Dr. Abbott teaches Health Policy and Politics, Management of Public Health Programs, and Ethics, Policy and Law in Public Health. Dr. Abbott practiced law for nearly 15 years, first in federally-funded Legal Services Corporation projects in which she represented low income clients and had her first extensive contact with Medicaid, Medicare and other governmental programs. She worked for law firms which represented hospitals and later did consulting work. Her area of concentration was public medical assistance programs. During this period, Dr. Abbott pursued an MPH at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Abbott then pursued her doctoral degree at the University of Texas School of Public Health, while working as a research associate in its Center for Health Policy Studies. She coordinated and participated in various projects: evaluation of the first Medicaid Managed Care demonstration projects in Texas; evaluation of a public private initiative to offer health care coverage to children not eligible for Medicaid, called 'Texas Kids' (an attempt to copy the 'Florida Kids' program); and a project to produce training materials for program evaluation for local public health departments. These projects were funded by the State of Texas and by the CDC. Prior to coming to USF, Dr. Abbott was an Assistant Professor at California State University at Hayward for two years where she was a faculty member in the Public Administration Department and its Health Care Administration Program.