Her research focuses on understanding how the urban built environment mediates community life and race, class, and social inequality. Her book, Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University Of Pennsylvania Press: 2013), winner of the 2014 Robert E. Park for best book in urban and community sociology, investigates race and class inequality as negotiated through and codified in the architecture and community gates of public housing and private subdivisions. She received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Sociology and a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard University.