[5] An athlete growing up, Spekkens represented Canada in netball at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and at the 1999 World Championships.
[9][4] After finishing her PhD work, Spekkens received a prize Jansky Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Rutgers University.
She leads a research group focussed on understanding the structure and evolution of nearby galaxies through deep multi-wavelength observations, and is particularly interested in using their atomic gas hydrogen line morphologies and kinematics as a cosmological probe.
[11] Spekkens is an active member of next-generation atomic gas survey teams on SKA precursor facilities, most notably the WALLABY survey on the ASKAP telescope within which she chairs a software development technical working group[12] and sits on its executive committee.
[16] She has also held different positions within the Canadian astronomical community, including chairship of the Canadian Time Allocation Committee from 2014-2015, membership on the CASCA Board of Directors from 2016-2019,[17] and chairship of the CASCA Equity and Inclusivity Committee (EIC).