She received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1999. She has been applying network analysis to her work for several years.She is currently finishing a manuscript about the reconstruction-era Ku-Klux Klan, “Constructing the Ku-klux: The Rural Southerner, the National Press, and their Creation of the Reconstruction-Era Klan.” Chapters of this book have appeared as articles in the Journal of American History and the Journal of Southern History. Her work has been supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, an NEH summer institute, and various smaller grants. Her next project will explore the rise of the professional detective in the mid-nineteenth century U.S.