She received her Ph.D. (2010) in Political Science from the University of Alabama and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Konstanz and the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her main research interest is in democracy assistance; civil society organizations; youth empowerment; democratization; impact evaluations through randomized control trials; third-party mediation in civil wars; and post-conflict peace building. She has published articles in Democratization, Public Administration and Development, Journal of Peace Research, Problems of Post-Communism, amongst others. She has recently published a book entitled Democracy Assistance from the Third Wave: Polish Engagement in Belarus and Ukraine (University of Pittsburgh Press PITT Series in Russian and East European Studies).