Gendler is best known for her work on thought experiments,[3] imagination—particularly on the phenomenon of imaginative resistance[4]—and for coining the term alief.

After graduating from college, she worked for several years as an assistant to Linda Darling-Hammond at the RAND Corporation's education policy division in Washington, D.C.[8] In 1996, she earned her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University, where she was supervised by Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit and Hilary Putnam.

[11] Since July 2014, Gendler served as the inaugural Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale.

[23] In 2013, she was awarded the Yale College-Sidonie Miskimin Clauss '75 Prize for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities.

Her 2008 essay "Alief and Belief" was selected by the Philosopher's Annual as one of the 10 best articles published in philosophy in 2008.