She holds a Master’s in Women’s Studies with a focus on Gender Representation in Popular Media from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has published articles on celebrity culture and new media in The Journal of Popular Culture, Celebrity Studies, New Media and Society and as part of the Blackwell anthology The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media. Her first book, Dishing Dirt in the Digital Age: Celebrity Gossip Blogs and Participatory Culture, was published by Peter Lang in 2013.