Dr. Miller-Idriss' research has always focused on post-secondary education settings and the transition to adulthood, especially for vulnerable and at-risk youth. After working in the school-to-work movement in the 1990s for the Cornell Youth and Work Program, the Center for Learning and Competitiveness at the University of Maryland, and the Maryland State Department of Education, Miller-Idriss returned to graduate school and earned a Masters in Public Policy and a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Michigan. She then spent a decade on the faculty at NYU before moving in 2013 to American University. At American University, Miller-Idriss spent six years as an Associate Professor and Professor in Sociology and Education, before moving her tenure line in 2020 to the School of Public Affairs. She is now Professor in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Education.

​

In Germany, Miller-Idriss spent over twenty years studying vocational schools and their impact on working class national, global, and extremist identities. In the US, together with a team of colleagues at the SSRC, she spent over a decade studying the production of knowledge about world regions in the US university sector, focused on the Middle East and its neighboring regions: Eurasia/Russia, South Asia, and Central Asia. In her current role, Miller-Idriss is focused on designing and testing out-of-the box intervention ideas to prevent and disrupt radicalization to extremism. Her research lab at American University, the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL), offers evidence for the field of education, prevention and counterextremism on what works, with a focus on interventions that are community-based, victim- and survivor-centered, and oriented toward non-carceral solutions.