Her main research and teaching area is information behavior or how people need, seek, give and use information in different contexts. In past work she examined the flow of community information among community health nurses and the elderly at health clinics. She began working with Dr, Durrance as a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In addition to her IMLS studies with Dr. Durrance, Dr. Pettigrew is studying the flow of health information among residents and service provides in Central Washington. Her work, which primarily draws upon qualitative approaches, explores social and affective aspects of information exchange. She is active in several associations such the International Network for Social Network Analysis, and conference series, including "Information Seeking in Context."