She studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, 1997-98, with funding from a Fulbright fellowship, a year that coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
She returned to Notre Dame to begin her PhD studies in Christianity and Judaism, where she also minored in Syriac exegesis and liturgical theology.
She then held a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom to undertake research on religious experience at Qumran.
She also serves on the steering committee of the Qumran and Dead Sea Scrolls program unit of the International Society of Biblical Literature.
In 2022, Harkins became the lead editor of the Journal of Ancient Judaism, a position that she shares with Jonathan Klawans (Boston University).
Harkins is a Christian Leaders Initiative Fellow (2012-13), appointed by the American Jewish Committee and the Shalom Hartman Institute (Jerusalem).