Dr. Armstrong has held positions at Harvard Medical School since 1984, including Director of Curriculum 1988 - 1992 and Director of Medical Education 1992 – 2001. She played a leadership role in designing, implementing and expanding Harvard’s New Pathway curriculum.  In 1994 with funding from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, she created and continues to direct the Harvard Macy Institute.  The Institute offers professional development programs for healthcare educators and leaders of reform in healthcare delivery and education worldwide.  These programs draw on faculty and teaching paradigms from multiple colleges at Harvard, particularly the Graduate Schools of Business, Education, Medicine, and Public Health.  Dr. Armstrong also served as the Harvard Medical International Director for Education Programs between 2001 - 2009.  She has customized the Harvard Macy program model through collaborative efforts with the Association for the Study of Medical Education in the United Kingdom, the Council of Deans in Australia, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, the University of Queensland in Australia, the Technical University in Dresden, the National University of Singapore, the Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan, the University of Melbourne (Australia), and the National Health Group in Singapore.

She has served on and chaired many Harvard Medical School committees and was a member of Cornell University’s Board of Trustees and Cornell’s Medical School Board of Overseers assisting in the major curricular reforms undertaken at their Medical College and School of Veterinary Medicine. As a member of China Medical Board’s Institute for International Education, she was instrumental in developing global minimum essential requirements in medical education. She was Co-Director of the United States Europe Medical Education Exchange program that created relationships among medical schools in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the United States.  Dr. Armstrong is currently a member of the Editorial Board for Academic Medicine and serves as a Trustee of the F. W. Olin College of Engineering.  Recognized worldwide as an expert in medical education, she has lectured and written on this subject and received an honorary doctor of medicine degree from the University of Lund Medical Faculty in recognition of her international contributions to medical education. Dr. Armstrong also serves as an Adjunct Professor of The Institute for Health Professions at the Massachusetts General Hospital. 

Dr. Armstrong received her Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University; Master of Arts degree in Teaching from Harvard University; Ph.D. in Curriculum Design and Instruction from Boston College.