Her research focuses on the psychology of mentoring and its relation to talent development. Lunsford served as an administrator in the first residential high school for gifted students in the United States; as alumni director at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; and as founding director of one of America’s elite, undergraduate scholarship programs. Lunsford’s published work focuses on mentor behaviours and dysfunction. She received the 2007 International Mentoring Association Dissertation Award and was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study mentoring in science in Australia.