She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees at Oberlin College and her Ph.D. at Yale University. She has spent her entire forty-year career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where since 2002 she has served as the Curator of Early Netherlandish, French, and German Painting in the European Paintings Department. In this position, and previously as Senior Research Fellow in the Sherman Fairchild Paintings Conservation Department, she has specialized in an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of Northern Renaissance paintings, uniting technical investigations with art historical inquiries.