Her research interests are primarily in the field of comparative politics, and focus on the ways in which politics and culture are interrelated. Her current research evaluates the political causes and consequences of identity change in two very different contexts. The first focuses on the political logic of an ongoing cultural revival among the Lhomwe of southern Malawi, and the other on racial identity formation and its political implications among Somali immigrants to the United States. Past research evaluated the micro-foundations of nationalism and ethnicity, the political psychology of group identities, and the role of group identity in cooperation, collective action, and conflict.