Reutzel-Edens was a doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota, where she studied the design and characterization of hydrogen-bonded imide aggregates. She worked in the laboratory of crystallographer Margaret C. Etter, and made use of solid state NMR. During her doctorate, she investigated how hydrogen bonds could be used as design elements that guided the solid-state self assembly of organic molecules. She made use of the Cambridge Structural Database to unravel the complicated relationships between hydrate formation and crystal polymorphism.