Her research included living on a Sioux reservation and she collected oral histories of Native Americans.
[3] Albers studied for her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the subject of her dissertation, published in 1975, was The regional system of the Devil's Lake Sioux: its structure, composition, development, and functions.
Albers was the speaker for the first talk, "Symbol, Sight, and Stereotype: A Century Changing Images of Plains Indian Nations on the Picture Postcard".
Being independent, they could focus on solving ongoing problems—hunger, unemployment, high rate of tuberculosis and diabetes deaths, and welfare dependency—experienced by Native Americans.
[3] Albers contributed an essay for the book Women's West (1987), edited by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson.
It is a collection of essays about how women of European, Native American, Hispanic, and Mexican descent played a role in the making of the Western United States.
[12] She also contributed to the book History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492-1992 (1996), edited by Jonathan D. Hill.
The book explores how Indigenous and African American people managed exploitation, enslavement, and displacement by whites in the Americas.
[14] Albers says that "a powwow is the most important expression of the content of American Indian life", because they reinforce relationships, values, and cultural practices.