Her research interests range from innovative pedagogies and curricular materials to the characterization of planetary materials. She has studied samples from mid-ocean ridges and every continent on Earth, as well as from the lunar highlands and Mars. She is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America, and the author or coauthor of more than 130 refereed journal articles. She is the author of two mineralogy DVDs used in college-level teaching, and a textbook, Mineralogy and Optical Mineralogy (2008).