder of the Biochemical Club (later Society), invited her to become a researcher in his laboratory at University College London. Here she investigated fat metabolism, and also taught nutrition. She was awarded a Beit Memorial Fellowship in 1913, but her work was interrupted by the First World War. After joining the British Red Cross Society, Stephenson ran hospital kitchens in France; later she became a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) commandant in Salonika (Thessaloniki). She was mentioned in despatches, and, in December 1918, was appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). She also received an Associate Royal Red Cross (ARRC) in recognition of her service. As a result of her war-time experience, she became a pacifist and, later, was an active member of the Cambridge Scientists' Anti-War Group. Research at Cambridge After the end of the war, Stephenson returned to Cambridge to carry out research and teach in the department of biochemistry. Under the leadership of Frederick Gowland Hopkins, a group of scientists became the centre of modern biochemical studies. Here Stephenson began research on bacteria and their metabolism. The department had an unusually high proportion of women amongst its researchers, at 15 per cent, but it was still very rare for a woman to be offered a University appointment. Stephenson was financed by her Beit Fellowship and later by the Medical Research Council. She was finally appointed a University lecturer in biochemistry in 1943. Meanwhile, she became an associate and later a fellow of her old College, Newnham. In 1936 the University awarded her a Doctorate of Science (DSc) degree for her research. Stephenson's main area of research was bacterial metabolism. With Margaret Whetham and Juda Quastel, she developed the washed suspension technique, which had originated with Louis Pasteur, for extracting enzymes from bacteria. With Leonard Stickland, she was the first to isolate a bacterial enzyme from the cell in 1928, when they obtained lactic dehydrogenase from Escherichia coli. In the 1930s, she continued to work with Stickland and demonstrated that a particular enzyme, formate hydrogenlyase, was present in cell extracts only when the bacteria had been grown in the presence of formate. This was one of