She is a professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Colorado Denver[1] as well as the policy and outreach coordinator at the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, a non-profit organization.
In 1977, she obtained a PhD in biological sciences from the University of California at Santa Barbara working in the fields of avian behavioral ecology, advised by Stephen I.
[1] In 1977, while writing her dissertation, she was appointed as postdoctoral fellow and instructor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Brigham Young University, where she collaborated with Joseph R. Murphy on studies of ferruginous hawks.
She researched the growth patterns and genetic structure of individual Swiss stone pine trees in Switzerland, exploring the influence of seed caching by the Eurasian nutcracker (N.
Her collaborations with former graduate students resulted in two key management papers, addressing the effects of forest health declines on whitebark pine cone production and the probability of nutcracker seed dispersal.
[18][19] In 2010, collaborating with botanist Peter Achuff, she addressed the ecological significance, threats, and challenges facing white pine species in western Canada and the United States.
[20] In 2011, as part of a team of ornithologists, she explored the economic and practical value of birds, specifically highlighting the ecosystem services they provide to human society.
[21] In 2012, she and collaborators participated in a study using the Illumina Seq-to-SSR method, a cost-effective and efficient means of identifying microsatellites in species genomes.
[23] She continued collaborating with a working group advocating for avian ecosystem services, and quantified nutcracker seed dispersal for whitebark pine, resulting in the contributed volume, Why Birds Matter, edited by Cagan H. Şekercioğlu, Daniel G. Wenny, and Christopher J. Whelan, which highlighted the ecological functions of birds, including a chapter authored by her.