She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Arizona in 2001. Her research focuses on understanding how group boundaries and identities shift and change, which has broader implications for immigrant incorporation as well as intergroup conflict and cooperation. Dina's current projects investigate the civic and political incorporation of immigrants in the United States, intergroup relations between native-born and immigrant groups in new and re-emerging gateways, and the role of community-based organizations in the lives of immigrant youth. She has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York and a visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford.