She is an expert geologic diver mostly in Bahamian blues holes, though her experience extends to expeditions in U.S. waters.
[2] Schwabe works as a professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and as a scientist at the University of Kentucky.
[1] Since that time, she has participated in eighteen scientific expeditions to the Bahamas, as subjects for masters and doctoral research.
[2] Schwabe discovered a species of purple sulfur bacteria she named Allocromatium palmerii in 2003 after her late husband and diver Rob Palmer.
[6][7] Schwabe is the founder and director of the Rob Palmer Blues Holes Foundation, a nonprofit organization.