Prior to her Faculty appointment, she was a Mary Fieser Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University from 2009 to 2011, where she pioneered new single-molecule imaging techniques. Leslie earned her Ph.D. in optical and atomic physics in the Department of Physics at Berkeley during 2002 to 2008, with a common theme of nanoscale cinematography, but with applications to visualizing cold molecular dynamics in atomic vapours. In transitioning to study the wet and squishy biophysical world, she leverages expertise in optics, instrumentation, microscopy and physical theory. Her group innovates new ways to manipulate and visualize biomolecules on the nanometer scale, leading to new biomedical diagnostics as well as pursuing fundamental biophysical discoveries.