[5] Her work included research on the productivity of the algal component of cold desert soil crusts in the Great Basin Desert south of Snowville, Utah; algal removal with intermittent sand filtration and prediction of minimum river flow necessary to maintain certain game fish and the effects of increased salinity and oil shale leachates on freshwater phytoplankton productivity.

She worked in the Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes as the Project Manager for SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing, Wide-Field-of-view-Sensor), an ocean colour sensor which is monitoring vegetation globally.

Cleave served as Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. She stepped down from that position in April 2007,[2] and was succeeded by Dr. Alan Stern.

STS-61-B Atlantis (November 26 to December 3, 1985) launched at night from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and returned to land on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

In addition, the crew also worked on secondary payloads involving Indium crystal growth, electrical storm, and Earth observation studies.

[11] On January 18, 2009, as the inaugural speaker in the Heyden Distinguished Lecture Series, Cleave told students and others at Georgetown University about her education and career and showed an original film of her shuttle mission in 1985.