Porter is a Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. She serves as a country conditions expert for asylum cases, was a founder of the Westside Leadership Institute (Spanish language version), and works as an organizer with the Salt Lake City Latinx community. She served as chair of the Gender Studies Division (2010-2020) and, since 2021, as directors of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Porter is the author of two award-winning books: Workingwomen in Mexico City (University of Arizona Press, 2003); and From Angel to Office Worker: Middle-Class Identity and Female Consciousness in Mexico, 1890-1950 (University of Nebraska Press, 2018), both also published in Spanish by El Colegio de Michoacán press. Porter is co-editor of Orden social e identidad de género, with María Teresa Fernández Aceves and Carmen Ramos Escandón (2006), and Género en la encrucijada de la historia social y cultural, with Fernández Aceves (2015).