She earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Lehigh University in 2004. She has written numerous articles that describe methods for determining the most critical values in the reduced dimensionality matrix and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). Currently, Dr. Kontostathis is the Principal Investigator, with Dr. Lynne Edwards, on a three-year $498,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study and prevent cyber-bullying and cyber predation. She is also the Co-Principal Investigator, with Dr. Mohammed Yahdi, on a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate Sites grant.