After earning her undergraduate degree in sociology at Santa Clara University, she went on to earn a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Washington. As a scholar of family sociology, she has published articles on cohabitation, single mothers, and household labor. She is also a scholar of teaching and learning, publishing and presenting on topics including teaching writing to sociology majors, using quantitative data in the classroom, and assessment of student learning. She regularly teaches courses on the sociology of family, research methods, statistics, and gender.