Kerfeld majored in biology and English literature at the University of Minnesota, graduating magna cum laude[1] 1983, and with the Captain Jennings DeWitt Payne award for excellence in literary studies.

After finishing her doctorate, Kerfeld was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellowship with which she continued research in the department of biochemistry at UCLA.

[3] In 2007, Kerfeld joined the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, where she worked on the development of a web-based platform for implementing bioinformatics into undergraduate courses and research projects.

[4] While primarily focusing on bioinformatics education for the JGI, Kerfeld was an adjunct professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley and continued to build a research program in Bacterial Microcompartments and Carotenoid Proteins.

Her research has focused on two main areas: Bacterial Microcompartments, metabolic organelles found in bacteria, and the structure and function of modular carotenoid-binding proteins are involved in the mediation of cyanobacterial photoprotection.