She received her D.Sc. in Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis in 2006. Her research interests include crowdsensing, smart and connected health, and software engineering for pervasive computing environments. Dr. Payton is also committed to broadening participation in computing and advancing computer science education. She is the Director of the STARS Computing Corps, an NSF-funded alliance of 53 colleges and universities that aims to broaden participation in computing, and the co-founder of the International Conference for Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT).