This is what tenured professors do. They apply for research grants in their field, run laboratories, and publish papers. It's how most public academic research gets done and this is indeed a full-time job that pays decently (but not fabulously) well. As far as the focus of her studies go: she is an Oceanography professor at the University of Miami, so... like... what else is she going to research other than the boundary of the western Atlantic ocean?