 She was the first woman tenured in Harvard's Anthropology Department and the second woman tenured in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.She conducted research between 1961 and 1967 in the temple city of Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Orissa, where a number of graduate students in Anthropology and Social Relations conducted fieldwork.Du Bois was president of the American Anthropological Association in 1968–1969 and of the Association for Asian Studies in 1969–1970, the first woman to be allowed that honor.