Her work focuses on identifying sources of nitrogen pollution and connecting those issues to how they effect our ecosystem services.
Compton's research focuses on non-point sources of nitrogen pollution, for example, land use and agriculture.Her non-research based work for the EPA mostly consists of connecting these sources to their impacts, and quantify them in ways that people can understand. Compton believes that this is so important because nutrient pollution is something you have to visualize and can't always see. Her work helps to address major problems like air quality, and problems with waterways such as eutrophication and coastal hypoxia.As well as this Compton looks into the social and economic impacts of nitrogen pollution, which she believes "can help people to recognize how it might be affecting the benefits we all get from healthy ecosystems, what we call “ecosystem services,” such as clean air and safe drinking water". In one of her most cited works Compton did research on agricultural land use and its relationship to nitrogen pollution. She and her team studied twelve different forest cites in central New England some of which had been abandoned from agriculture use up to 120 years ago and some which were still being used for agricultural purposes. Her work showed a heavy correlation between the amount of nitrification in the soil and how long ago agriculture use on the land ended.