She taught physical education, health education, and coached at the high school and college levels prior to her work in health promotion research. She has worked on adolescent drug prevention research for more than 10 years. She was the project coordinator on the Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids program, an award winning drug use prevention program for young male athletes. She is also a co-investigator and project coordinator on the Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives project which seeks to implement and evaluate a drug use/disordered eating prevention and health promotion program for young women athletes. She is a co-investigator for the Promoting Healthy Lifestyles: Alternative Model’s Effects study.