During this time, she worked with Prof. James P. Snyder at Copenhagen, and Prof. Paul von Ragué Schleyer at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany on computational studies of free radicals.

[3][4][5] She then moved to Harvard University in the United States to pursue graduate studies in the laboratory of Prof. George M. Whitesides.

She went on to do postdoctoral work with Orville L. Chapman and Paul D. Boyer at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1985 to 1986, studying the mechanistic enzymology of the F1 subunit of ATP synthase from chloroplasts and beef heart.

[8] Crans began her independent career as an assistant professor at Colorado State University in 1987.

Crans is known for her work on the role of vanadium in biological systems, especially the effects of its compounds on diabetes.