She received her PhD in 1999 from Loyola University Chicago in Philosophy of Language, and completed a Visiting Scholarship at the Chatterjee Neurology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Hospitals in 2003. Professor Waller studies the possibility of animal language, and has received funding from the NEH, NSF, and EPA to further her research on the meanings of vocalizations of cooperative predators, with studied species ranging from dolphins to wolves to cats. She is published in journals such as Synthese and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Her current research focuses on wolf vocalizations during denning season in Yellowstone National Park (wolf puppies!).