Kendall is originally from Houston, Texas. For undergrad, she majored in marine and environmental science at Hampton University. She is currently a PhD student in the Sandin Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she focuses on coral reef resilience in an era of climate change. Kendall uses large area imagery to evaluate thermal tolerance and thermal thresholds in Pacific Island reefs. Her work has found evidence of potential adaptive capacities of Pacific Island reefs to thermal stress, mainly being driven by high thermal history and a taxonomic composition of mostly Montipora sp. She is currently working on how adaptive capacities of reefs to thermal stress shape reef communities over time after warm water events. Kendall is interested in how these findings can be used for precise bleaching predictions and risk analysis of coral reefs during warm water events as well as coral reef restoration.