She is an associate professor in the departments of biostatistics and bioinformatics and of ophthalmology in the Duke University School of Medicine.
After graduating in 1970, she began taking mathematics courses at the university (a topic not covered in her degree program) in order to improve her employment prospects.
Her research in the program involved traveling to Panama to study the blood pressure of Afro-Panamanian people.
After time away from the program doing statistical consulting for Quintiles and Rho, and studying Spanish in Spain, she completed her doctorate in 1993.
[2] She moved from community and family medicine to biostatistics and bioinformatics in 2000, and added an affiliation in the department of ophthalmology in 2001.