She has conducted extensive research on the ways in which deaf and hearing people use sign language and the spoken word, respectively, in building short-term memory. Her current research is on "embodied cognition," or how people use visual and auditory information, as well as body movement, to help perform cognitive tasks. Wilson joins the UCSC faculty from North Dakota State University, where she was an assistant professor from 1997 to 2001. She earned her doctorate in psychology from UC Berkeley and her bachelor's in psychology from Reed College.