[7] Hayhoe attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy.

[8] Her PhD committee was chaired by Donald Wuebbles, who recruited her for a research project assessing the impacts of climate change on the Great Lakes.

[17] Shortly after the Third Assessment was released, Hayhoe said, "Climate change is here and now, and not in some distant time or place," adding that, "The choices we're making today will have a significant impact on our future.

Most recently, she co-authored the book Downscaling Techniques for High-Resolution Climate Projections: From Global Change to Local Impacts (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

[30] She notes that she was able to change his mind over the course of a year and a half, with the help of data collected on a NASA website that documents rising global temperatures over time.

Hayhoe has recognized that those debates with her husband sharpened her skills as a communicator engaging audiences skeptical of climate science.

She delivers lectures that are rooted in scripture and focus on the benefits of collective action to mitigate the effects of climate change.

[40] A 2017 study tested the effectiveness of a climate lecture Hayhoe delivered to students at the predominantly evangelical school Houghton College, in which she devoted time to a discussion of theology-based ethics and delivered information about climate change through a lens of evangelical tradition.

[41] Following her lecture, students exhibited more willingness to accept that global warming is a true phenomenon and had an increased awareness of the expert scientific consensus.

A subsequent study showed that the more doubtful the audience, the greater the gains after listening to a recorded presentation by Hayhoe on climate science, impacts, and solutions.

[5] Hayhoe also hosted and produced a digital series with PBS called Global Weirding: Climate, Politics, and Religion, which launched September 2016 and ran through March 2019.

[47] Some have speculated that Gingrich dropped her chapter because Marc Morano, who is not a scientist, wrote many articles on his website, Climate Depot, attacking her findings.

[6][48] Shortly after, the conservative political action committee American Tradition Institute filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for Hayhoe's public university employer to release her notes and emails related to the writing of the unpublished chapter for the Gingrich book.