[5] She was the director of the Evidence for Action (E4A), a UCSF health program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

[8] For her 1974 PhD thesis titled "Reactions of Women to Therapeutic Abortion: A Social Psychological Analysis"[9] Adler interviewed women before and after having a therapeutic abortion (a pregnancy termination for medical reasons such as fetal abnormalities, as opposed to one for non-medical reasons such as financial worries).

[8] Adler taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz prior to joining the faculty of UCSF.

[10] Adler has chaired multiple NAM committees and workshops on subjects including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,[11] sexually transmitted diseases,[12] psychosocial treatments for cancer patients, and women's health.

[16] The award cited her "research on reproductive health examining adolescent decision-making with regard to contraception, conscious and preconscious motivations for pregnancy, and perception of risk for sexually transmitted diseases, and for her groundbreaking insights into the importance of psychological processes in explaining why socioeconomic status is associated with physical health.