She is the recipient of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and the Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellowship. Her research agenda broadly explores state-level higher education policy formulation processes and impacts, especially on populations traditionally underserved in higher education. Her current work on the development of higher education finance policies focuses on: (1) social networks within policy development processes and what they suggest about (under)representation in higher education policymaking and (2) the types, quality, sources, and flows of information acquired and used in policy formulation.