[3][4][5] Chaffee attended Ithaca College;[6] followed by study at Courtauld Institute of Art where she received a M.A.
degree; and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts where she received a Ph.D. in 2013.
[7] Her dissertation was Décors: Marcel Broodthaers's Late Exhibition Practice, 1974-1975, and her advisor was Robert Storr.
[11][7] Notable exhibitions curated by Chaffee include Marisol: A Retrospective (in 2023-25), the largest posthumous survey of the artist's work,[12] Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon (in 2024-25),[13] Stanley Whitney: the Italian Paintings (in 2022),[14] (co-curated with Vincenzo de Bellis) an installation of works made by Stanley Whitney in Italy since the 1990s.
Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective (in 2018),[15] the first large-scale museum survey devoted to artworks Conrad presented in museum and gallery settings, and part of an ongoing reappraisal of his creative achievement;[16] Joe Bradley (in 2017);[17] Clyfford Still / Mark Bradford (in 2016);[18] Erin Shirreff (in 2016); Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Ecologies of Drama (from 2015 to 2016);[19] Screen Play: Life in an Animated World (in 2015);[20] Overtime: The Art of Work (in 2015);[21] and Looking at Tomorrow: Light and Language from The Panza Collection, 1967–1990 (from 2015 to 2016).