In addition to American religious history, her research and teaching interests include African American religions, American Catholic history, Native American religions, and religion and politics. Her first book, A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (University of North Carolina Press, 2016), explores the politics of talking to the dead. Other publications examine the Moorish Science Temple, black Catholicism, and religious folk art. Her next project will interrogate the interactions between Jesuits and Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. She received her M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Missouri and a Ph.D. in Religion from Florida State University in 2014.