One of her professors, the Russian botanist and geographer
Nikolai Vavilov, recommended her for graduate work and later invited her to accompany him to
St. Petersburg where he would become Director of the Bureau of Applied Botany (now the
Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry). Once there, she became assistant head of the institute's experimental seed station. In 1926, she married Vavilov. '', the cultivated lentil. Barulina studied them with their wild relatives and ancestors. Barulina became the center's expert on lentils, eventually classifying them into six groups. Based on the wild species found in association with early cultivars, she postulated that modern cultivated lentils (
Lens culinaris) originated from a wild species
Lens orientalis (now tentatively classified as
Vicia orientalis.) In 1930, Barulina published a 319-page monograph of her research in
Lentils of U.S.S.R. and of other countries as a supplement to the
Bulletin of Applied Botany. Her 1930 work became the standard reference for researchers studying lentils. It was the first to map the international distribution of different species of lentils. In 1937, Barulina later summarized her lentil research in Volume IV of
Flore des Plantes cultivées. She also participated in other research at the institute. As one of the institute's leading geneticists, Barulina's research extended beyond work with lentils. The standard author abbreviation "Barulina" is used to indicate her as the author when citing
botanical names. ==Later years==