She received her PhD in history from Rutgers University and her publications include: Working the Navajo Way: Labor and Culture in the Twentieth Century and a coedited collection, Native Pathways: American Indian Culture and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century. She has published her work in The Journal of American History, the New Mexico Historical Review, and Labor History and in edited collections, Indigenous Women and Work: From Labor to Activism, and Indians and Energy: Opportunities and Exploitation. Her current book project, Labor and Sovereignty, examines the changing meaning of wage work for American Indian communities in the twentieth century.