She received her BA from Manchester College (1994) and her Ph.D. from Minnesota (2002). She studies Native American literature, film, and theory. Her book, Tribal Theory in Native American Literature: Dakota and Haudenosaunee Writing and Worldviews, was published by University of Nebraska Press in 2008. She edited a collection of essays, Strawberries in Brooklyn: Maurice Kenny Considered, which will be published by SUNY Press in 2011. Her current project is Building a Longhouse: Essays on Haudenosaunee Tribal Theory, Film, and Literature, which considers Iroquois visual traditions, intellectual transmission, and epistemology.