She has received multiple awards, both for the aesthetic quality of her science photographs and for her ability to effectively communicate complicated scientific information in images.

Unlike many of her visual design colleagues, she decided to return to her scientific roots, auditing a class in chemistry taught by professor George M. Whitesides.

Working with one of his postdocs, Nick Abbott, they collaboratively produced a striking image that was selected for the cover of the professional journal Science.

Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, Frankel's images have been published in a number of professional journal articles, magazine covers, and various other international publications for general audiences such as National Geographic, Nature, Science, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials, Materials Today, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Newsweek, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, and New Scientist, among others.

Her limited-edition photographs are included in a number of corporate and private collections,[9] and were part of MOMA’s 2008 exhibition, Design and the Elastic Mind.

[11] Frankel founded the "Image and Meaning" workshops and conferences to develop new approaches for promoting the public understanding of science through visual expression.