Dr. Cavallaro is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Leader Development at the U.S. Naval War College (USNWC), in Newport, RI. At USNWC she conducts research, builds curriculum, and teaches courses in the College of Leadership & Ethics. She works with mid- and senior-level Navy leaders to build self-awareness and enhance cognitive capacity through assessment-based and developmental coaching approaches.

Prior to her USNWC Appointment, Dr. Cavallaro was an adjunct professor for the Women as Empowered Learners and Leaders program at Bay Path University in Burlington, MA, where she taught courses in Career and Personal Development, and Leadership in Practice. As a doctoral teaching assistant at George Washington University, she facilitated sessions in Leadership Theory and Research. Her dissertation research was an exploration of the experience of compassion fatigue and employee wellbeing among helping professionals. She holds an Ed.D. in Human and Organizational Learning and an M.A. in Organizational Management from George Washington University, and a B.A. in Organizational Communication and Public Relations from SUNY New Paltz.

She has been published in The Journal of Adult Development, The Learning Organization, the Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work, Qualitative Health Research, Academy of Human Resource Development Advances, and the South Asian Journal of Global Business Research. She has presented scholarly papers at academic conferences such as the Joint Science of Teaching & Learning Forum, the International Leadership Association Conference, the Ethnographic and Qualitative Researchers Conference, the APA Work, Stress and Health Conference, the Academy of Human Resource Development Conference, and the University Forum for Human Resource Development.