Dr. Cross is the founding director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, a core facility that aims to connect and support social scientists with other researchers, community, and industry partners. She is a community sociologist, bringing the tools of sociology to help answer community questions and tackle complex problems. She teaches courses in research methods and community-based participatory research, leading teams of students in applied research with community partners. She is the Director of the Team Science Core for the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and a member of the external advisory board for the Frontiers: University of Kansas Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Since 2015, she has been developing team science curricula, innovating new methods to assess transdisciplinary teams, and establishing interventions to advance team growth and development. Her institute is supporting several large, multi-institute, convergence research teams and providing teaming training, assessment and facilitation to scientific teams across the United States and in Europe. Her research has been funded by the United States National Institute for Health, Department of Education, Department of Justice, National Science Foundation, and numerous local government agencies, foundations, and industry partners.