She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in August 1962, and qualified as a medical technologist at Ochsner Foundation Hospital.

She attended the University of Texas at Houston for a year in 1963 and 1964, and then Baylor College of Medicine, where she earned her Master of Science (MS) in 1966, and PhD in 1968.

[1] As part of her master's thesis, Leach studied aldosterone, a salt-retaining hormone produced by the adrenal gland.

This was of particular interest to the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) because astronauts suffered from imbalances of fluids and electrolytes during spaceflight.

After she completed her doctorate at Baylor on the control of the stress reaction in animals, she accepted a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship to study the metabolism of returning space flight crews at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

[1] Huntoon left NASA in 1998 to join George Washington University as an Executive in Residence in its Project Management Program.

[10] After the 2000 United States presidential election President George W. Bush asked her to stay on at the DOE to provide some continuity, which she agreed to do until a suitable replacement was found.

[1] She was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in 2003,[12] and in September 2014, Women in Aerospace gave her a lifetime achievement award for "sustained and exemplary leadership at NASA, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of Energy, her exceptional scientific contributions towards understanding the effects of spaceflight on the human body, and her dedication and mentorship of astronauts and aerospace professionals.