After a 1973 BA at Regis College (Massachusetts), she received a PhD in biology at Boston University in 1977 under the direction David Shepro.
In 1981 she moved to the Surgical Research Lab at Boston Children's Hospital and joined the Harvard Medical School faculty as Assistant Professor of Surgery.
She has been the Director of the Howe Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear since 2014,[2] and its Associate Chief of Basic and Translational Research since 2014.
Her research focuses on the pathogenesis of eye disease, in particular in angiogenesis, and in the contribution of lipids and inflammation to the development of age related macular degeneration.
She is one of a group of scientists that discovered the importance of Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in rapidly developing "wet" Macular Degeneration, which led to anti-VEGF therapy, which is widely used in western countries to slow down disease progression.