[10] She continued her doctoral work there beginning in 1989 under a newly hired Kim Nasmyth at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), receiving a PhD in 1993.

[10] Amon left Austria for the United States in 1994, joining the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a postdoctoral researcher.

[10][12] Amon's independent work at the Whitehead Institute led directly to her securing a faculty appointment at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT in 1999,[10] the same year she received the Presidential Early Career Award and was named a Howard S. and Linda B. Stern Career Development Assistant Professor.

[18] Amon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017, by which time she had been named the Kathleen and Curtis Marble Professor of Cancer Research at MIT.

[19] She was conferred the Vilcek Prize two years later, in recognition of her as one who had "made extraordinary contributions to their fields" while being a foreign-born researcher in the United States.

As a student under Nasmyth, Amon made significant discoveries related to the biosynthesis and breakdown of cyclins during the cell cycle.

[1][23] The PECAS is "the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers".