She is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles specializing in craft production, coffin studies, and economies in the ancient world, particularly the Ramesside era (Nineteenth through Twentieth Dynasties) and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Language and Cultures at UCLA.

[1] [2][3] [4] [5] As well as for her scholarly work, she is known for hosting television shows on ancient Egypt on the Discovery Channel as well as for writing a popular-press book on the subject.

She was part of an archaeological team excavating at the artisans' village of Deir el Medina in Egypt, as well as Dahshur and various tombs at Thebes.

In 2002 she was Kress Fellow at the National Gallery of Art and worked on the preparation of the Cairo Museum exhibition Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt.

Her research investigates the socioeconomic and political turmoil that have plagued the period, ultimately affecting funerary and burial practices in ancient Egypt.