She is a graduate of Emory University's Ph.D. in Nursing program and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in research on religion and health from Duke University in Durham, NC. Her research focuses on intersections between stress and coping, including religious coping, and relationship to mental health, immune function and health-related quality of life among people living with HIV/AIDS, particularly among women and minorities. Her work also focuses on the examination of sexual decision making of African American adolescents and their risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. She is particularly interested in the role of social factors, including religious and cultural factors, and cognitive function in HIV/STI-associated sexual risk behavior of minority adolescents.