While involved in the research for her doctorate, Dahl became a pioneer in the field of
logic programming, developing both the first logic programmed database system, and an (also logic-programmed) front end to consult it in a human language (Spanish). She became an associate professor at
Simon Fraser University in 1982, and became a full professor there in 1991. In 1996 she was honored by the Logic Programming Association as one of the 15 founders of the Logic Programming Field, and has extensively pioneered as well the areas of Logic Grammars and Constraint Handling Rules. Dahl is a woman pioneer in a male-dominated field. She fought gender inequality while she was a professor at
Simon Fraser University, both through mentoring and role modelling, and through concrete actions. After
Simon Fraser University refused to reimburse her $17 for childcare expenses while she was delivering a guest speech in Victoria, where she’d traveled with her nursing baby, she went first to her department and then
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) with her protest, which ended with the NSERC changing their policy to make childcare a covered expense for nursing researchers they funded. She proposed and actively promoted the provision of childcare at logic programming conferences, until it was adopted formally into their constitution, and is now routinely offered as a result. She also obtained a change in SFU's legislation when it resulted in her graduate student being timed out for delays caused by life-threatening medical conditions upon birthing twins. She has developed numerous international research projects and collaborations, most notably with Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France, and worked with
IBM, Vancouver Software Labs, International Artificial Intelligence, as well as in her own company, Regenerative AI. In her work with IBM, she obtained a record-breaking research contract. She served as president of the Association of Logic Programming from 2001-2005. She was awarded the prestigious Marie Curie Chair of Excellence 2008-2011 from the European Commission for her pioneering work on Constraint Solving and Language Processing for Bioinformatics. In 2012 she quit her Full Professor position at
Simon Fraser University in order to focus on research. SFU awarded her Lifetime Professor Emeritus status as from 2013. Her research program continues under NSERC funding, and she serves at the Scientific Advisory Board of IMDEA Software, as well as leading PEG 2.0. She balances her scientific activities with artistic ones, as a student of music, theatre and dance, and performs regularly as singer and guitarist in Vancouver. ==Research==