She studied physical education at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, and completed a medical degree at Northwestern University in 1900.

[3] While teaching at the University of Chicago, she also served as "assistant school physician",[4] and published a series of academic articles on physical education, titled "A Graded Course in Schoolroom Gymnastics" (1911).

[7][8] Under her tenure, the physical education department added a pool, two gymnasiums, and classroom space, and launched a teacher training program.

[1][11] "The gymnasium and its apparatus is all very well while it lasts," she told a newspaper in 1912, "but I want the girls to wake up to the possibilities of fun and exercise that can go on after they leave college.

[12] She also wrote the introduction for a textbook, Leonora Anderson's An Athletic Program for Elementary Schools, Arranged According to Seasons (1927).