Dr. Gibson is presently a Scientist 3 at the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in Boulder, Colorado. Her primary interest is in the magnetic structure and dynamic evolution of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and she uses theoretical CME models to explain a wide variety of space and ground-based observations of CMEs from pre-eruption, through initiation and eruption, to their post-eruption state. Dr. Gibson, along with Dr. Douglas Biesecker of NOAA-SEC, designed and led the Whole Sun Month (WSM) campaigns. This involved the coordination of observations from both ground-based and space-based instruments in order to describe the 3D morphology, plasma properties, and magnetic field of the global corona, and to connect these structurally to in situ observations of the solar wind. Dr. Gibson is currently Coordinated Investigative Programme Co-coordinator and Solar Discipline Scientist for the International Heliophysical Year, and is leading an international effort to analyze and interpret coronal white light cavities in relationship to CMEs.

Dr. Gibson was the recipient of the AAS-SPD 2005 Karen Harvey Prize. She serves on the Heliophysics Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council, on the AURA Solar Observatory Council and as a member of the ATST Science Working Group, and has in the past been a committee member on the National Research Council Committee on Solar and Space Physics, and on the Solar Physics Division Committee. She is also commited to educational outreach, in particular when aimed to inspire girls to enter the physical sciences: she has given solar physics presentations to grades K-12 science classes, mentored Girl Scouts pursuing a science merit badge, presented at the American Association of University Women's Expanding your Horizon conference, and is involved with the nationwide interactive internet Solar Week for Girls. She has also written an article on the Sun for the encyclopedia Space Science for Students.

Dr. Gibson's jobs prior to her arrival at HAO included a one year visit to Cambridge University in England as a NATO/NSF post-doctoral fellow, and nearly four years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - first as an National Research Council (NRC) associate, and then as a Research Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America. As a graduate student in Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder (M.S. 1993, Ph.D., 1995), Dr. Gibson received a NASA Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP) Fellowship. As an undergraduate, Dr. Gibson was a National Merit scholar at Stanford University, and graduated with a degree in Physics (B.S. 1989, with departmental honors).

Dr. Gibson is an author on 39 papers published between 1995 and the present.