She earned her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the Center for Bioarchaeological Research at Arizona State University. Her areas of interest include bioarchaeology, conservation, identity, isotope and biodistance analysis, kinship, migration, odontometry and osteology, and social organization. Since 2003, she has conducted fieldwork in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. Her most recent work engaged with the skeletal collection at Copan, Honduras where she investigated the role of migration and kinship in Copan's social organization during the Late Classic period