A mind-body dualist, she is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy and Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Virginia.
She received a BA with High Honors in Philosophy from Swarthmore College in June 1989 and an MA at the University of Pennsylvania three years later.
Gertler first found employment as an assistant professor at The College of William & Mary, where she worked from 1997 to 2001, before moving on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she earned tenure.
She moved to her University of Virginia teaching position in 2004, was later department chair, and added the Vice-Provost title in 2021.
To the thirteenth edition of the Joel Feinberg- and Russ Shafer-Landau-edited Reason & Responsibility, Gertler contributed a paper in support of dualism.