She is a Roman archaeologist whose research has focused on urban environments, with a particular focus on bath complexes, urban development and the building industry in the Roman world.
DeLaine trained in Civil Engineering and then Classics, receiving her BA (hons) and PhD the University of Adelaide.
[2] Her doctoral thesis was on Design and Construction in Roman Imperial Architecture: the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
[3] Her subsequent book The Baths of Caracalla in Rome: a Study in the Design, Construction and Economics of Large-scale Building Projects in Imperial Rome, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplement 25 (Portsmouth R.I. 1997) won the Archaeological Institute of America's James R. Wiseman Award for the most significant work in archaeology in 1998.
[7] Her international standing was recognized with her election as Corresponding Member of the Archaeological Institute of America in 2010,[8] and in 2014 she held the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Senior Research Fellowship at Kyushu University, in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design.