She received her PhD in Social Psychology and Social Policy from Princeton University and completed a NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Her primary research examines the conditions under which social groups and individuals are denied social value, agency, and empathy. She studies the causes of misunderstanding, failures of empathy, and pleasure at others’ misfortune and how these feelings relate to discrimination, conflict, and harm. Most recently, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology selected her as a Dissertation Award Finalist. She has published articles in Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Journal of Social Issues.