As a woman in early cultural resource management, Knudson was a strong advocate for the accurate representation of women in reservoir salvage archaeology.
[1] During the summers of 1960 and 1961, Knudson worked as a cook at Yellowstone and Mesa Verde National Parks, where her interest in anthropology and archaeology was sparked.
Knudson began her Ph.D. in anthropology with an emphasis in quaternary studies at Washington State University in 1968, where she worked with Dr. Richard Daugherty.
She was hired as an instructor at the University of Idaho in 1974, where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in anthropology and archaeology.
During this time, Knudson also received a grant from the National Science Foundation to report the Red Smoke site in southwestern Nebraska.
As a senior scientist, she began the cultural resource management arm out of their San Francisco office.
While working at Woodward-Clyde, Knudson was struck by a vehicle while helping a car accident victim and was placed into intensive care for several weeks.
She returned to the University of Idaho in 1988, after she was laid off when Congress cancelled the Hanford Basalt Waste Isolation Project.
Knudson moved to Harrison, Nebraska, in 1996, where she was hired as the superintendent of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.
Most notably, she played an active role in drafting and arguing for the 1980 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act.