She has spent her professional career helping organizations use analytics to improve performance and the employee experience. Dr. Waters spent over fifteen years as an external and internal consultant applying analytics to a wide range of human-capital challenges. While at the National Security Agency (NSA), she led the transformation of NSA's promotion, performance management, and awards and recognition systems; the design and validation of NSA's analyst hiring assessments; and a variety of other evaluation and organizational performance projects.

Dr. Waters holds a PhD in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and statistics and a certificate in leadership coaching from Georgetown University. She is also an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF), and a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRMSCP).

She is currently a professor in Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies and previously taught statistics and research methods at the George Washington University and the University of Minnesota. Her work has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and books, and she has published over fifty technical reports and presented at more than twenty-five professional conferences.