She has made notable contributions to understanding the history of the Antarctic ice sheets and published in high-impact journals and, as a result, was awarded full membership of Sigma Xi.

Shevenell worked as a laboratory technician and environmental scientist in Juneau, Alaska, before attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she studied Antarctic ice sheet evolution and paleoceanography and earned her Ph.D. in Marine Science (2004).

Shevenell's research is relevant to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concerns that ongoing oceanic and atmospheric warming is accelerating polar ice cap melting and global sea level rise.

Her work discovered that Southern Ocean cooling during the Middle Miocene Climate Transition occurred before the expansion of Antarctica's ice sheets at ~14 million years ago.

[3] Shevenell has since shown that progressive ice sheet expansion on Antarctica began around 14.8 million years ago, during the Miocene Climatic Optimum, when average global temperatures were warmer than present.

[10] The increased upwelling was caused by stronger winds, which in turn released more CO2 into the atmosphere enhancing global warming during the Holocene and the shrinkage of ice sheets.

TEX86 proxy analysis of sediments from the western Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf documented the changing influence of warm Circumpolar Deep Water on regional glacier and sea ice extent since the last deglaciation, ~13,000 years ago.

[11] At present, atmospheric connections to the tropical Pacific allow warm ocean waters to move onto Antarctica's continental shelves, melting regional glaciers.

[22] The significance of Shevenall's work to the understanding of changes affecting the Antarctic ice sheets have been featured in Discover Magazine,[23] National Geographic,[24] and  Reuters.