Dr. Long is currently the Principal Associate Director at Large for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working on energy and climate. She is also a Fellow in the LLNL Center for Global Strategic Research. Her current interests are in reinvention of the energy system in light of climate change, national security issues, economic stress, and ecological breakdown. From 2004 to 2007, as Associate Director, she led the Energy and Environment Directorate for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Energy and Environment Directorate included programs in Earth System Science and Engineering, Nuclear System Science and Engineering, National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center, and the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. In addition, the directorate included 12 disciplinary groups ranging from Earth sciences, to energy efficiency to risk science. From 1997 to 2003 Dr. Long was the Dean of the Mackay School of Mines. The Mackay School of Mines had departments of Geological Sciences, Mining Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering as well as the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and the Keck Museum. Dr. Long led the University of Nevada, Reno's initiative for renewable energy projects and served as the Director of the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Long worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for 20 years. She served as Department Chair for the Energy Resources Technology Department including geothermal and fossil fuel research, and the Environmental Research Department. She holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Brown University and Masters and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Long has conducted research in nuclear waste storage, geothermal reservoirs, petroleum reservoirs and contaminant transport. For the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Long was chairman of the US National Committee for Rock Mechanics, the Committee for Fracture Characterization and Fluid Flow and a committee to recommend a research program for the Environmental Management Science Program for DOE. She served on the NAS/NRC Board on Radioactive Waste Management, as well as several study committees under the aegis of this board, and had been a member of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems. In 2001, she was appointed as a member of the State of Nevada Renewable Energy Task Force and was the chair in 2003 and 2004. She is an Associate of the National Academies of Science, member of the Stanford University College of Earth Sciences Advisory Board, the Energy and Environment and National Security Visiting Committee for Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Intercampus Advisory Board for the UC Energy Institute, the chairman for the mitigation advisory committee of the NAS Koshland Science Museum's Climate Change exhibition, and member of the Task Force on California's Adaptation to Climate Change sponsored by the Pacific Council. She has been a member of the UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering Advisory Board, the Colorado School of Mines Department of Geophysics Advisory Board, and the American Geological Institute Foundation Board. Dr. Long currently co-chairs the "California's Energy Future" study being conducted by the California Council on Science and Technology.