[2] After employment at the biotechnology companies Biogen and Collaborative Research, she joined the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine.
[3][4] In 2001, she earn an MFA in studio art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University[citation needed] and she joined the faculty at the Olin College of Engineering.
[5] Donis-Keller's graduate research established a method to do RNA sequencing.
[10][11] She continued to work on the genetic linkage map[12] and led research into understanding the genetic basis of cystic fibrosis,[13] thyroid cancer,[14] and breast cancer.
[20][21][22] Her Ph.D. advisor, Walter Gilbert, has also begun to investigate the intersection between art and science though, in a 2015 interview, Donis-Keller did not recall his interest in art while she was a student in his lab.