[2] She was also the recipient of Citrus High School's Outstanding Student Award after recording a perfect score in the college placement tests.
[4] In 2010, her research project "Asthma Phenotypes: A Prelude to Mechanistic Insights on Disease Pathogenesis" earned her the ATS Recognition Award for Scientific Accomplishments.
"[6] In 2016, she was the first woman honored with the Breathing for Life Award from the American Thoracic Society for her "advocacy for women in science and mentoring of young scientists.
Alongside Valerian Kagan and Hulya Bayir, Wenzel described, for the first time, a cell-death pathway that can destroy healthy cells, resulting in tissue and organ damage.
They found that the protein PEBP1 "serves as the pathway warden in controlling whether a certain enzyme (15LO) ends up making a fat molecule or lipid (OOH-PEs) in such volumes that they signal the activation of the cell-death process.