Malia earned her Ph.D. in Plant Biology at Michigan State University Plant Research labs with Dr. Mike Thomashow examining natural variation in freezing tolerance and the integration of the circadian clock with cold signaling. As an undergraduate researcher in Biology at Willamette University she studied thermoinhibition of growth and development of guard cell protoplasts with Dr. J. Gary Tallman. Malia grew up in Kaneohe, Hawaii where there is very little change in temperature, which is probably why she is so interested in temperature signaling. Most recently, she was a Research Scientist in the Mockler Lab (Danforth Center) and a NSF-PGRP Postdoctoral Fellow. During her Postdoctoral research she focused on developing tools for high-throughput phenotyping. Through work on phenotyping, she and colleagues started a Maker Group at the Danforth Center that focuses on developing low-cost phenotyping tools, and fun outreach events (Raspberry Jams!).

" Malia’s research develops high-throughput methods of phenotyping plants to identify natural variation in response to temperature stress and to learn about how plants interact with their environment."