[citation needed] After earning her MPH, Baker joined the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health faculty as a research associate.

[citation needed] Baker served as vice chair of the National Academy of Science's Committee on Trauma Research and as president of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, finding that infants were at especially high risk of being killed in car crashes, which contributed to the passage of child passenger protection laws and graduated driver licensing (GDL).

[2][4] For over forty years, Baker has expanded the field and study of injury prevention and made it a priority in public health, both research and policy-wise.

[4] Her additional areas of research focus include fatalities related to aviation and motor vehicles and pedestrians; occupational injury; carbon monoxide poisoning; homicide; suicide; the use of drugs in adolescent suicide; drowning; childhood asphyxiation and choking; house fires; and falls in the elderly.

In addition, in 2006, she was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame and received the Stebbins Award from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Public Health.