While employed as a senior lecturer in English at Neville’s Cross College in Durham (1965–68), she wrote her doctoral dissertation "A Study of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin in Literature and Tradition" (1967) at the Institute of Folk-Life Studies at the University of Leeds.
Moving away from the teaching of English literature, she soon established herself in the field of Scottish studies.
There she collected oral material from those with Scottish connections, some of which is included in the CD “Chokit on a Tattie” (focusing on children’s songs and rhymes), and in a forthcoming issue of the journal Tocher.
[1] The work she did as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University in 1974-75 gave her increased visibility as a ballad scholar and led to many more visits to Harvard, including an appointment at the Center for the Study of World Religions in 1995.
She was appointed as a research fellow at the School of Scottish Studies of the University of Edinburgh from 1970 to 1995 and as a lecturer from 1995 to 1998.