Born in Chennai, India, Plofker received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College.
She received her Ph.D. in 1995 while studying with adviser David Pingree[1] (Mathematical Approximation by Transformation of Sine Functions in Medieval Sanskrit Astronomical Texts) from Brown University, where she conducted research and later joined as a guest professor.
During 2004 and 2005, she was a visiting professor in Utrecht and at the same time Fellow of the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden.
[2] She is particularly interested in the exchange of mathematics and astronomy between India and Islam in the Middle Ages and generally in the exact sciences between Europe and Asia from antiquity to the 20th Century.
In 2011, she was awarded the Brouwer Medal of the Royal Dutch Mathematical Society.