Originally a geographer, Amy went back to later train as a nurse with an eye for place-based influences on health. She spent the first part of her nursing career working across various inpatient and outpatient departments at Primary Childrens Medical Centre in Salt Lake City, Utah, including emergency, ICU, and same-day surgery. Following training as a pediatric forensic nurse examiner, she also worked with children accessing care with the Centre for Safe and Healthy Families; and on-call in the ED. While completing her masters degree in public health at the University of Utah, she completed an internship, and accessed data for her masters thesis at the Intermountain Injury Control Research Centre, also in Salt Lake City.

In 2006/07, she spent 6 months volunteering teaching nursing at a hospital in Patna, Bihar, India.

After moving to Canada in 2007, Amy began teaching in the NCBNP, first in Prince George and then in Terrace when the first cohort of students arrived at UNBC. She coordinated the program there for nearly 15 years.

She completed a post-graduate certificate in population health data analysis in 2019 and began a PhD in Health Sciences at UNBC in the fall of 2022. Her project is a mixed-methods study of air quality and health within communities at the head of the Douglas Channel in Northwestern BC.