She was the head of research and innovation on the managing board of Areva, the French state-owned nuclear power conglomerate (renamed Orano in 2021).

She was awarded the PhD in 1997 and moved to Paris, where she received her Master of Business Administration degree from the Collège des Ingénieurs.

Overseeing the Air Liquide group's eight main R&D centers in Europe, North America and Asia, she administered an innovation budget of over €230 million a year in areas including energy efficiency and industrial process optimization; renewable energy forms such as solar photovoltaics technology, biofuel and hydrogen fuel; and carbon capture and storage.

[2] At Areva, as a member of the Executive Operations Committee since early 2011, Crawford manages the group's R&D activities (including a €350 million annual budget and ten technical centers in France, Germany and the United States), its intellectual property portfolio, and technological communications and expertise.

The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France's premier public research agency.

A frequent public speaker in France, Germany and the United States, Crawford contributes in several countries to work on strategy to improve public-private cooperation for R&D and to strengthen education in the sciences and engineering.

In 2010, largely because of changes made by Crawford to Air Liquide's global R&D operations, the global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the French economic newspaper Les Échos presented Air Liquide with their Best Innovator award, which recognizes companies that integrate strategy, organization, culture and performance into their innovation process.

In addition to being lead author on 16 country volumes in the OECD Environmental Performance Review series from 1999 to 2008, Crawford has written or co-written, among other publications: Heitzmann, M. (2011) "Von natülichen Kohlen-wasserstoffen zu Produkten," Chapter 8 in Energie und Rohstoffe, Spektrum Adademischer Verlag, Heidelberg.

Crawford, M., Holthus, P. et al. (1992) Vulnerability Assessment to Accelerated Sea Level Rise: Case Study of Majuro Atoll.