Durr's research focuses on the area of organizations, work and occupations, and race and gender. She received her PhD in 1993 from the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is the author of The New Politics of Race: From Du Bois to the 21st Century (Praeger Press, 2002) and Work and Family, African Americans in the Lives of African Americans with Shirley A. Hill (Rowman & Litttlefield, 2006).