She has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork and published multiple works concerning Italy in the first and second millennia BCE, including the role of feasts in ancient culture. She is Co-Director of the Marsala Hinterland Survey along the western coast of Sicily and is former Assistant Director of the excavations at Monte Polizzo. Dr. Blake was a 2012-2013 recipient of the Rome Prize in Ancient Studies, presented by the American Academy in Rome, for a proposed study of social networks and ethnic groups in pre-Roman Italy.