Her father, Michael Uss, a Lithuanian who emigrated to America as a child, was a foreman at the freight yards of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and her mother, Helen Narovec, was a housewife.

Crooker holds a BA in physics from Knox College, Illinois, and an MSc in Meteorology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

There, together with Joan Feynman in their seminal Nature paper,[5] she was one of the first physicists to use geomagnetic data as a way to reconstruct solar activity prior to the space age.

[11][12] She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union,[13] where the fellowship program recognizes AGU members who have made exceptional contributions to Earth and space science through a breakthrough, discovery, or innovation in their field.

[15] She has worked closely over decades with several other prominent space physicists, including John T. Gosling, Marcia Neugebauer, Mike Lockwood, Chris Russell and Thomas Zurbuchen.