In 1955, after graduating from Leningrad State University with a degree in mycology, Golubkova joined the Komarov Botanical Institute, where she worked under the supervision of Vsevolod Savich. In the 1960s, she studied specimens which had been retrieved during various Soviet expeditions to the Antarctic; her research on these samples led to multiple scientific publications and the identification of several new species. She also participated in specimen-collecting expeditions to the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, and to the steppes, taiga, and desert of Mongolia, and in 1978, she was a contributor to volume 5 of the Handbook of Lichens of the USSR.