Samson received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen in 1974.[1] She then went on to complete her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University College London in 1978.[2] She holds two endowed professorships at MIT, one being the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor and the other is the American Cancer Society Research Professor in the department of Bioengineering.[3] She is also an Adjunct Professor of Toxicology at Harvard University.[3] In 2001 she became the Director of the Center for Environmental Health Sciences at MIT.[3] She leads a lab at MIT named the Samson Group, focusing on researching human DNA repair and methods by which one can measure DNA repair capacity.[6] She was recognized by the NIH for her work in 2009, when she was awarded the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award, a funded grant awarded to "[support] individual scientists of exceptional creativity, who propose pioneering – and possibly transforming approaches – to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research."[7] Since 2007 she has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "the world's largest general scientific society".[8]