[4] After a short period of teaching in Maryland, Knapp moved to the West coast in 1974 and continued her scientific career as a research fellow in the California Institute of technology.
[4] In the California Institute of technology, Gillian Knapp was promoted to a senior research fellow in 1976 and became a staff member of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory the same year.
[7] Her scientific career was successfully developed over the years in Princeton University, where she received an Emerita Professor status in 2014.
[8] In 1983 the University of Texas at Austin established the Beatrice Tinsley Centennial Visiting Professorship in Astronomy.
[12] Knapp received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2018, for her work bringing college level course material to prison inmates as part of the Prison Teaching Initiative Archived 2018-08-30 at the Wayback Machine, which she co-founded in 2005 along with other Princeton astrophysicists Mark Krumholz and Jenny Greene.