Petherbridge's teaching career has included sessional lectureships at the Architectural Association, London (1981–85), the Fine Art departments of the University of Reading and Middlesex Polytechnic (1984–1987). She was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art (1995 -2001) where she launched the Centre for Drawing Research, the first doctoral programme in drawing in the UK. She was Arnolfini Professor of Drawing at the University of the West of England, Bristol (2002–2006) (appointed Emeritus Professor of Drawing in 2006) and Professor of Drawing at the University of Lincoln (2007–2009). She has supervised a number of PhD students and has delivered lectures, conference and symposium papers internationally. Extended lecture series in the UK include: "Contemporary Drawing: Exploring the Unknown", Tate Millbank (January–March 1997), the BBC Radio Three broadcast series "The Outline Around the Shadow" (10–14 February 1997) and "Drawing towards Enquiry" at the National Gallery London (February–March 2006) in association with Camberwell College of Arts. She has undertaken extensive lecture tours in other countries, some under the auspices of the British Council for example in India (1985-6 and1987-8) and South East Asia (1994–95). There have also been lecture tours in Australia (1995, 2003, 2011, 2015), Pakistan (2005), USA (2010), Puerto Rico (2013). Her public commissions include designing sets and costumes for The Royal Ballet in collaboration with choreographer Ashley Page "A Broken Set of Rules" (1984) and "Bloodlines" (1990); and "One by Nine" (1987), choreographer Jennifer Jackson, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. She was commissioned by the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum, London (1989). She also undertook a mural on four flours for the curved foyer wall of the Symphony Hall, International Conference Centre, Birmingham (1991). In 1991 Petherbridge curated the trans-historical touring exhibition "The Primacy of drawing: An Artist's View" for National Touring, The South Bank Centre and co-selected the collaborative exhibition, "Materia Medica: A New Cabinet of Medicine and Art", The Wellcome Institute, London (1995–96). This was followed by "The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy", (1997) National Touring for the Arts Council of England. This exhibition moved to an extended showing renamed "Corps à vif.