[3] She is one of the first African Americans to receive tenure in the academic sciences at Columbia University, and is credited with coining the term "intersectional invisibility".
[1][5] An interest in better tracking her students' progress led her back towards psychology, and she spent three years working as the lab manager for Geraldine Downey.
[8] Purdie Greenaway's article with Richard P. Eibach, "Intersectional Invisibility: The Distinctive Advantages and Disadvantages of Multiple Subordinate-Group Identities", has been cited over 850 times, according to Google Scholar.
The subordinate-group member is rendered invisible through mechanisms such as historical narratives, cultural understandings, interest group politics, and legal frameworks.
[10] Researchers give an example of African-American women; Because they do not fit the prototype of their subordinate group identities (white and male), they experience "intersectional invisibility" (378).
[10] Purdie Greenaway and Eibach wanted to move away from the notion that one group suffers more than others and instead gain a better understanding of how an individual's identities interact to inform their whole experience.
In 2004, Purdie Greenaway along with Jennifer Eberhardt, Phillip Goff and Paul Davies published "Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Purdie Greenaway and her colleagues looked at this cognitive process as it relates to African Americans attending predominantly White educational institutions.