Her research fields include labor economics and applied microeconometrics. She studies topics related to birth timing, such as seasonal patterns of childbirth and the relationship between fertility delay and career outcomes. She has also received funding from the National Science Foundation to support her work on the effects of policies that promote adoption for children in foster care. At Notre Dame, she primarily teaches undergraduate courses in econometrics and graduate labor economics. Buckles graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Kentucky in 2000, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Boston University in 2003 and 2005.