She graduated from University of South Carolina, USA with a Doctor of Philosophy in Seismology in the year 1992.
Owing to the growing demand for well qualified seismologists at the time, she returned to India after completing her PhD.
She believes that India is a great potential earth science destination, considering that the Himalayas constitute of one of the most active plate collision boundary in the world.
Most of her projects are funded by the seismicity program of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) or the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
The only reason the young Kusala, fresh out of her chemistry degree, was sent all the way from Trivandrum, Kerala, to Roorkee, then-Uttar Pradesh, was that her sister was working there.