Butler worked as a postdoctoral fellow at
University of California, Los Angeles with
Joan S. Valentine and at
California Institute of Technology with
Harry B. Gray. She uses genomics and
bioinformatics to predict new siderophore structures. She explores how siderophores adhere to mica and look at how they can promote surface colonisation. Her current research considers the uptake of microbial iron, vanadium haloperoxidases in microbial quorum sensing and cryptic halogenation, bio-inspired wet adhesion using catechol compounds, and the oxidative disassembly of lignin. Her research into the bioinorganic chemistry of iron is funded by the
National Institutes of Health and
National Science Foundation. She studies how transition metal ions are used by marine organisms. In 2012, she became the President of the Society for Biological Inorganic Chemistry, and served until 2014. She was made a Fellow of the
American Chemical Society in July 2012. She delivered the 2016 Douglas Eveleigh Endowed Lecture at the
Waksman Institute of Microbiology. In 2018, she was awarded the
American Chemical Society Alfred Bader Award for her work on siderophores. In 2019, she was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, received the American Chemical Society's Arthur C. Cope Scholar award for excellence in
organic chemistry, and received the
Royal Society of Chemistry's Inorganic Mechanisms Award. Butler also received the 2019-2020 Faculty Research Lecturer Award, the highest honor that University of California, Santa Barbara faculty can bestow on their members. == References ==