[1][2] Anderson graduated with a PhD in botany from the University of Otago, Dunedin, in 2006.
[4] The project brought public attention to the role of moths in the ecosystem and also provides schoolchildren and adults with an experience of "hands-on" science.
As a result of the interest in the project, a bilingual Māori–English guide to New Zealand moths was published in 2018.
[5][6] In 2017, a group of Dunedin schoolchildren were invited to present their experiences of the project to the World Indigenous People's Conference on Education in Toronto.
In 2019 Anderson had the New Zealand endemic moth species Ichneutica barbara named in her honour.