[2] Herron spent a postdoctoral research year at Brandeis University investigating the subject of African-American Jews.

Her critically acclaimed picture book Nappy Hair, a call-and-response story based on her own experiences as a child, was the cause of massive controversy when a New York City public school teacher was accused of racism after using it in the classroom.

[3] Herron edited the papers of Angelina Weld Grimke for Oxford University Press.

Her children's book Always an Olivia recounts the coming of Herron's Jewish ancestors from Tripoli, Libya, to the Georgia Sea Islands in the Americas.

[6] In 2017 Herron joined the Classics Department at Howard University, and currently teaches undergraduate courses in Humanities (mostly epics) and Blacks in Antiquity.