[3] She originally intended to pursue a career in veterinary medicine but changed her path after fainting while watching a dog undergoing surgery.
[4] In her senior year, Kientz began taking courses at Ohio State University at Marion through the Post Secondary Enrollment Option.
[9] Upon completing her PhD, Kientz accepted an assistant professor position jointly in the Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) and the Information School Departments at the University of Washington.
[10] In this role, she established the Computing for Healthy Living and Learning (CHiLL) Laboratory in 2009 to use "User-Centered Design processes to determine if technology performs as expected in a real-world environment.
"[11] As director of the CHiLL Laboratory, Kientz developed Baby Steps to "transform developmental tracking into one of celebrating children’s achievements.
[17] While serving in her new role as an associate professor, Kientz co-authored a study that demonstrated that period-tracking smartphone apps lacked accuracy, made assumptions about sexual identity or partners, and over-emphasized pink and flowery form over function and customization.