Prior to her arrival at UW Oshkosh in 1997, she served two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, under the direction of Dr. Bernard Moss, Chief of the Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. Her research training/specialy has been in the field of poxviruses. She is a leading virologist and the author of Understanding Viruses, a comprehensive introduction to human viral diseases.