Dingus majored in physics at
Harvey Mudd College, graduating in 1982. She completed a Ph.D. in 1988 at the
University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in experimental cosmic-ray physics under the supervision of
Gaurang Yodh. After working as a researcher for
NASA at the
Goddard Space Flight Center from 1989 to 1996, in the
Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope program, she joined the
University of Utah as an assistant professor of physics in 1996, where she became one of the founding officers of the Four Corners Section of the
American Physical Society (APS), in 1997. She moved from there to the
University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. While at the University of Wisconsin she began working with Los Alamos National Laboratory on the
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (GLAST) mission, and in 2002 she moved to Los Alamos as a staff scientist, including work on the
Milagro experiment and later as US spokesperson and operations manager for the
High Altitude Water Cherenkov Experiment. ==Recognition==