She was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Dean of the Graduate Division at University of California, San Diego before moving to her current position as Vice Dean for Research and Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Membrane Biology in the School of Medicine at University of California, Davis in 2021.
She was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Bethesda, MD) in the laboratory of Dean Metcalfe before moving to the University of California San Diego in 1985.
In November 2021, she became Vice-Dean for Research and Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine.
Her work is relevant to the understanding of diarrheal diseases, particularly those caused by infectious agents such as Salmonella, and also to the mechanism of action of probiotics.
For example, she received the degree of Doctor of Medical Science, honoris causa, from Queen's University Belfast in 2004, and the Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Scientist and Mentor Award from the American Physiological Society in 2012.