Levander is Professor of English and Carlson Professor in the Humanities. She has authored five books, five edited collections, and numerous articles on American culture, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Inside Higher Ed, Business Insider, and Forbes, among other venues. Levander is the recipient of international awards and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Huntington Library, and National Humanities Center, among others. She received an IMLS National Leadership Grant to create the Our Americas Archive Partnership. Levander completed a 2017 Fulbright Research Fellow at the University of Exeter as well as a 2016 Senior Fellow at the Freie Universität Graduate School, Berlin. She organized and led the Rockefeller international summit on the Future Global University, and has spoken regularly at national and international summits on the future of higher education in such venues as the Aspen Institute, ASU+GSV, Times Higher Ed, and EdX Global Summit, among many others. Levander completed a 2017 Fulbright Research Fellow at the University of Exeter as well as a 2016 Senior Fellow at the Freie Universität Graduate School, Berlin.

As Vice President for Global, Dr. Levander is responsible for expanding the university's global impact through the development of new international campuses, academic programs, partnerships, and research collaborations. She has built Rice Online Learning, which develops online courseware that reaches millions of new learners around the world. Levander sits on the Coursera Council and the EdX/2U Advisory Council, among other advisory boards. She works closely with university leaders and faculty to develop and expand international research centers such as the Rice-IITK Collaborative Center in Kanpur and Rice’s Paris Center. She is on the Fulbright Association Board of Directors, serving as Vice Chair. The ed-tech company that Levander co-founded in 2020 was acquired by Honor Education in 2022, where she is a senior advisor to the company that brings Apple design and engineering experience to digital teaching and learning tools.

Prior administrative appointments at Rice include, Director of the Humanities Research Center (2005-2011) and Vice Provost and then Vice President for Strategic Initiatives (2011-17).