She received her Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University and spent one year as an Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Ohio University. She spent nine and a half years in the Learning and Performance Support Laboratory at the University of Georgia where she held adjunct appointments in Learning, Design and Technology, and Mathematics Education. She came to UMass Dartmouth in January 2010 to help launch the Ph.D. program in Mathematics Education and has spent the last four years serving as the Chair of STEM Education and Teacher Development. Her research focuses on how teachers understand the mathematics they teach. Dr. Orrill has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on 28 grants totaling over $6 million. She has over 60 peer-reviewed publications and has presented her work 130 times locally, nationally, and internationally.