Bradford, monitored live stranded delphinids and performed basic husbandry and life-support for bottlenose dolphins and false killer whales.

[4] During her senior year, Bradford began analyzing photo-identification data from the western North Pacific population of gray whales.

[3] Shortly after graduation, Bradford traveled to northeastern Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East to join a collaborative Russia-U.S. field study of these whales on their primary feeding ground.

[3] Once Bradford returned from the field, she spent a year as a research assistant for this project based at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.

During her time at SAFS, Bradford spent 10 summers in the Russian Far East studying the endangered western population of gray whales.

[8] Bradford also studied the age at sexual maturity and the birth-interval of the western gray whales, both important parameters for understanding the dynamics of this endangered population.

[9][10] Bradford spent a lot of time as a graduate student working on photo-identification of the western gray whale population and published a paper on how to identify calves based on their barnacle scars and pigmentation patterns.

[17][4][18] Bradford participated and eventually lead western gray whale boat-based photo-identification and genetic-monitoring surveys between 1998 and 2010, which included her putting in over 1,500 hours of small boat work.

Bradford was involved in a study of false killer whale behavior and interactions with the fisheries in an effort to try and reduce the bycatch of this species and achieve conservation goals.