Denise C. Nuttall Stephens is an associate professor of astronomy in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University.

[2] Stephens graduated from Brigham Young University in 1996 as an undergraduate student with a degree in physics.

She completed her a postgraduate program at the Space Telescope Science Institute and at Johns Hopkins University.

[2] In 2017, she and a team of undergraduates at BYU published their discovery of a new planet called KELT-16b, which was made as part of the KELT project.

[6] She also runs an annual public event called Astrofest which introduces physics and astronomy to kids in a fun way.