[2] Her research spans fracture mechanics and dynamics in ice, cryosphere change, physical oceanography, and geomorphology on Earth and other planets and moons using a variety of methodologies including remote sensing.

[15][16][17] She was educated at Mount Holyoke College and the University of Michigan, followed by postdoctoral positions at Georgia Institute of Technology and Caltech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a senior fellowship at NASA Headquarters.

During her undergraduate years, she conducted research at University of New Hampshire, working with space physicist Vania Jordanova analyzing magnetospheric substorms using the NASA/ESA Cluster spacecraft, and space physicist Antoinette Galvin on the pre- and post-launch analyses for the Plasma and SupraThremal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) instrument on NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) mission that launched in 2006.

She later joined the GSFC Planetary Magnetospheres Lab, conducting observing campaigns at Kitt Peak National Observatory on Jupiter's moon Io.

Next she was NASA Postdoc Program Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working in the Sea Level and Ice Group on marine-terminating glacier change in Antarctica.