Her photographs are in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Teaching Collection of the Lehigh University Art Galleries. Kessler is a 2011 recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, and was runner-up for the Honickman Foundation First Book Prize in Photography, Center for Documentary Studies. Trained as a historian and a photojournalist, Kessler holds degrees from Brown University and Boston University. She has taught at Boston University, Northeastern, Rhode Island College of Design, Montserrat College of Art, and currently teaches at Endicott College and Boston College.