[3] She attended Liberty Park Elementary School, crediting her fourth and fifth grade teacher with sparking her interest in math and science.

[4][3] Fields graduated from Norfolk State University in 1971 with a BS degree in mathematics, starting out in her freshman year as one of only four or five female math majors.

[3] She worked in this position less than a year, when NOAA Corps Director Rear Admiral Harley Nygren started recruiting women for the first time as commissioned officers.

[6] In July 1990, Fields was selected to take part in the U.S. Department of Commerce Science and Technology Fellowship Program, where she spent 10 months in a policy-making office in the federal government.

[1] Field's hydrographic knowledge and skills contributed to preparing nautical charts for the U.S. Navy to use during the 1991 Gulf War.

[7] In 1997, Fields became the acting deputy director of NOAA's National Ocean Service, where she improved and streamlined the nautical chart making process.

[5][9] After the exchange program, she was responsible for reviewing, critiquing, and determining whether the hydrographic survey data submitted by Atlantic Marine Center field units was complete and adequate for final acceptance into the processing system.