Her research combines approaches from cultural anthropology, economics and demography to understand marriage, family, kinship and fertility. Dr. Shenk has conducted field research on marriage and parental investment in Bangalore, India, and her current project focuses on the causes of rapid declines in birth rates in rural Bangladesh. Her research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Institutes of Health, School for Advanced Research and National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. She serves as a member of the executive board of the Evolutionary Anthropology Society, a section of the American Anthropological Association, and was winner of the Gold Chalk Award at MU in 2012.