Sarah's research interests include water resource system planning, risk and uncertainty analysis, decision making under uncertainty, water and energy infrastructure, flexibility and engineering options analysis. In 2018 she worked with Prof. Dara Entekhabi on a J-WAFS project on "Assessing climate vulnerability of West African food security using remote sensing observations".

She is an alumna of MIT's IDSS (PhD) and TPP (MS) programs and was a postdoctoral associate in CEE. Her doctoral committee included: Dr. Kenneth Strzepek (advisor), Prof. Olivier de Weck (chair), Prof. Dara Entekhabi, Prof. James Wescoat, Dr. Afreen Siddiqi.