She received a Masters degree in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of specialization include race and ethnicity, gender and family. She has publications on Black women in the media, their roles as mothers and gender and racial groups as a source of support for domestic violence. She also has authored several publications on the role of the African American church in community and economic development. She is currently using visual culture in her teaching and her most recent research looks at the visual culture of the Civil War and Black women’s activities in the South.