[1][2] She is best known for her early studies of the effects of metal pollution on Welsh rivers and their biota, as well as her book Life in Inland Waters, the first textbook in English wholly devoted to freshwater ecology.

[4] In 1914 she changed her surname by deed poll to Carpenter (the English translation of the German word Zimmermann).

[1] She was commissioned by Julian Huxley to write a textbook about freshwater ecology.

[8][9] She returned to Britain and was a lecturer at the University of Liverpool during World War II.

[6] Carpenter was one of the first to assess British running water fauna, and her PhD thesis included a "'food relations' diagram" that seems to be one of the first food webs of fresh water animals in the UK.