She also serves as the Chair of the Florida Polytechnic Faculty Assembly. Prior to Florida Polytechnic, Dr. Drake was a Research Engineer at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, a post she held since 2008. Prior to that, she was a Nanotechnology Research Engineer at Lockheed Martin. She started and co-chaired the Lockheed Martin Nano-Bio working group and is the nanotechnology editor for the Industrial Biotechnology Journal. Her research interests cover novel materials and sensors based on metamaterial approaches; low-cost imagers and sensors; and biologically inspired or incorporated sensors and platforms.