Docherty is an assiociate professor of psychiatry at University of Utah and an expert in psychiatric nosology and the polygenic analysis of complex traits. Docherty has developed and tested machine-learning methods for genetic stratification of schizophrenia and depression, and conducts cross-disorder research examining multiple outcome phenotypes across ancestries. Docherty and her group have played a leading role in mapping the genetic stratification of 1) schizophrenia in PGC2 workgroup analyses (Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium) and 2) major depression in both Northern European and Han Chinese ancestries.

Docherty is now director of an international data-sharing initiative for schizotypy research to help inform PGC Schizophrenia Workgroup efforts and participates in complimentary clinical workgroups to map the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology. At Utah, Docherty now leads a data science lab committed to mapping the latent structure of psychopathology via genetic and epigenetic variation across complex traits, outcomes, populations and ancestries. Docherty joined the State of Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) Center for Genetic Discovery this year.