She worked on rectified diffusion theory, the mechanism that describes how strain waves pump volatile organic compounds into bubbles.

Here she helped several National Science Foundation-MARGINS postdoctoral fellows, including Heather M. Savage and Christie D. Rowe, begin their careers in geophysics.

[10] She has challenged the idea that static stress controls earthquake triggering, and found that aftershocks have similar distributions as main shocks.

[16] She studied the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, finding a series of temperature pulses that occur due to the flow of fluids through a zone of increased permeability.

Brodsky has shown that the coefficient of friction after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was considerably lower than expected.

[19] Brodsky serves on the board of directors for the Southern California Earthquake Center and the IRIS Consortium.