She is currently on research sabbatical and will become the Co-Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship in Fall 2018. She earned her Ph.D. in U.S. labor and immigration history from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010. In 2014 she held the inaugural American Academy in Rome - Community College Humanities Association Affiliated Fellowship. Her work has been supported in recent years by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society.