She moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her graduate studies, where she joined the department of materials science and engineering and worked under the supervision of Nicola Marzari.
[2] During her doctoral research, she introduced a Hubbard U term to density functional theory calculations, which improved the study of transition metal complexes.
Amongst these materials, Kulik concentrated on transition metal complexes, as their highly localized electrons make the unphysical decollimation that occurs in the simplifications of DFT inappropriate.
Kulik then conducted postdoctoral research with Felice Lightstone at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
[4] In 2013, Kulik joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the Joseph R. Mares Career Development Chair.