[7] Originally, she had planned to become a high-school English teacher, but she switched to mathematics, majoring in it and in literature.
[8] She earned her Ph.D. under the advising of Cameron McAllan Gordon at the University of Texas at Austin in 2006; her dissertation was entitled Geometry and Algebra of Hyperbolic 3-manifolds.
[7][1] Kent has published over 20 papers in various journals, mostly regarding low dimensional topology and knot theory.
[4][6][7] Kent served on the Policy and Advocacy Committee for the Association for Women in Mathematics from Feb 2019-Jan 2022.
[11][12] With Harrison Bray, she organized the LG&TBQ+ conference at the University of Michigan to foster collaboration between LGBTQ+ mathematicians working in geometry, topology, and dynamical systems with funding from Kent's NSF Career Award.