Kaufman was a research associate at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1948 to 1955, where she worked with John von Neumann (1947/48) and with Albert Einstein (1950-1955).
Kaufman returned to Israel in 1960 (with Harris) where she became professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (1960-1971) and later on at the University of Haifa (1972-1988).