Anderson worked as a legal secretary for the Woodward Royal Commission into Aboriginal Land Rights. In the early 1990s Anderson became the CEO of Danila Dilba Aboriginal Health Service in Darwin. She held the positions of chair of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), and executive officer of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT). She led the founding of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Aboriginal and Tropical Health in 1997, and when the Cooperative Research Centre was re-funded in 2003 as the CRC for Aboriginal Health, she took on the role of chair.
