She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in Biochemistry in 1994. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2005 she worked at the National Institute of Health. Her research currently focuses on the characterization of three Xcv T3S effectors: XopN, XopD, and AvrBsT. She discovered that these effectors modulate three distinct nodes of defense signal transduction, supporting the paradigm that T3S effectors encode defense suppressors.