She researches and teaches in the following areas: globalization and development; political sociology; international migration; race, ethnicity and nationalism; gender; ethnographic methods. She is a faculty affiliate of the Department of Women and Gender Studies and has been part of faculty-student initiatives to increase the visibility Asian American scholarship at Rutgers. Her recent book, Migrants for Export (2010, University of Minnesota Press) examine how the Philippine state has emerged as one of the largest labor exporting countries in the world. Her publications on Philippine migration and Filipino migrant transnationalism has appeared in the journals Citizenship Studies, Signs, and the Peace Review as well as several edited anthologies. She is currently working on a second book project tentatively titled, In Lady Liberty's Shadow: Race, Immigration and Belonging in New Jersey after 9/11.