She received her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology at George Mason University. Her research examines language use in young children, including narrative storytelling, crib speech, private speech, bilingualism, and early gesture use. She is also interested in special populations such as autism spectrum disorders and at-risk, ethnically-diverse children. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Pediatric and Developmental Neuroscience Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). She was an instructor at GMU and the managing editor for the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Prior to beginning the PhD program, she worked in the DC metropolitan area on research projects at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Children’s National Medical Center, and NIMH.