Dr. Munson has a PhD from the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton before joining UMass Chan Medical School. She has an active biochemistry, cell biology, and structural biology research lab; the Munson Lab, which has been continually NIH-funded since 2005, and is active in promoting and supporting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

She co-leads the Investigator Career Advancement Program (iCAP) for supporting and mentoring new tenure-track junior faculty, especially those from backgrounds under-represented in medicine. For 2025-2026, she was a fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program (ELAM), where her Institutional Action Project was to build the Center for Leadership in Inclusive Mentoring and Belonging (CLIMB). CLIMB is bringing together and synergizing mentorship programs and mentor training across campus. She is a CIMER-trained facilitator for the Entering Mentoring curriculum.

Dr. Munson is also the Past-President of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) for 2026. She was the former chair/co-chair of the ASCB’s Women in Cell Biology (WICB) committee (2019-2023), and a co-PI on the NIH-funded ASCB MOSAIC award to support the transition of postdoctoral K99/R00 MOSAIC scholars into research-intensive faculty positions through mentorship and professional skills training workshops.

She has been recognized by several UMass Chan awards for curriculum development and student mentoring, the Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion (2022), the Women's Faculty Committee’s Outstanding Mentoring to Women Faculty Award (2023), and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring in 2025. She was also awarded a 2024 Zenith Award by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). In addition, she was elected as a 2022 Fellow of ASCB, and a 2023 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).