She started a science career teaching marine biology on boats and marine stations in California and Hawaii, then got a PhD studying how Jurassic sea life responded to a global mass extinction at the dawn of the dinosaur age. Her BS in Environmental Science is from Cal Lutheran, and PhD from University of Southern California. Her current field work is focused in the American West, Peruvian Andes, and Canadian Rockies, and she also runs a microscope and a hydrodynamics lab at the U.