Upon earning her PhD in 2002, Pruitt worked on nanostencils and polymer microelectromechanical systems with the Laboratory for Microsystems and Nanoengineering at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Following this, she returned to
Stanford University for the 2003–04 academic year as the Reid and Polly Anderson Faculty Scholar in the School of Engineering. In this role, she started the Stanford Microsystems Laboratory In 2007, Pruitt was named the
Principal investigator (PI) of a four-year project to learn how electrical, mechanical and chemical stimulation could be applied to stem cells to generate tissue for repairing damage. As a result of her research, Pruitt was promoted to the rank of
associate professor of Mechanical Engineering on September 1, 2010. She was also the recipient of the 2010 Denice Denton Award from the
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. While serving in her role as an associate professor, Pruitt oversaw a team in developing electromechanical devices for use as high-speed force probes. The following year, she was elected a Fellow of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers for "her work that includes a focus on creating micro-electrical systems to detect the minute forces that cells exert upon one another as they carry out the basic mechanics of life." She was also inducted into the
American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering "for outstanding contributions in microscale measurement technology for
cell biomechanics and quantitative cell mechanobiology." Pruitt was eventually promoted to the rank of Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering on April 1, 2017. She eventually left Stanford to become the CBE Director at the
University of California, Santa Barbara. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, Pruitt was elected a Fellow of the
Biomedical Engineering Society as someone who had "demonstrated exceptional achievements and experience in the field of biomedical engineering." ==Footnotes==