She was associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute[1] in Carlsbad, New Mexico, along with founding and directing the Cave and Karst Studies Program at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.

Among her research interests are geomicrobiology of caves and mines, extraterrestrial speleogenesis, and space exploration and astrobiology generally.

[7][8] She developed the concept of small jumping robots for Mars exploration.

[11] Her interest is in extremophiles (organisms which prefer or thrive in the extremes of altitude, cold, darkness, dryness, heat, mineralized environments, pressure, radiation, vacuum, variability, or weightlessness) which may be found in caves and karst on Earth, and she thinks should be looked for in equivalents of other objects in space from asteroids to planets.

An only child of theatrical parents, she writes poetry reflective of her world travel and uncommon specialty.