Dr. Riggs specializes in the statistical methods used in astronomy, physics, and engineering. She has collaborated or studied with researchers from the Adler Planetarium, the American Association of Variable Star Observers, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and the Southwest Research Institute. The projects include determining the likelihood of formation of intermediate- or high-mass stars, developing new models for monthly sunspot numbers, Mars water and ice table modeling, the formation processes of radio-AGN galaxies, and a variety of planetary geologic phenomena including New Horizon data from Pluto, Charon, and Arrokoth. Dr. Riggs' statistics research is random effects modeling in generalized linear models, and the development of likelihood functions for truncated probability distributions.

Dr. Riggs' professional affiliations include American Statistical Association, the International Astrostatistics Association, International Astonomical Union (Commission B1: Astrophysical Computation), and the Planetary Crater Consortium. She is an Associate Editor for the journal, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.