Panabaker began her film and TV career in the early 2000s, with guest roles in popular shows like
7th Heaven,
ER, and
Angel, and small parts in theatrical releases like
Monsters, Inc. and
Dead Heat. As a teenager, Panabaker and her sister found regular work as actors on the
Disney Channel. In 2004, she appeared as Debbie Berwick, a friendly cyborg, on
Phil of the Future. Her character was written out of the show after the first season. After that, she went onto star in two
Disney Channel original films,
Life is Ruff (2005) and
Read It and Weep (2006), the latter in which she acted opposite Danielle. In 2006, Panabaker appeared in the
Disney Channel Games, on the same team as
Zac Efron,
Anneliese van der Pol,
Moises Arias,
Dylan Sprouse, and
Shin Koyamada. Her final appearance on the Disney Channel came in 2007, with a guest appearance as Amber on
The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. From 2004 to 2005, Panabaker starred as
Nikki Westerly, a teen girl who moves to the fictional Californian town of Playa Linda to live with her aunt, portrayed by
Lori Loughlin, after the death of her parents, on
the WB drama
Summerland. Panabaker acted alongside fellow
teen idols Zac Efron, who played her love interest, and
Jesse McCartney, who played her brother. The series ran for two seasons. In a 2016 interview with
Naperville Magazine, Panabaker said working on the show wasn't a good experience, and that producers asked her to lose weight, despite her not even weighing 100 lbs at the time. Panabaker remained in Los Angeles and continued to act for several years after the conclusion of
Summerland, but said her passion for acting never returned. After
Summerland, she continued to make one-time appearances in popular TV shows like
''Grey's Anatomy,
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and
Ghost Whisperer, and returned to theatrical films, starring in
Fame, the
1980 teen musical drama of the same name, in 2009, and in
Little Birds'', which was nominated for the
Grand Jury Prize at the
Sundance Film Festival, in 2011. In 2010, Panabaker joined the main cast of the
sci-fi drama series
No Ordinary Family, playing Daphne, a 16-year-old who becomes
telepathic after surviving a plane crash. While the show's early episodes were positively received by audiences and critics, later episodes, which saw Daphne and her family take on more traditional
action hero roles and focused less on their family dynamic, weren't as well-received and ABC decided not to renew the show for a second season. Her final acting role was as Rosa in
Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva la Fiesta! (2012). ==Personal life==