[2] Northup was an undergraduate student at West Virginia University, where she studied political science.
She moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for graduate studies, where she earned a Master's of Library Science in 1972.
[3][page needed] Northup is a visiting associate professor at the University of New Mexico where she started the Subsurface Life In Mineral Environments (SLIME) team.
[4] In particular, Northup studies the colorful ferromanganese deposits that line the walls of Lechuguilla and Spider Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
[8][7] Northup was elected Fellow of the National Speleological Society in 1992,[9] awarded their Science Prize in 2013,[2] and presented a Luminary talk in 2015.