Dr. Watts found her passion for science at a very young age through a science fair project regarding compost and was influenced by her parents who both have PhDs in science fields. She was a chemistry major during her undergrad, originally on the physician track, but switched to studying molecular discovery in natural products in graduate school at UC Santa Cruz. Dr. Watts is very interested in biological activity, isolating molecules and seeing what causes their activity, and enjoys studying accessible natural products, such as soil, with her students here at Cal Poly as a teacher and researcher.