[5] Following this, she joined the faculty at Mount Holyoke College in 1970,[5] and earned tenure there in 1974.
In 1990 she was named the Julia and Sarah Ann Adams Professor of Science at Mount Holyoke College.
Pollatsek's research interests include finite groups, finite geometries, Lie theory, difference sets and their application to error correcting codes and coding theory.
With Emily H. Moore, she is the author of the book Difference Sets: Connecting Algebra, Combinatorics, and Geometry (Student Mathematical Library 67, American Mathematical Society, 2013).
In 2007 Pollatsek was presented with the Mount Holyoke College Faculty Prize for Teaching.