She was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and established the Israeli collection of lichens at Tel Aviv University.

[2] In Tel Aviv, Katz completed her secondary studies at Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in 1946, and went to live and work at the kibbutz of Kfar Giladi for several months.

When her mother died, she returned to Tel Aviv to be with her father and enrolled in courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1947.

[4] Within a month, the 1947–1949 Palestine war began and Katz interrupted her studies to join the Israel Defense Forces.

[4] Initially her own research focused on identifying the varieties of lichen in Israel, but soon turned her attention to vegetative tissue, or thallus, to evaluate the interaction between algae and fungus during its formation.

[9] In 1994, Galun was the recipient of the Acharius Medal presented by the International Association for Lichenology[10] and in 1996, she was awarded the Meitner-Humboldt Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

[4] An annual award bearing her name was initiated in 2012 by the International Association for Lichenology to be given to the outstanding student presenter at the organization's quadrennial symposium.