She received her doctorate in Sociology with a concentration in Demography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. She was an Assistant Professor in Tulane’s Sociology Department from 2001 to 2007. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, her research focused on Mexican and Latin American migration to the United States. Since Hurricane Katrina she has been studying post-disaster population change in New Orleans, including the arrival of Latino immigrants to participate in the recovery of the city. She has published on this topic in scholarly journals and is currently writing a book titled, Katrina Stirs the Gumbo Pot: The Arrival and Reception of Latino Migrants in Post-Katrina New Orleans.