[1][3][4] In 1995 she defended her master's thesis in art history,[1][4] and in 2013 her doctoral dissertation Sõjajärgse modernismi ja avangardi probleeme eesti kunstis (Problems of Post-War Modernism and Avant-Garde in Estonian Art).

[4] In 2005, Helme started working as the director of the Kumu Art Museum.

During the 2012/2013 academic year, she was a professor of liberal arts at the University of Tartu.

[1] Her articles on art have been published in journals in Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Croatia, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Russia, and elsewhere.

She has curated exhibitions in Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, and Germany.