She is a professor emeritus at Indiana University, where she taught history, and previously, library and information science.

Passet initially trained in the field of library and information science, completing her B.A.

[1] During her time at Indiana University, Passet received a number of awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Nha Trang University in Vietnam,[3] a Martin Luther King Jr. Award (2004) and the Justin Windsor Prize from the American Library Association (1994).

In 2008, she published a biography of American writer Jeannette Howard Foster titled Sex Variant Woman: The Life of Jeannette Howard Foster, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography in 2008,[5] and was described as "...well-researched, thorough, and engaging.

[8] It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography in 2017, with the book being described as "...narratively compelling and extensive".