Her paternal grandfather Samuel Wasserman, from an old-world religious Jewish family, immigrated to America around 1920 from the Western Ukrainian town of Kamianets-Podilskyi, then part of the Russian Empire.

Brandeis had a large Jewish enrollment and it likely influenced her future career focus as did her senior thesis at Wisconsin where she studied her college town, writing on life in Madison in the 1960s.

[3][1][4] In the 1980s, she made New York City, particularly the Lower East Side, her residence and the center of her work in a wide array of publications, exhibitions and educational programs.

As the Gotham Center's Director, Wasserman created and organized seminars and conferences, built its website, and managed teaching programs that brought New York history into school classrooms.

One historian noted that Wasserman's work "was aimed at understanding the deep cultural and social networks that still supported certain ethnic institutions on the Lower East Side".