She was a senior investigator, Chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch, and the first Scientific Advisor for International Activities of the National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.

She earned a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1979, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Oxford University under the tutelage of Richard Doll, before returning to NCI, where she worked with Joseph F. Fraumeni, Jr. as well as others.

[3] In 1984, Brinton was appointed the NCI Acting Chief of the Environmental Studies Section at NCI, and in 1996 became Chief of the Environmental Epidemiology Branch, later renamed the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch (HREB).

[4] During her career, Brinton made contributions to advance the health of women in the United States and around the world.

Women in Latin America experience some of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the world.