She earned her PhD from Rutgers University in 2014. Her work in late-19th and 20th-century American History sits at the intersection of urban, environmental, and political history, with a particular focus on property regimes and regional planning in greater New York City. She is currently finishing a manuscript on this topic. In the spring of 2016 Schlichting held a Mellon fellowship in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., for her new project entitled “The Nature of Urban Coastal Resiliency: Twentieth-Century Governance, Environmental Management, and Design.”