She graduated with a Ph.D. in History and in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the spring of 2007. Her research and teaching interests include twentieth-century U.S. history, the historical construction of race, the history of American education, and the history of the U.S. South. She received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2010 and Spencer Foundation Small Research Grants in 2013 and 2017 to support her current book project, Segregation Built to Last: Schools and the Construction of Segregated Housing Patterns in the New South.