Dr. Rice is board certified as a developmental pediatrician and has worked extensively with CYSHCN. Dr. Rice is a bilingual and bicultural Spanish-speaking physician, who first worked as a general pediatrician in a community health center in Nogales, Arizona, on the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1999, she returned to fellowship training in Virginia where she completed a developmental-behavioral pediatric fellowship and Masters in Health Evaluation Sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA. Dr. Rice remained on the UVA faculty as Medical Director of the University of Virginia (UVA) Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center until she joined the UA in April, 2005. She received a National Research Service Award to fund the development of an outcome evaluation project focused on children with traumatic brain injury. She also participated in several studies at UVA looking at outcomes from therapy and pharmacologic interventions in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Dr. Rice has considerable clinical experience in the diagnosis of children with autism and serves as a clinician reviewer for the CDC-funded Arizona Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program reviewing records as part of the decision-making process to decide if a given child meets the project case definition. She is an advocate for children and families with autism spectrum disorders and recently chaired an Arizona Academy of Pediatrics (AzAAP) committee that authored a consensus statement for the state of Arizona regarding the treatment of autism in the state. She is very active in the AzAAP and serves on several state committees focusing on early identification and intervention for children with ASD/NDD. She serves on the local Autism Society of America Board and volunteers with this group in many activities in the local community. She is invited to speak to care providers across the state regarding the diagnosis and treatment of autism. She diagnoses and treats children with ASDs in a university-based clinic. She supervises the UA pediatric residents in their developmental-behavioral pediatrics residency training. Dr. Rice has received numerous awards of excellence for teaching and education.