Susan D. Greenbaum received her undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Kansas, earning her BA in sociology in 1968, her MA in anthropology in 1974, and her PhD, also in anthropology, in 1981. For her doctoral research, she focused on communities in Kansas City, Kansas, particularly the Slavic-American community of the Strawberry Hill neighborhood and the African American community of northeast Kansas City. Her research more specifically focused largely on diversity and relations between community groups within urban areas.

From 1975-1977 Greenbaum served as a citizen participation specialist with the City of Kansas City, Kansas' Department of Community Development, serving as a liason between neighborhood groups and municipal departments. From 1977-1980 she was an ethnohistorian and community consultant for the city in a position sponsored by the Community Development and Historic Preservation programs. In 1980-1981 she served as a senior research associate at the Native American Research Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, a consulting firm focused on policy analysis, evaluation research, and technical assistance. She received grants from the Kansas Committee for the Humanities to perform oral history projects and develop slide-tape presentations on both the Slavic-American and African American communities in Wyandotte County.

Greenbaum joined the faculty of the University of South Florida (USF) in the Department of Anthropology in 1981. From 1991-1997 she was chair of the department. In 1998 she became graduate director for the MA and PhD programs in Applied Anthropology, which position she held until 2003. From 2009-2011 she was director of the Office of Community Engagement, helping the university to receive Carnegie status as an engaged university. Greenbaum is now emeritus faculty at USF, and the University of South Florida now grants an undergraducate anthropology student with the Susan D. Greenbaum Diversity Leadership Award each year to honor her legacy at the school.