While at UK, she served as Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and as Director for the Women's Studies Program.
[2] Blee eventually left UK in 1996 to accept a professorship position at the University of Pittsburgh's (UPitt) Department of Sociology.
[8] She later co-authored The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia with Dwight Billings[9] and co-edited Feminism and Antiracism: Transnational Struggles for Justice with France Winddance Twine.
The book dispelled numerous misconceptions about women in these movements, as she found that they were often educated, did not grow up poor, and had not suffered childhood abuse.
[12] As a result of her academic scholarship, Blee was appointed a Distinguished Professor of Sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences in January 2007.
[20] In 2022, Blee stepped down as Dean of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences College of General Studies and resumed her regular faculty responsibilities.