She received her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice in 2007 from State University of New York at Albany. Her dissertation received the University at Albany Outstanding Dissertation Award. In 2012 she received the American Society of Criminology Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award. Her research interests include theories of criminal victimization, race/ethnicity and gender issues, multilevel and longitudinal models, and spatial data analysis. She is currently conducting research on immigration and violent victimization using funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.