[3] She earned a Master of public health at Yale School of Medicine in 1990[3] where she evaluated the prevalence of medication in early pregnancy and how it related to maternal characteristics.
[11][12][13] At Leiden University Buitendijk was made Professor of Women's and Family Health, and started to work on gendered research and innovation.
[23] In the report, Buitendijk suggests committed leadership from the top, as well as introducing concrete measures that are targeted to specific career stages, transparency, accountability and monitoring, as well as active promotion of a gender dimension in research.
[35] On 14 February 2020 it was announced that Buitendijk would succeed Alan Langlands as Vice Chancellor of the University of Leeds on 1 September 2020.
[38][39][40] Citing this and other concerns, all three trade unions of staff at the University passed no confidence motions in Buitendijk as Vice Chancellor and President in the summer preceding her resignation.
[45] In 2022 Buitendijk co-founded the Knowledge Equity Network alongside the University of Pretoria, a major new initiative to open up access to higher education and thereby address global challenges.
[46] The Network officially launched in November 2022 and asks leaders, policymakers, HEIs, funders and experts to sign up to a global declaration and establish unrestricted, open and equitable access to quality education and research.
[49][50][51] Their demands were: The Vice-Chancellor met with the occupying students on the first day and was secretly recorded in an edited video posted to Twitter asking "Why do you think it's so terrible?"
[54][55] On the fourth day of the occupation, students put out a request on Twitter for staff members to send in their personal experiences at the University to a padlet and then played them over a speaker outside senior management's offices which included Buitendijk's.
[56][57] On 10 June 2022, the Leeds UCU announced that members had accepted an offer negotiated with the University which led to no pay deductions for those who took part in the marking boycott.