From 1994 to 1996, Leshin was a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Earth and space sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From 1996 to 1998, Leshin was the W. W. Rubey Faculty Fellow in the department of Earth and space sciences at UCLA.
From 1998 to 2001, Leshin was an assistant professor at Arizona State University (ASU). In 2001, she became the Dee and John Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences at ASU. In 2003, she became the director of ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies, which houses the largest university-based meteorite collection in the world. She directed research, education, and curation activities. At ASU, she also spearheaded the formulation of a new school of Earth and space exploration, combining Earth, planetary and astrophysical sciences with systems engineering in a nationally unique interdisciplinary academic unit.
From 2005 to 2007, Leshin was the director of Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA'sGoddard Space Flight Center, where she oversaw science activities. From 2008 to 2009, she was the deputy center director for science and technology at Goddard. In this position, she oversaw strategy development at the center, leading an inclusive process to formulate future science and technology goals, and an integrated program of investments aligned to meet those goals. With other NASA Goddard senior managers, she was responsible for effectively executing the center's $3 billion in programs, and ensuring the scientific integrity of Earth observing missions, space-based telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, and instruments exploring the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, comets and more. Starting in 2010, Leshin served as the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, where she played a leading role in NASA's future human spaceflight endeavors.[4] Her duties included oversight of the planning and execution of the next generation of human exploration systems, as well as the research, robotic and future capabilities development activities that support them. She was also engaged in initiating the development of commercial human spaceflight capabilities to low Earth orbit.
From 2011 to 2014, Leshin served as dean of the school of science and professor of Earth and environmental science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,[5] where she led the scientific academic and research enterprise. Leshin's scientific expertise is in cosmochemistry, and she is primarily interested in deciphering the record of water on objects in the Solar System.
She has published approximately 50 scientific papers.
In January 2022, Leshin was simultaneously appointed as the director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a vice president and Bren Professor at the California Institute of Technology.[10][2] WPI announced in February 2022, that Provost and Senior Vice President Wole Soboyejo would serve as interim WPI president upon Leshin's departure in May 2022 while WPI searches for a new president.[11]
