Dr. Mayer obtained her medical degree from the Federal University of Sáo Paulo, Brazil in 1993. Thereafter, she came to the United States for her post-graduate training (internship, residency, chief-residency and Hematology/ Oncology fellowship) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, between 1994 and 2001. During that time, Dr. Mayer received an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award in 2001 for her research project focused on the inhibitory effects of IFN-alpha in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

In September, 2003, Dr. Mayer was recruited to Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and member of the Breast Cancer Program of the NCI-designated Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC). She successfully completed a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) Program at Vanderbilt University in May 2006. Since then, she displayed an impressively strong commitment to a career in patient-oriented clinical and translational research in breast cancer. Her research endeavors have been focused on 1) the identification of targetable pathways in breast cancer, 2) ErbB signaling and endocrine therapy resistance in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers, 3) PI3K signaling and endocrine therapy resistance in ER+ breast cancers, 4) chemotherapy resistance in triple negative breast cancers, and 5) biomarker prediction of treatment response in human breast cancers. She has obtained several grants to fund her line of research, including a K23 Career Development Award, a Breast Cancer Research Foundation - American Association for Cancer Research (BCRF-AACR) Grant for Translational Breast Cancer Research, and co-leadership in 3 projects in 2 of the VICC Breast Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) Grants.

Dr. Mayer has been a Principal Investigator on more than 50 clinical trials, spanning from phase I through phase III trials. Of these, more than 10 are investigator-initiated trials (IITs), including two large Cooperative Group phase III trials through the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group- American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ECOG-ACRIN) and a global Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) / Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC) / Novartis trial. In view of her clinical trial experience, she was appointed Chair of the Data Safety and Monitoring Committee (VICC DSMC) in 2010.

Nationally, aside from being an active member of the ECOG-ACRIN Breast Core Committee, and the VICC representative of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Breast Cancer Panel of Experts, Dr. Mayer has been highly involved with the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), and since 2009, she was appointed co-Chair of the TBCRC Endocrine Resistance Working Group (ERWG).

As a key component of the VICC Breast Cancer Program, Dr. Mayer has been the director of the Clinical Core of the VICC Breast Cancer SPORE and Clinical Team Leader of the Breast Cancer Program since 2008. In this capacity, Dr. Mayer oversees and coordinates the efforts of several physicians and full-time research support personnel, assisting with implementation and development of investigator-initiated, mechanism-based translational clinical trials, patient accrual, management, and monitoring of toxicity of patients on the trials. Under her leadership, the Breast Cancer Research Team is currently one of the top accruer of patients to VICC trials, and in 2014 she was appointed Co-Leader of the VICC Breast Cancer Program.