She is widely recognized as a leader in the field of clinical microbiology and has held a variety of leadership positions including 2019–2020 President of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)[1] and Director of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG) Laboratory Center of the National institutes of Health.

[2] She is currently the Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic, and Director of the Mayo Clinic's Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory, where she studies biofilms, antimicrobial resistance, periprosthetic joint infection and diagnostic testing of bacteria.

She attended John Rennie High School following which she spent a year at Marianapolis College in Montreal and then matriculated to Princeton University in 1982.

[7][8] Patel earned a BA degree in chemistry from Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi in 1985.

In 2022, she was the second woman ever to the Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award from the International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and was named Mayo Clinic's Distinguished Investigator.