Though she never received a formal degree in anthropology, she conducted extensive fieldwork among the !Kung San people of the Kalahari Desert in south-western Africa and was widely known for her descriptions of the lives of women in this hunter-gatherer society.
While her husband looked at medical issues like nutrition and fertility, Shostak examined the role of women in the !Kung San society, becoming close with one woman in particular, known by the pseudonym "Nisa".
Shostak's book on the subject, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, was first published by Harvard University Press in 1981, and is now a standard work in anthropology.
It weaves together the different voices of Shostak and Nisa, alternating between anthropological observation and the life story of a "primitive" woman told in her own words.
In 1983 they moved to Atlanta, Georgia, when Konner was offered a position as chair of the department of anthropology at Emory University and Shostak became a research associate at the Institute of Liberal Arts.