Her intent after studying physics was to become a science writer, and after graduating she worked in New York City as an editor of Chemical Engineering magazine.

[2] However she left to follow her husband, electrical engineer John H. Bryant,[4] to the University of Illinois, where he was a graduate student; she did some more science writing there but stopped to become a full-time mother.

[2] The president of Market Opinion Research, Robert Teeter, had worked on the presidential campaign and transition team of George H. W. Bush.

In 1989, after Bush's first choice of Alan Heslop was blocked,[4] he made a recess appointment that put Bryant in charge of the Census Bureau, the first woman to hold the post.

[5] After leaving the Census in 1993, she took a position as a research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Business and as director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index.