Her research broadly focuses on state land use policy, local comprehensive plan quality, state and local finance, infrastructure and urban form. Much of her research targets policy implementation and vertical and horizontal coordination. She a faculty affiliate of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland. Dr. Lewis was a 2010 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellow and received 2012 Barclay Gibbs Jones Award for the Best Dissertation in Planning from the American Collegiate Schools of Planning for her dissertation evaluating the efficacy of smart growth in Maryland. She served on the Smart Growth Coordinating Committee in Maryland in addition to several sub-committees of the Task Force on Growth and Development in Maryland.