From 1991 to 1993, Gowers was a lecturer in Latin at
University College, London followed by a period as an honorary research fellow at the same institution. In 1998 Gowers became an affiliated lecturer for the Faculty of Classics,
University of Cambridge and then moved to
Princeton University in 2000 as a lecturer in the Department of Classics. She returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in classics in 2002 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2009. Since 2013 Gowers has been a
Reader in Latin Literature. Gowers was made Professor of Latin Literature in 2016. Gowers's work on the representation of food in Latin literature stemmed from her PhD research into the subject. Her 1993 publication,
The Loaded Table, was awarded the
Premio Langhe Ceretto (per la cultura del cibo) in 1994 and translated into Italian in 1996. This work drew together evidence from literature for Roman diet and food culture. Gowers's current work focuses primarily on the interpretation of
Augustan literature, particularly the works of
Horace. She was awarded a
Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2014–16) for her project
Maecenas: Transformations of an Augustan Patron. In 2012 Gowers was a Visiting Professor and Distinguished Webster Lecturer, Stanford University and in 2014 she was a Visiting Professor for the Spring Semester at Princeton University. She delivered the 2013 Fowler Lecture (
Jesus College, Oxford) on the subject "Maecenas and the Women". In 2013-14 Gowers was a guest speaker in the Classical Studies Department of
McGill University. Gowers was the
Sather Professor of Classical Literature at the
University of California, Berkeley in 2022, the eleventh woman to be invited to hold the position. The role was founded by
Jane K. Sather, with the first Sather Professor established in 1914. The position is annual, and involves teaching a course, delivering lectures on a specific topic, and publishing the lectures as a book. a role that contributes to the governance of the press. Gowers regularly reviews books for the
Times Literary Supplement. ==Honours==