She got tenure and promotion to Associate Propfessor in 2008 and was made Director and Professor of Astronomy in 2009.[12][13] Speck only intended on the United States temporarily, but found that it was a good fit with her research.[14] Her research focuses on the study of infrared light especially as it relates to circumstellar dust.[4] Star dust is essential to the formation of planets and is involved in interstellar processes including molecular formation and gas heating.[15] Mass-loss from stars is driven by radiation pressure on dust grains.[15] She uses spectroscopy, imaging and modelling to study the chemical compositions of stars.[4] Speck mainly considers how dust formation changes during the evolution of low and intermediate mass stars.[16] She used the Spitzer Space Telescope to study space dust in the spiral galaxy Messier 74.[17] She found that space dust formation is effective in supernovae, using up 5% of their heavy elements.[17] She went on to study unidentified infrared emission.