She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and has a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan. Her work is comparative and ethnographic and explores the relationship between Islam and politics. Her current book manuscript, Politicizing Islam, is based on her research of Islamic revival movements in France and India, for which she conducted participant observation in the working-class suburbs of Lyon, France, and in poor neighborhoods and slums in Hyderabad, India. This research was funded by several University of California grants and the National Science Foundation. Her recent (2011) lead article, “Debating the Burqa in France,” in the journal Qualitative Sociology, was awarded by the American Sociological Association and has been translated for publication in France.