Thaller is formerly the Assistant Director for Science Communication at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

[4] From 1998 to 2009 she was a staff scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, and later Manager of the Education and Public Outreach program for the Spitzer Space Telescope, at the California Institute of Technology.

[7] She attended Harvard University, where she majored in astrophysics and worked on precision measurement of binary stars, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1992.

At Georgia State University Thaller worked on colliding winds in close massive binary systems.

[11] Andrew, a tenured professor at the University of Sydney, moved from Australia to be with Michelle in Pasadena, California during her post-doc.