Before coming to Trinity, she was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and a Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. She holds a PhD in history from Stanford University and an MA in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies from Harvard University. Her current book manuscript, which has been funded by grants from the Fulbright Commission, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), American Philosophical Society, and American Council of Learned Societies, examines the creation of communist secret police institutions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Eastern Germany in the period following the Second World War. Her research interests include the history of communism, legal history, and the history of policing in twentieth century Europe.