[1][2] Steinberg's research focuses on the role that zooplankton play in marine food webs and the global carbon cycle, and how these small drifting animals are affected by changes in climate.
[7] Steinberg has been an international leader in understanding the zooplankton and jellyfish ecology along with how the food web structures the flux of carbon to the deep sea.
Since 2008,[update] she has worked at Palmer Station within the US National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program focusing on understanding how rapid warming drives ecosystem change.
[1][9] Steinberg has worked in a number of marine environments including coastal California,[10] Antarctic,[11] Sargasso Sea,[12] the subtropical and subarctic North Pacific, the Amazon River plume,[13] and the Chesapeake Bay.
[14] Steinberg has spent collectively more than 1.5 years at sea on more than 50 research cruises, and starred in the documentary "Antarctic Edge: 70° South.