 Trained as a medical oncologist, she joined the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in 1976, working in the Cancer Therapy and Evaluation Program.Prior to her appointment as commissioner, Henney had worked at the FDA from 1992 to 1994 as deputy commissioner for operations under then-commissioner David Aaron Kessler, and then at the University of New Mexico, where she was vice president of the health sciences center.After leaving the FDA she joined the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.