Her research interests include Chinese and Russian politics, authoritarianism, and religion and politics. She earned her Ph.D. in 2009 in government from Cornell University, and won the 2010 American Political Science Association Aaron Wildavsky Award for the best dissertation on religion and politics. Her research has been supported by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC, the John Templeton Foundation, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Fulbright program, the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), and the Einaudi Center and East Asia Program at Cornell University. She teaches courses on contemporary Chinese politics, comparative authoritarianism and the politics of religion.