Dr. Rice works primarily in investigating the genetic and familial environmental determinants of the multiple metabolic syndrome (MMS), which includes a complex of traits such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and atherogenic lipid and lipoprotein profiles. The effects of exercise training, longitudinal/temporal change and multivariate relationships (i.e., pleiotropic and oligogenic) are special areas of interest in the MMS. She employs various methods to investigate these questions, including univariate and multivariate familial aggregation, major gene effects, and linkage analysis of QTLs.

Dr. Rice is an investigator in NHLBI sponsored multi-centered studies, including the HERITAGE Family Study, which explores the familial factors underlying the response to endurance exercise training on the MMS traits. She supervises the day-to-day data management of that multi-center study. Dr. Rice also is an investigator in the Québec Family Study (QFS), sponsored by the Medical Research Council of Canada. The QFS is a longitudinal investigation of MMS traits in both random and obese families from the greater Québec City area. She also takes an active role in training new faculty and students in applied genetic epidemiology methodology.