She has been at UIC since 2000, and has a long-standing interest in graduate education, having served on the department's Graduate Committee for most of her tenure at UIC, and most recently as acting Director of Graduate Studies (Spring 2009). She is also one of the founding directors of UIC's Chicago Area Study, an inter-disciplinary initiative that integrates graduate research training, basic social science research, and engaged policy-relevant research related to issues of race/ethnicity in the urban context.