"I finished my bachelor’s degree at the University of New Mexico and then I went to Purdue immediately for my master’s," Ulibarri said. "While there, I coached women’s basketball for zero pay. And so, I was a graduate assistant, teaching, taking classes and coaching."

Her first full-time coaching position came at New Mexico State University, where she held multiple roles as head coach for women’s softball, director of women’s intramurals and instructor.

"I was wearing three hats—not unusual for women in those days," she said. "We didn’t like it, but we did it; however, I knew I didn’t want to coach for the rest of my life."

In 1975, Ulibarri joined Michigan State University, taking on coaching duties for field hockey in the fall and softball in the spring. The challenges were immediate and concrete: limited funding, little institutional support and teams that often had to travel long distances on their own.

"There were no scholarships. We drove our own buses to games, and very little support was given," she said. "Everything starts off slowly, and it’s about overcoming inertia. This hasn’t happened before; but oh, it’s going to happen now."

Despite the hurdles, her teams excelled under her guidance. In 1976, Ulibarri’s softball team won the AIAW-ASA National Tournament, marking a defining moment for women’s athletics at MSU. The following year, they returned to the national stage and placed third in the country.

"When I became coach, I worked on technique. I asked for perfection in whatever skill they returned," Ulibarri said. "Even holding a bat, the way it’s usually taught, and the way it should be is different, and understanding the correct one is important because in the right way, your whole hand is behind the bat, which carries up your arm. It’s a more powerful hit. Those little nuances—that was the intersection of coaching and biomechanics."

Her first softball team at MSU stood out not just for its performance, but for its unity.

"This team had a protective shell around them, and it didn’t matter what people said — everything bounced off," she said. "We took a bus down to Nebraska. We had some band players on the team — a trumpet and a trombone — all the way down there. They sang; they played; it was fun, crazy. When I tried to correct skills with this group, they listened, and they did it."

While coaching gave her a hands-on platform to develop athletes, Ulibarri’s passion for teaching and research began to take center stage. She pursued her Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut in biomechanics and three-dimensional computer graphics, while remaining connected to MSU.

"I kept coming back here because I loved working with students. I had graduate students—and teaching them, guiding research, was incredibly rewarding," Ulibarri said. "My area has always been biomechanics. I love math, I love physics, and I love movement. That puts them together perfectly."

Ulibarri’s research spanned from human movement to neurological rehabilitation and even equine gait analysis. She guided students in projects ranging from pilot motion studies in jet fighters to restoring finger movement in individuals recovering from complex fractures.

"We worked with quadriplegics, helping design electrodes that would skip over injured nerves and restore movement," she said. "Every day, these subjects went through rehab, remeasured and retrained. It was intricate, challenging, and amazing."

Beyond her groundbreaking research, Ulibarri has always prioritized mentorship. She sees teaching and coaching as intertwined—a way to influence lives at pivotal moments.

"It was a privilege to work with the people I worked with, to be able to coach, teach, and do research," she said. "The students I’ve mentored, the athletes I’ve coached, the research I’ve done—it’s all connected. It’s about movement, yes, but it’s also about people."

Though she has moved from the field to the classroom, Ulibarri has never left coaching behind entirely. She continues to infuse her research and teaching with the same energy, discipline, and mentorship that defined her athletic coaching career.