Previously, Gay was the director of technology and citizen science for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and prior to that, an assistant research professor in the STEM center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Other research interests include RR Lyrae stars with which she collaborates with both professional and amateur astronomers across the world to gather needed data.

[10] Researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia cited the study, examining podcasting as a means of supporting instruction, leveraging its advantages against student time constraints and potential bandwidth limitations.

[11] Gay's work on Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers[12] examined the Zooniverse project, which developed from the Galaxy Zoo initiative, which started in 2007.

The project is partnered with NASA missions, including NASA's Dawn, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), MESSENGER, and Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) teams,[14] to "build a series of projects that map the surfaces of rocky worlds and explore the atmospheres of planets and small bodies the solar system over.

"[16] Surface features, such as the size and degradation of craters, are identified by individual users and submitted back to the project, where they are collected alongside the contributions of other citizen scientists.

[26] At TAM 2012, Gay was a main program speaker, in which she advocated for positive action at the level of the individual to effect solutions to discrimination issues and to seize opportunities to promote scientific collaboration.

[29] Gay has been an astronomy speaker at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia in 2012 and 2013, where she presented on multiverses,[30]: 103  as well as on the "Limits of Skepticism" as part of a panel discussion with Margaret Downey, Tim Farley, Debbie Goddard, D.J.

[31] The show covers a variety of topics, including the solar system, cosmology, black holes, and misconceptions about astronomy,[32] and attempts to share "not only what we know, but how we know what we know," according to Cain.

[52] While she was in the second grade, Gay moved with her parents to Westford, Massachusetts, which she describes as a "fairly small town," advantageous for its rural location with dark skies.