[8] She became senior editor of Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society in 2016.

In 2017, Blain was awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History from the American Historical Association.

[9] In 2018, Blain published Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom,[10] which received the Darlene Clark Hine Award for the best book in African American women's and gender history from the Organization of American Historians (OAH).

[18] In spring 2020, Blain received a Hutchins Fellowship from Harvard University to work on her new book East Unites with West: Black Women, Japan, and Visions of Afro-Asian Solidarity.

The book concerned African-American history and collected works written by ninety Black writers.

[26] She also served as a consultant to the Crash Course Black American History YouTube series, hosted by Clint Smith.