[3] She was inspired to complete a PhD degree in geology after attending a lecture by Colin Pillinger, and moved to the Open University.

[3][4] She won the Royal Astronomical Society Keith Runcorn Prize for the best British doctoral thesis in geophysics in 1993.

[14] On behalf of the Natural History Museum, Russell was part of the team which arranged the acquisition of the Ivuna meteorite in 2008.

[11] She was the initial point of contact in the process by which the Tissint meteorite came to be acquired by the Natural History Museum in 2012.

[21] In 2014 she studied Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo Astronauts, finding that the lunar crust did not form from a common source.