She also writes about the exchange across national boundaries of architectural styles, influences, and techniques, particularly examining the colonial and neo-colonial attributes of both modernism and historic preservation.

[3] Wright was hired by Columbia University in 1983, two years later becoming the first female to gain tenure in its prestigious Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

[2] She succeeded founder Robert A. M. Stern as director of the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, serving in that capacity from 1988 to 1992.

[3][4] In 2002, Wright was hired by television producers to be part of what would ultimately become the new TV series "History Detectives".

[3] Back then the working title for the show was “American Attic”, and the initial concept was to tell stories of history through a focus on houses, hence their interest in adding an experienced architectural historian like Wright.

[5] The concept evolved into solving historical puzzles that use a wide variety of tangible objects to show how historians piece together various kinds of knowledge—and conflicting evidence and diverse perspectives—about what happened, how and why.

She was elected a fellow in the Society of American Historians in 1985, honoring literary quality in historical writing.