Her research broadly cuts across multiple areas in modeling and analysis of climate and the hydrological cycle including land-atmosphere interactions, orographic processes, monsoon climate, climate extremes, land surface processes, and aerosol-cloud interactions. Her research on climate change impacts has been featured in Science, Popular Science, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and many major newspapers.

She has organized key workshops sponsored by DOE, NSF, NOAA, and NASA, and served on advisory panels and NRC committee that define future priorities in climate modeling, hydroclimate, and water cycle research. She is an editor of the American Geophysical Union Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres and American Meteorological Society Journal of Hydrometeorology. Dr. Leung is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and Washington State Academy of Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and American Geophysical Union (AGU). She is the recipient of the AGU Global Environmental Change Bert Bolin Award and Lecture in 2019 and the AGU Atmospheric Science Jacob Bjerknes Lecture in 2020. Dr. Leung has published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals.