Louis, in the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department. She earned her PhD in political science at the University of Houston. Her areas of interest focus primarily on the nature, extent, and consequences of victimization, with an emphasis on research methodology, quantitative analysis, and measurement. She has a particular interest in examining violence against women and minority groups, such as African Americans and Hispanics. Before joining the faculty at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, she served as a statistician in the Victimization Statistics Unit of the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, DC. From 2004 to 2006, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the National Consortium on Violence Research.