She first worked in the wine industry in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley, received graduate degrees at Virginia Tech and the University of Minnesota, and served as the first Enology Project leader at the University of Minnesota from 2001-2008. Mansfield returned to the east coast in 2009, and currently focuses her efforts in aiding small regional wineries through enology extension, wine sensory evaluation, and research on hybrid wine phenolics and fermentation nutrition.