She has two career development awards including a Robert Wood Johnson Physician Faculty Scholars Award (ending June 2009) on the prevention of surgical site infections and a NIH K23 award to perform a multi-center trial evaluating two glycemic control regimens in critically ill patients with severe soft tissue infections. She also has a grant from the University of Texas to look at checklists and surgical complications at the county hospital, LBJ General Hospital. Her research focuses on improving compliance with infection prevention guidelines in the peri-operative period, improving the methodological rigor of surgical research, and advancing the methods of surgical quality improvement assessments.