[7] Ferrante was later recognized for her collaborative work with the SSA form by the Association for Computing Machinery with their 2006 SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award.

[7] In 1992, Ferrante and her husband Larry Carter decided to look for academic jobs after learning of major changes coming to IBM's research division.

After being encouraged by Francine Berman to apply to University of California, San Diego's (UCSD) Jacobs School of Engineering, they were both offered full professorships in 1994.

In 2004, she founded the Teams in Engineering Service (TIES) program which matches UCSD undergraduates with San Diego non-profit organizations to "solve technology-based problems for their community clients.

[9] Later, Ferrante served as the co-principal investigator of the Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) award program to create a multiplayer online science challenge game designed specifically for middle and high school aged girls.