The first anthropologist to be elected to the presidency of the National Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2004–2006), she also held important advisory positions (such as on the Board of Overseers, Harvard University, and the Board of Electors, William Wyse Professorship and Chair of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University).
Among the first anthropologists to conduct research behind the Iron Curtain, Verdery spent an extended period working in Romania in the 1970s–1980s.
From this research she published eight books and numerous articles, as well as several edited collections, all informed by her theoretical model of socialism.
Her primary themes were ethno-national identity; the political economy of Romania before, during, and after socialism; property relations; and ethnography in the archives of the communist-era Romanian Secret Police, a topic she pioneered.
Having worked in Romania for an extended period in the 1970s–1980s, she was extensively surveilled by the Securitate under the Ceaușescu regime, which incorrectly suspected her of spying.