She has written influential books on intersectional feminism and founded Emory's Institute for the History of Philosophy.
Willett was on the American Philosophical Association's Executive Board between 2008 and 2010, and has served as co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.
She then moved to Pennsylvania State University to work toward a Ph.D. in philosophy, which she earned in 1988, with a dissertation titled Tropes of Orientation under the direction of Carl Vaught and Irene Harvey.
In 2001 Cornell University Press published her book, The Soul of Justice: Social Bonds and Racial Hubris.
Her most recent book is Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth, co-authored with Julie Willett and published by Minnesota University Press in 2019.